I don't think you are going to get better sound, but anything with copper that goes through the outside wall of your house can be a surge path.

I use an outside gas discharge based surge protector on the coax and air gap via Ethernet to fiber converters. 

You will get better sound. Get a decent switch like an English Electric 8 switch. Run your cat6 into it. Place the switch near your rig so you can use a nice Network Acoustics ENO ethernet cable into an ENO passive filter up into your server. Your system will sound much, much better without a doubt. You can try these pieces with a 30 day trial and hear for yourself what you are missing.

You have not heard what your digital streaming front end is capable of yet. One caveat. Your streamer/server needs to be good to realize the improvement. Not sure if the Node is one or not. I have not heard it.

The Network Acoustic products are the real deal and easy to use.  A $40 switch will not improve your sound on its own.  In fact, it may well add more noise and sound worse.  

@grannyring can you give a rough indication of how much investment is needed to follow your experiment? Thanks!

@grannyring ,

But won’t my signal only be as good as what comes out of my router?

@erik_squires 

Are you talking about those things that are @$67 for the pair on Amaz—? Or some other brand? 
 I have never heard of gas discharge surge protection.  What air gap/gas line products do you use?

Thanks

Hi Curiousjim, your sound will be as good as what is feed to your streamer. Noise is the enemy here.  Reduce it and hear so much more into your music. 
 

Cost for all I mention depending on new or used is $900-$1400 or so.  

Thanks grannyring,

I’m still trying to wrap my head around a switch improving my sound. My little brain keeps saying getting a better modem and router makes more sense than adding something after the modem and the router. And while I have the N130 Node and the Pardo LPS, maybe I should look at a N-10 or a N-20 first or maybe start small with the optical boxes @erik_squires was talking about. 

You can get improved sound by fiddling with the network or buying a better streamer. I would prefer to buy a better streamer. So, my system sounds fantastic plugged in to my wall wart WiFi extender (to my Nighthawk modem / router) next to my system. As good as my great vinyl rig.

Some folks put in switches… and Ethernet Regen (I have one… did not improve the sound for me… I have a top notch streamer) and all sorts of other stuff. It can help a basic streamer sound better.

Fiber is the only way to go for me. Marked improvements. Just don’t go cheap. 

I would get rid of as much noise and interference.  There are several other things that will give more improvement than a switch.

Good cords, dedicated circuit, ethernet filtering, no wall warts in the circuit.  I would say these items would help all systems.

If you truly want better sounding digital ,then go to little green computer to see options 

never have separate modem,routers  i bough5 the latest docsis 3.1 motorola 8702 combo much faster,more cohesive , and get rid of the crappy $10 power supply 

$299 12v Zlinear power supply for starters , for sure helps streaming 

then a converter hub from Ethernet to fiber optic to a Sonore Deluxe as your digital converter end point with has very low noise regulators and Femto clocks  a good LPS there .I use the excellent Linear Tube Audio  LPS ,it’s the best under $1200 I have found for $750 ,, a substantial upgrade in sound that goes to your server .and good quality Ethernet cables is important and very Audible.remove all weak links in the chain. Digital noise is jitter that can and does travel house to house  if you hav3 coax cable coming into your house.

OK since we just experimented with this last week, the Silent Angel makes a good streamer and switch.  Like Bill says, it takes out the noise.  Not sure how effective the really cheap ones are but you can test them to see if there is an improvement.  You can reach out to me if you are interest in the SA products.  I am not a dealer but an industry insider.

Happy Listening.

@jeffstrick 

what fiber setup do you have?

Thanks

OP:

Tp-Link makes them for $20 each, plus the fiber.

The outside coax surge protector I use is this one:

https://amzn.to/3FO9KIg

I you have adequate ports and are satisfied with your WiFi performance, you do not need a switch. No switch, regardless of their claims will make better zeros and improve your 1s. Those who make that claim are preying on the ignorance of their customers. Noise is the enemy of sound quality, certainly, but digital, or quantization noise occurs in the analog to digital conversion process as a function of accumulated rounding errors that result from mapping a near infinite dataset into a finite space, e.g. 16 bits deep sampled at 44.1 KHz (CDs). And that has nothing to do with the Layer 1 and Layer 2 data transmission that is Ethernet, wired or wireless. Other noise, from cheap power supplies or poor analog circuit noise rejection, for example do not exist in the digital realm unless they preexist in the input signal and are quantized in the ADC process. Again, nothing to do with Ethernet.

