Where should I go from here with my digital front end?


Good morning

My digital front end consists of a recently purchased  Lumin U2 Mini hard wired with Supra ethernet cable from an Eero mesh unit. Modem and Eero router located on 2nd floor. My listening room is in the basement.

My listening is 100% streaming from Tidal and Quboz with a budget of under $1k

should I:

1) upgrade the supra cable

2) add an Etherregen or Eno filter

3) add an audiophile switch such as the English Electric

4) other

Thanks!

 

emil

Showing 1 response by carlsbad

For cable I went with relatively inexpensive but solid AQ forest for my long run (8 meters). The forest uses silver plated conductors which I think digital benefits from. For more money you can get more silver as you move up the line. If they don’t make this in long enough sections for you, then I would look for bulk calble with silver coated conductors and a klein cable crimping kit. I have a buddy with that kit and it does a good job.

I did go with an audiophile switch. I put it 18" from my streamer and then used a much higher quality cable for the short run (AQ Vodka right now, IIRC, I hate all these random names). The swtich also provides ethernet to my TV, an AV streamer, and my PS audio power plant (yes, it likes to talk to headquarters).

I used an Etherregen switch. Love the performance of it. It runs kindo warm which may lead to reliability problems down the road. but so far so good. You’ll have to buy it on the secondary market but they are available. If you aren’t going to do this tomorrow, soon Uptone audio will be releasing a new version.

The other thing you can do is a power supply upgrade to the swtich. Uptone sells one but it runs way hot and indeed has reliability concerns. I resold mine to a guy who loves the power supply and is stocking up on them since he has experienced failures. I highly recommend Farad power supplies which run much cooler and are very, very clean. I have their stack powering my Dave DAC and will get one soon to power my etherregen switch.

Jerry

PS you mentioned English Electric.   That switch was high on my list and I'm not sure how I decided on the Etherregen over it.  But this is a Chord company and as I mentioned above I have their flagship DAC and love it.