Network Switches

@tecknik I have never had an off the shelf switching power supply outperform a high quality LPS either.

But I want to try the Hypsos Ferrum, which combines both.

Grimm and other designers have been able to get their switching power supply to perform well, but that's a custom design for their streamer.

@sns "Without switch, images and sound stage wonderfully dimensional and life sized. With added switch, while there was a minute increase in lowest level information, image outlines were drawn too precisely, still three dimensional but with cookie cutter edges, not lifelike at all."

Switches have their own sound signature that probably takes the listener time to adjust to.

The big advantage of adding an etherstream2 for me was the reduction in harshness. I have compared it to other much more expensive switches and I think most of these high end switches are way overpriced.

@david_ten "Since it hasn’t been brought up, consider GROUNDING the switch with a RJ45 terminated grounding cable."

I ground my cable modem/router one box with an entreq box with a RJ45 grounding cable.

I would never go back to streaming without it.

You can easily pull out the grounding cable after you've gotten used to the sound, to hear the difference.

@lalitk I don't like to disparage other products on here, but the other switch was above $2k. 

It was jaw dropping what it did for streaming, but it wasn't my cup of tea. 

Anyone who claims switches can't affect the sound, they just haven't had access to these switches in a high end setup. And I've read on here they are not even open to hearing it.

I saw this testimonial on the totaldac for their switch:

"Many enthusiasts think that the sound of a digital player is not as good as a CD player. That's because your digital player system can only exert less than 60% of its performance without adding a network switch. There are two concepts for adding network switches. Of course, the prices of network switches are also very different, and the quality is uneven. There is no doubt that adding a network switch to a hifi network playback system, especially the advanced network switch can directly double the "value" of digital player products or even show the value of several times the machine itself"

I agree with this after adding my switch. It does get you a lot more performance from the dac/streamer.

@cleeds I won't speculate why, but in terms of musical enjoyment, I would agree 60% is about right.

The switch seems to remove all the digital harshness and nasties so that there is a lot less listener fatigue.