You need a switch in case you wanted to turn off the lights 

for me a nicer switch made a difference, but as part of a more extensive setup with various items helping with noise suppression, improved clocking, and superior power management -- the switch was but one element

that said, i would say that for most, the improvement the switch brings is fairly subtle, and thus one needs a pretty sensitive ear and/or highly resolving system for the difference to be quite apparent

if one cares to dive into the details of what matters and why it matters ... watch this... dry delivery, hang in there, it is an excellent explanation and quite complete in covering the relevant bases

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-StTplQZys

*gas discharge*

Pardon.....

;)

Hi Jim (fellow Ref 5 owner)

This Pre-Streaming madness blows my mind!

I have a DCS Bartok, when connected to my router with a cheap ethernet cable it sounded good. I swapped the cheap cable for an affordable 10m AudioQuest Cinnamon, this gave a slight improvement. I was sceptical about buying a switch so my audiophile mate bought me a cheap Netgear switch to try. It made quite a difference, I was not expecting that. I then bought a English Electric 8 switch which gave an even bigger improvement, (this came with a short cable by Chord). My mate then demonstrated to me that a 'high end' ethernet cable from switch to streamer was necessary. He used a David Laboga Ruby, top of the range and bloody expensive. This did show another level of improvement though. Following this demo, I bought a Sablon Cable (rest of my loom is from Sablon Audio) and although not as good as the Ruby I was happy with it.

This is the Crazy part for me and I just don't understand what is happening - someone please explain ....

If I add back into my system the cheap Netgear switch as well as the EE8 switch it sounds better!?

to summarise this is now my set up ....

ROUTER -Chord cable - NETGEAR SWITCH - Audioquest cable - EE8 SWITCH - Sablon cable - STREAMER

If I remove any part of this signal path it has a detrimental effect on sound.

My mate btw, has a very expensive Innuos Phoenix Net switch connected via his Laboga Ruby cable into a DCS Rossini .... AND, he also has a cheap Netgear switch daisy chained as well - NUTS!

Like @panzrwagn posted, an Ethernet switch doesn’t make a bit of difference. People and companies who claim otherwise are being disingenuous or perhaps ignorant at best.

@markprice here is the reality, these products are snake oil, through and through. If actually measure what comes out of your speakers, there would be 0 difference. 
 

that said, you are subject to your biases, and your brain interpret things differently.

@fredrik222

oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,

my ears are my measurements, that's what I go on. I don't buy anything until proven so. You obviously interpret your biases by listening to your measurements 😂 good luck with that!

@curiousjim I you put in fiber you won’t need a switch. 

Only when you add more digital stuff into the signal path can you add the highly desired pixel dust. It makes the zeros rounder and the ones straighter. 

I actually do use a switch, but could care less about the audiophile tweaks. I have 5 devices in my HT that need Ethernet. I have a 50' run from my Wifi router to the outlet at the entertainment center which goes to a cheap 1 gbit switch to feed all 5 devices. 

I keep the switch power supply on the "dirty" side of my power conditioners.

I do use a hospital grade Ethernet isolator immediately before that switch, but its’ a surge thing. If lightning were to come down the 50’ from my router it would take out a lot of gear.

My internet provider is MetroNet. They use fiber optic cable. Wouldn’t my best option be to run fiber optic from the modem to the streamer?

Now Switch.

To your question, you don't need a switch, and you don't need fiber.  The signal is the signal, so that doesn't change.  The starting point is to connect your Ethernet cable to your streamer and listen to music. From there, if you wish, you can explore the many products designed to "enhance" your digital music experience.  These products generally claim to either remove noise alleged to ride on the Ethernet cables, or to reclock the digital signal thus sending a signal with lower jitter to your DAC.  These range from different cables to switches, to filters, to reclockers, to digital-digital converters (DDC) that buffer and reclock the signal and also allow different formats of digital inputs and outputs.  

