Stereo Times 2024 MOST WANTED COMPONENTS List

Didn't Stereo Times use to be a serious hi-fi magazine?

When was that?

@ozzy62 

The name I was thinking of was Stereo Review, but the serious magazine I had in mind was Audio Magazine. Sorry for the mixup!

An example of the opposite is Jason Kennedy, editor or The Ear. His grammatical errors are so widespread and egregious that I simply cannot read anything by him any longer.

Sure as $h!t the guy who posts about how he can’t stand grammatical errors makes a mistake.

There’s a difference between making a mistake in a post on a forum and committing a bunch of grammatical errors and misspellings in a professional, published review or article.

AARDVARK ETHERNET ISOLATOR

I took a shallow dive into this one the other day. It appears to be a basic LAN electromagnetic voltage transformer module, the purpose of which is to provide electrical isolation, improve signal integrity, and minimize issues like electromagnetic interference (EMI). That all sounds positive. The module costs about $10, or less.

Others offer similar solutions such as the English Electric EE1 Network Isolator, for $295, the Crux Audio LAN Noise Filter, currently priced at $250 or, at an even lower price, the EverStar MI-300 Ethernet Galvanic Isolator for only $87. In the other direction is CAD’s Ethernet Control for $1,250. Finally, there are options available from manufacturers serving the world of computer networking, such as emo System’s EMOSAFE EN-70HD ($172).

I have no idea what makes one option better than the others, especially since they all seem to be based on a filter module costing about $10, but if you buy into audio reviews, Roy Gregory, in this article at Gy8, (conveniently and predictably) explains that the performance gets better as the price goes up, from the English Electric EE1 (good) to the Aardvark Ethernet Isolator (better) to the CAD’s Ethernet Control (best). Setting aside the perceived hierarchy, I am curious how the improvements can be so precisely graded for a product category that many believe provides subtle differences/improvements, if any. I am curious, but also wonder what these might do for my system that already has two optical isolation breaks, including a fiber optic line covering the last 45 feet directly into my streamer. I guess I could try installing one on the Ethernet cable coming out of my router.