Ethernet switches the good and bad


Hello myself and northeast Audio club have done a lot of testing  ,

a simple switch is very noisy , I own both uptone audio ,Ether regen ,around $5-650 as well as Sonore deluxe. Both of these needs high quality Linear Power Supply to truly be optimum ,by far the best best built and sonically is the Linear Tube Audio is a great buy and over 6 pounds  with a very good Dc cable modt chsrge $150 extra  the only upgrade That works is fuse to synergistic purple and put a decent power cord a solid 10% improvement still the Linear Tube Audio LPS is $750

one company in Hong Kong  by friend tried Ediscreation - extreme is pretty decent but at $1800 Waay over priced s Hong Kong dollar very over priced, and if any issue send back to Hong Kong ,very $$

by far the best I have heard is the Synergistic Ethernet switch which comes with the $200 purple fuse,a $500 power cord it Retails $2200 but can be bought around $1700 and built in high end power supply ,this is actually a excellent product your streaming is much much more analog and detailed ,my brother owns one and that may be my next purchase. in my system it made a nice improvement and I already have a Denafrips Hermes DDC that cleans up digital noise very well . Each product mentioned above works to cleanup noise coming after the router, which BTW 

I bought a LPS 12v up to 8amp from little green computer for $299 and put a Pangea sig power cord with a synergistic Orange fuse. Got rid of the noisy junk wall wart plug , a noticeable improvement and made even wifi signal to TV better, yes these are tweaks but, being a Audiophile nothing is off the table to try .I just wanted to mention this ,and see what others maybe using , Enjoy you 🎶 music 🎼 

128x128audioman58

IMHO, the benefits of high end switch gear is not from the switches but from:

  1. Minimizing the total power supply count (avoid using converters which add more)
  2. Using high quality wall warts like iFi
  3. Keeping the power for those devices out of your conditioned power envelope.
  4. Using shielded Ethernet and shielded power cords to minimize transmission/reception of EMI/RFI
  5. Using an Ethernet isolator for both noise and surge damage reduction

I'll be dead of laughter before I spend more than $50 on an Ethernet switch itself though.

@vonhelmholtz “It can”, but it doesn’t mean it will. It will depend on the amount of noise coming in as the Ethernet Switch UEF will do an incredible job reclocking and filtering the signal. For me, I had the EtherRegen a few years ago and it made minor to negligible difference. But then someone suggested for me to add a $600 Farad Super3 LPS, which then I added a $1K cable to. Noticeable jump in improvement. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) I tried to use the Farad in another application and fried it. This drove me to sell the EtherRegen and upgrade to the SR Ethernet Switch UEF about 16 months ago. It was a substantial improvement for me. I’m now at a point where I cannot at all tell the difference between my streaming files and the ones stored locally on the Aurender N30SA.

I just became a Synergistic Research dealer as of last week, btw, so take this input with a grain of salt. But most of my loom and accessories for the last five years have used their products, so while I deal for them, I was already advocating for them before I went into the hifi business.

Is there a downside to cleaning up the signal right before entering your streamer?  I have an inexpensive dumb switch from Amazon and cheap commercial CAT 5 in the walls of my new house.  I couldn’t get the builders to upgrade the Ethernet cable.  I added a Shunyata Sigma Ethernet cable from the wall to my streamer and it made a substantial improvement to the sound.  Am I to expect that a $2000 switch will substantial improve the sound?