Switches can have clocks, such as the English Electric 8 and Bonn Silent Angel N8 switches discussed in this thread, which are both essentially the same switch from the small OEM manufacturer ThunderData, in Guangdong, China company.  They both have the same board inside and both have an added TCXO clock.  My understanding is that the English Electric switch has a fancier case and feet.  There are even more expensive switches you can purchase with one of the top-of-the-line switches being the M12 SWITCH GOLD, by JCAT, for €3,800.  Silent Angel has a Bonn N8 Pro switch, which is supposedly better for audio (BTW, the new fad is to put "PRO" behind a product's name to indicate an upgraded, better quality, and more expensive model).  Here is an article about switches from two years ago.

Regarding fiber, that is simply a method of providing optical isolation for the purpose of reducing noise.  As stated in this thread, you can do that with two $25 converters and inexpensive fiber cable.  However, be aware you are adding two noisy SMPSs with those converters, unless you also splurge for a couple of LPSs at around $100 each.  You can also do it by using the GigaFOILv4, which would require only one LPS.  I have both the fiber/converter set-up, and the GigaFoilv4, and I have tried both, including the LPSs.  My run is 45 feet from my router to my system and I have both CAT8 Ethernet and fiber cables permanently in-place, so I have conveniently tried A/B comparisons between the two over a longish period.  I seem to detect a slight difference in the sound but ended up prefering the CAT8, at least with my current set-up, although YMMV.

Whether any of this changes the sound of your system, only you can decide and, unfortunately, only by listening, not by reading these forums which are great for learning what is out there but not so great for evaluating the actual sonic impact of this stuff.   In my system, none of it makes a profound difference but maybe a little so I am using a bunch of stuff, nonetheless.  IME the components you are using (i.e., streamer and DAC) have a much greater impact on the sound than cables or add-ons.  Below are the ancillaries I am using:

• LPS on both modem and router
• 45' of CAT8 into dual Bonn N8 switches with two LPSs
• muon network cable/muon filter into server
• muon USB cable into DENAFRIPS Hermes DDC
• TWL AES/EBU into DAC

Good luck.

@erik_squires we have gone through this, there are no such thing as “hospital” grade Ethernet. That is flat out false. What you are talking about is a device that is meant to filter current leaks in extreme scenarios for life preserving equipment and these devices are old and don’t have this already built in. It is the failsafe when someone connects the Ethernet cable to the AC outlet. Under normal operating conditions it does not do anything at all, it is even says that in the specs you share.

@markprice i am perfectly happy not being fooled by snake oil salespeople. You do you though.

@fredrik222 Yeah, you also don’t believe in published standards, so you we did go through this and we decided you didn’t know what you were talking about.

Interesting you are changing your tune now, a month or so ago you assured me there was no reason for them ever. Now you are saying there is. We’ll get you there.

Under normal operating conditions it does not do anything at all, it is even says that in the specs you share.

I’ve never claimed it did a thing for audio. :) What they do, which is useful for me, is add about 4kV of breakthrough voltage, forcing potential surge currents to find a path upstream instead of downstream.

OP - Do you have a CD transport? Have you compared the same title/version of a CD with the streamed file to see if you can hear the difference?

I am streaming with my ASUS laptop gaming computer hooked up with an inexpensive USB cable to my PSA PerfectWave Mk II DAC. The computer is receiving its signal by WiFi. According to conventional audiophile wisdom, this setup should sound terrible.

I also have a PSA PerfectWave Transport hooked up to the same DAC. If I play a track from a CD and then stream the same version they sound identical. I have done this at least a dozen times and the results are consistent.

Does anyone think that the streamed track will ever sound better than the same track played from a CD (through the same DAC)? Every time I read reports of our audio brothers spending thousands of dollars on digital tweaks I want to know if they have ever compared their streaming setup with the corresponding CD. Does their streamed version sound clearly inferior to the CD? Is this why they are adding hardware, cables, and expensive streamers to their system? After they spend the big bucks, does their streamed music sound better than the CD?

