Ethernet Switch- what's the point?

@zavato

To answer your question, as you are going from your router directly to your single streamer, a high end ‘switch’ may not be necessary. I had the same question, and was advised to get 2 Media Converters, tethered with an optical connection : Router > 1st Media Converter > 2nd Converter tethered with optical > Streamer.

This helped to ‘strip’ unwanted noise from the router, and indeed sounds better. All in? About $100 via Amazon. I’m pleased with the SQ increase.

@zavato

thank you for the directed nature of your comments. Yours is an interesting thought. Question though- do we know that converting to optical doesn’t also include converting “junk” as well?

The optical cable is ‘clean’. My understanding is the media converters are what actually cleans the signal from the router. The optical cable simply keeps that signal clean before being ‘fed’ into the streamer (important to use a very short ethernet cable from the 2nd media converter to the streamer).

I’m a vinyl guy, so no expert here, but did this at the recommendation of someone more knowledgeable about Digital than I.

And a relatively inexpensive solution to obtain better SQ when streaming from the internet. I’m very pleased on the return of investment ($80~100).

@jmbumgarner01  @zavato 

I was also using my streamer wirelessly too, but wasn't happy with the sound quality vs. CD play, or playing directly from my HD 'server' connected to the streamer directly.

As I had a router/extender being used elsewhere, but not critical, I moved that extender down to my Audio rig location and utilized it to hardwire to my streamer direct. This alone helped, but adding the converters between the router/extender and the streamer, made a another nicer improvement in SQ.