Update on good Ethernet switch
ASI mentioned before I didnot want to say the brand until I heard the Ethernet switch not only after 300 hours which was recommended having a OX over controlled clock ,
and with what myself always do the weak link on any audio component starts with the stock power cord , for minimal monies the Pangea using Cardas grade 1 copper 6-9s. Awg14 sig,Mk2 , and getting rid of the 50 cent bottle neck fuse I put in a 1.25amp 20mm L ,slow blow synergistic purple fuse these increase fidelity at least 5-7% the switch itself At least 5% if you know the name Jays audio for transports ,his other company LHY Audio the SW8 Ethernet switch for $595 nothing has all this in a nice machined aluminum case , even the uptone ether regen or Sonore deluxe using a with fiber optic which btw lessens the realism imo both were used witha Sbooster2 LPS , ,theSW8 Ethernet switch is a great buy ,and if you add a decent power cord and upgrade the fuse you will be rewarded further , 7 of us reviewed this and 6 out of 7 thought it was a noticeable improvement vs the others there were2 other brands which were more ,that were not even that good and had switch mode pS
Wifi router to optical adapter via Ethernet. I have a couple of Teradak linear power supplies. One I’ll use on my modem. They are decent power supplies. Certainly have an okay reputation in audio. I will probably look to get one of these at the end of the year (Puritan PSM156 first). |
made a few modifications to our system and have integrated the TaraDak S212 SFP and had to use the FTLF1318P3BTL 1.25Gb/s RoHS Compliant 1310nm SFP Transceiver replacing my 10G cages and transceivers. I will say the OXCO clock in this devise is very beneficial in reducing jitter and this setup with S212 is a performance upgrade to my digital FEU than just going fiber alone. More details to come as the S212 is in my system longer. Very impressed with the $$$ to performance level. All said well under $500.00 for the upgraded S212, FTLF1318P3BTL, Cage and cables. Supra CAT 8 and OCFO. |
@tonywinga , I would recommend decoupling/isolation with a pair of fiber media converters (FMCs/SFP transceivers) and a fiber patch cable in between. Use a low noise lps or similar for the decoupled FMC. Thereafter, use a good ethernet cable from the likes of Audioquest from the decoupled FMC to streamer, etc. It is a more effective approach with very discernable results than spending on these snake oil priced ethernet switches.
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@recklesskelly does the Teradak come with SFP cages / ability to swap SFPs or are they internally fixed? Assuming the latter. Which end do you use the Teradak on - the send (router/WAN) or receive (streamer) end? @audioman58 I’ve had the SW-8 switch since December. It sounds very good in stock form and can be improved further. I have a ground box attached to its chassis along with a couple of sheets of fo.Q damping material on top (which is actually adjacent to the upside down mounted circuit board attached to the top). It responds well to both - the addition of either is easily audible in my moderately resolving system. Soundstage opens up, residual glare fades, vocals become more full bodied, palpable. The reverse is true on their removal. Similarly putting even the affordable Netgear GS108E switch upstream had the effect of slightly tightening up the soundstage focus. The Alpha Audio guys did a group test of switches late last year including the SW-8 where the only variable was the switch used. With a good pair of headphones it’s not hard to hear the character of the differences between the SW-8 and the other switches - even with YT’s compression. |
@mc1969 , the best ethernet cables I've had are made by Audioquest. |
LHY now has the SW-6. Despite the lower product numbering this sits between the SW-8 and SW-10 and I believe it will even be superior to the later because its not repurposing cheap commercial switch hardware - it's a custom board design. Because the SW-6 is a custom made board the clock is now located right where it needs to be rather than on a daughter board. Also one output has dedicated isolation from the other 4. It has a SPF connection as well if you want to do optical. |
For my home network, I use a managed tp link switch which is more expensive than unmanaged, as well as a mikrotik 24 port manged switch router. A couple of things about ethernet. The ethernet standard is that cat 5e cable will support gigabit up to 100 meters. A switch will tend to clean up incoming frames by re-generating them. There are two main TCP/IP protocols: TCP and UDP. TCP sits on top of the lower levels of the stack and will monitor sequence numbers of incoming packets/frames and will request re-transmission if a missing packet is detected. In this manner it is a lossless protocol. The UDP protocol is a broadcast protocol as it simply passes frames along with best efforts, and has no mechanism for detecting and correcting errors. As mentioned above, at the switching layer 2--frames that fail the crc check are discarded with no notification to the layers above it. UDP has lower overhead than TCP and is often used for media output that is generally thought to be tolerant of missing data... O:
These concepts apply to wireless as well except that layer 2 for that is using radio waves instead of a wire. I don’t have enough knowledge about wireless to opine on the reliability and frequency of lost packets--but if UDP is the higher level protocol, still not going to ensure complete transmission of data. * I don’t want to get into the deets of the tcp/stack, so I am using frames, packets,and segments interchangeably to get the concepts across, though if one digs into the network stack, these names have specific meanings and must be kept accurate. |
In the audio gatherings I attended it’s been proven , start with your router digital noise travels even house to house the garbage $5 wall wart added even more noise . Ibought a Linear Tube Audio LPS powersupply and it is a substantial upgrade, if you have a separate modem,router get rid of it Way outdated and added noise a combo unit only. I bought the newer Motorola 8702 which has docsis 3.1 bigger faster processor, all hard wired, but even wifi picture sharper ,I assume because of the great LPS cleaning up the power supply.,this unit has excellent build quality,being a ex audio dealer and rebuild Loudspeaker Xovers I know Audio parts on all equipment very well.this unit comes with a excellent DC cable ,others charge $150 for for $50 off on Audiogon $700 it’s a true bargain ,don’t forget a Good Ethernet cable does count ,the most important at the streamer . Trust me ,if you stream and follow this you will hear a very nice improvement. |
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For the $$ you will not find a better Ethernet switch then this one
seee down on the page Audiogon doesnot like links this has low noise regulators, OCXO over controlled master clock Linear power supply Nobody else has this and inside you can upgrade the fuse making it better still ,I forgot the exact size it’s been awhile I used a synergistic purple, and you need a decent power cord ,for the $$ the Pangea awg14 sig MK-2 for $200 perfect , and BTW on your router that garbage $5/ wall wart has to go - pure noise ,buy a LPS much much quieter if you stream Linear Tube Audio has them for $50 off on Audiogon a must for a serious Audiophile , there are cheaper but quality built and best I have found this one and comes with a great DC cable to router others charge $150 for and btw it takes a 5 amp 20 mm long Slow blow fuse .Hifi tuning supreme gold $90 or synergistic purple $195. I couldnot be happier.
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This is not an accurate statement and if you do your research there are others in the same price range.
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I’ve been tossing the idea around for a while of a LHY SW8, but was going to upgrade my streamer first. But with funds not yet available for this, I pushed the button on the LHY. Stupidly, I forgot about the Chinese New Year Celebrations, and ordered it at the start, DOH! It should be shipped next week |