CD playback has been optimized for sound quality for 50 years. It is relatively simple and straightforward compared to streaming. They both play the same original file. The difference is that the streamed file has been folded, stapled, split apart, knitted back together, and abused in countless ways before it reaches your DAC. Can anyone explain to me how a streamed file would ever sound better than the original CD played through the same DAC? When audiophiles spend tens of thousands of dollars on their streaming setup are they simply trying to match the quality of playing a CD through a decent quality transport? If that's the case then why did they go with streaming in the first place if they really care about sound quality?

Before you spend the time and money tweaking things like digital switches, my recommendation is to get a handle on how your streaming quality compares to CD playback. If you don't have a transport you can pick one up for a reasonable cost. Then, if you decide to add esoteric digital equipment to your streaming setup you can check the SQ effect with each "upgrade." My guess is that if you do this you will quickly find that the digital signal is quite robust and that if you compare to a standard (CD playback) you will determine that adding things like switches don't make a perceptible difference.

Using some sort of control - in this case CD playback - is critical to making SQ judgements IMO.

@erik_squires  nothing has changed, I said the same thing then as I say now, there is no need for these Ethernet filters, they do not do anything for audio at all. Never will. 
 

the standard you are referring to specifically states what it is for, to prevent current leakage that could take life preserving equipment offline. And your filters are for equipment that doesn’t have it built in. At no point will it improve the signal, and the standard certainly doesn’t state that. 

oh man here we go again... 🙄

I added a high end Ethernet cable which feeds my Aurender. The claim was that this cable minimized noise, but I believe that the N20 input is galvanically isolated, so in theory, the expensive last few feet of Ethernet cable should have been a waste of money, but at the time I thought it improved the sound. I’ll need to replace it with a cheap cable and see if it makes the same difference after I have lost my return privileges.

BTW “snake oil” is the mother’s milk of politics and it has been used to control the masses for thousands of years.  So, a bit of audio snake oil is more amusing than a serious issue.

At no point will it improve the signal, and the standard certainly doesn’t state that.

Not an argument I ever made, except in the cases of shielded Ethernet, in which case I could see only grounding one end as being a good idea. 

@8th-note  Very well stated.

If you want to start small install fiber media converters. They not only eliminate the noise that cat6 will pick up but they also isolate for surge protection. You can be all in for $60. New Egg has great options search fmc.

I’ll have another shot of that Snake Oil please!!!!

Always the naysayers.  Too funny.  I got me an expensive network switch, put it after my fiber media convertor and got an improvement in sound on the stereo.  Mostly, the bass improved.  So then as an experiment I bought a 100ft Cat7 ethernet cable and patched it from my new network switch to the TV in the family room.  Wow!  Quite the improvement in picture quality.  If hearing isn't believing, seeing must be believing.  Then, since my TV was previously streaming via wifi and an Apple TV box, I plugged that Cat7 ethernet cable into the mesh repeater near the TV. The TV picture quality improved almost as much as when I plugged the Cat7 cable into it directly.  Spent a good half a day running ethernet cables from my stereo Network Switch through the walls, under the house and to both my TV and the mesh extender.  Well worth the trouble, I found.

@8th-note 

Thanks for the reply.

yes I have a CD transport, An Audiolab 6000cdt, and yes sometimes I can hear differences between the CDT and the streamer, but sometimes the disk is better than the streamer.  I have also noticed that the sound is sometimes different in the evening than the morning. Oh and I was planning on getting a couple of the ifi power warts to replace the ones that come with the converters.

@dinov 

message sent

taking a step back, i think part of the fun in this pursuit is trying stuff and finding out for yourself

used (or discounted demo) gear is a good answer... op can buy a used ’audiophile switch’ at a fair price... say 50-60-70% of full retail... try it, decide with his own ears -- if it doesn’t make a positive difference, turn around resell it for little or no haircut

as i ventured through my streaming journey since covid shut us all in a few years... i have basically tried everything worth trying (for me...) in this manner ... streamers, dacs, filters, switches, cables, all of it... and in my own mind, this journey has allow me to figure out what matters to me, in my system, what is of marginal, or just total nonsense, and so on...

yes, there is planning and effort involved, and care needed, also need patience, and some spending power to do this -- but for me it has been (and continues to be) a road well worth travelling

otoh, some of us aren’t really into the journey, don’t want to expend the effort, come here ask a question, just want the simple answer, then they get much input that is contradictory, vocal naysayers abound, and then frustration ensues ...

@mitch2 

Thanks for your reply,

I screwed up. The part above about getting the ifi power was supposed to be for you.  I’m going to order A Pair of 1.25G/s Bidi Gigabit Multi-Mode Fiber Ethernet Media Converter with 2PCS Bidi SFP LC Dual Transceiver Module Included, 10/100/1000Base-Tx to 1000Base-SX SMF RJ45 to SFP Slot up to 550M https://a.co/d/3XpXgoa

first and see if it made a difference and then upgrade the power.

@markprice 

Thanks for the reply. After reading a bit more and listening to the video that @jjss49 provided, I’m guessing that the difference is that switch’s have clocks in them and are reclocking the signal and that’s making the sound difference. I have an older 5 channel Netgear passive switch. I wonder if I’ll hear a difference. 
 

And speaking of the Ref 5’s, I swapped one of the 2 long port tube with a small one in each and have almost stopped using my subwoofer. 😁

@curiousjim 

that's interesting, the short ports work down to 35Hz and the long ports work down to 32Hz suggesting that the short ports would offer you less bass. If you look at my pics you will see I have similar positioning to you. I am about 12' away with a similar gap between speakers. I use 1 long at the bottom and 1 short at the top although I must admit I haven't tried 2 shorts. 2 long ports seem to muddy the bass a bit. My room is constructed completely different to yours, I have no hard surfaces, behind and to the sides of my speakers is carpet on chipboard with insulation behind, any a void behind that. I have almost no reflections in my room. It basically means the system comes 'alive' when you really push it. The manual suggests 2 shorts work better away from the walls. I personally don't use a sub and don't think I need to either. Enjoy!

@curiousjim 

A few years ago, Steve Plaskin (with AudioStream at the time) posted about using fiber converters and 1M of fiber as an isolation technique to reduce noise.  Based on that review, I purchased 1M of cable and two converters, and then later installed my entire 45-foot run with fiber since I figured having only one SMPS near my system was better than having both near my system.  Before long, I switched to LPSs.  I cannot remember how I came on the products that I used, and I am not the right person to ask about which specific converters would offer the best performance but these are what I used:

• converters
• fiber cable
• linear power supplies

For a while, I thought music sounded a little smooth/calmer using fiber from my router to my system, but then when I started trying other isolation products such as the Network Acoustics eno, and later the muon, the effect of using fiber seemed to be no longer necessary and I found that going back to Ethernet cable only for my 45-foot run (CAT8) may even sound slightly better, although the difference seems almost imperceptible. Your plan to start with the converters and then if you like the sound, add LPSs is a good way to start.  FWIW, the iFi power supplies I believe are highly filtered SMPSs but not LPSs.  That doesn't mean they are not quieter.  However, my understanding is that there is a big difference between the iFi SilentPower and the more expensive iFi Power elite.  Good luck.

. 

@mitch2 

One more question, do you have the converters before your router or plugged into one of its outputs. I’d have to put it before the router because I mostly do WiFi.  Otherwise I have to use a netgear Powerline adapter. NETGEAR Powerline adapter Kit, 2000 Mbps Wall-plug, 2 Gigabit Ethernet Ports with Passthrough + Extra Outlet (PLP2000-100PAS) https://a.co/d/4YswvJv  And lord knows how much noise that puts into the mix!

Thanks

"I just watched a few videos about audiophile switches and I don’t understand the need"

Don't question it. Just buy in.

Probably better with a fancy pc cable, cat 5 cable and fuse. Cryo everything before use too.

THAT's how you roll with the audio neurotic club.

The madness NEVER ends...

my belief gained through my travels on this subject is that good clocking and elimination of electrical noise pollution are both important... the importance of the latter highly is dependent on the nature of upstream signal feeds/routers and of course, one’s digital music source (multi use computer, streamer, renderer, what have you...)

it is not just about the integrity of the transmitted data packet info (the networking guys only focus on this, this is a necessary but insufficient condition for success in hifi reproduction), it is about how the data gets decoded accurately back into analog without distortions caused in the process (which requires proper timing and electrical properties of the waveform being read during the conversion...)