If I turn the Amp volume past 3 1/2, it makes me wince! (~80dBA) No blind test required! A pure 16kHz tone is not pleasant to listen to, even with my ageing ears!
Hi Graeme… how do you actually check your headphone listening volumes? Special equipment?
I just place my sound level meter inside the earcup close to the driver face. I’m sure there are more precise ways to do it, but it’s close enough. It’s just an ordinary/inexpensive digital sound level meter.
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I use a Netgear switch, 16 ports for about $100. Unless I see tests and data that strongly suggest audiophile switches improve SQ, the money stays in my wallet too. At least until I use it on something I’m convinced will improve SQ.
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That is the perfect discription why expectation bias works so strong. Whenever you change something and sit down to listen to it with full attention you will always hear things you didn’t hear before.
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Any solution for this unfortunate problem? How could we separate our hearing from our other senses and brains every day when we sit on our couches for some music listening? How could we shut down all subjectiveness, emotions and feelings while listening? After all, music should be approached with purely scientific and objective view right? Listening with double blind setting every day would be pain in the ass but I guess it’s the only way. Otherwise we will be aware of the equipment we listen to and evil subjective thoughts and expectations will creep in and mess everything up 
Well, the question is if there is a problem to begin with. I think any difference that takes such a measures to identify it is simply not worth the trouble. I would rather focus on other aspects (of which there are many) that do have a profound impact.
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I agree. Things such as choosing the right loudspeakers for your listening room size, placing those speakers carefully, applying suitable room treatment and possibly DSP to even out room response make much more audible differences than any source component, amplifier or cable in a system.
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I certainly hope that people experimenting with audiophile switches have more relevant aspects like speakers, amplification and source well thought of already. Room acoustics is very important also but usually there’s limited possibilities to do proper modifications there when the setup is in living room. Acoustic panels and furniture gets you far already but low end is difficult to tame. Dedicated listening room would obviously be optimal. DSP can help, I got great results with Linn’s approach (Space Optimisation).
I think many audiophiles don’t put in the required effort to position speakers properly in a living room. I have seen this many times. It usually takes me up to 6 month’s of trial and error to find the right set-up for a speaker within the constraints of a living room. Adjusting position in millimetres, can make a substantial difference to how the speakers interact in the room. Every room has a spot where the speaker will be optimised.
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I have also spent considerable time moving speakers around (which is a hassle, as they are heavy), and sometimes think I’ve found a better spot. But after some weeks things normalise, and moving them elsewhere can bring a subjective improvement.
You have my 100% agreement. I have a < 1k DAC in my home office where the USB input is galvanic isolated. My 8k integated amp/dac does not have it and is sensitive to EMI. That was the reason why I use AES instead of USB.
No one here was talking about amps, tuners or vinyl rigs - they all have signals in the analogue domain which are very much affected by the design of the electronics through which they pass. The discussion was about the effect, or rather, the lack of it, caused by so-called "audiophile’ network switches which deliver buffered, checksummed data packets over TCP/IP.
1s and 0s delivered independent of the time domain and therefore jitter free…
Some things affect music, some things don’t. Network switches are in the latter grouping, unless of course, they’re broken.
If you want to delve into the world of audiophile network switches, knock yourself out! It’s your hard-earned currency to spend as you wish.
Your money would be better spent, however, on real things that make a real difference, such as loudspeakers, their placement in your listening room and room treatments to control reflections, and minimise the effect of room nodes etc.
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That bits free but sadly ignored by so many…
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It’s sadly evidenced time and again by the photos posted in the “showing (off) your Roon setup” thread.
Lots of expensive systems delivering sub-optimally by mere inches of speaker placement…
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Very good point. Speaker placement is a thing.
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Music, the most abstract of all arts, can best be described in abstract terms. Try to describe your favorite album or track without them.
For the first, and hopefully not the last time, I agree 100% with Sir Graeme! Right on!
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Just want to give a thumbs up for Renolabs ethernet switch, a definite audio improvement streaming Roon via Innuos Zenith - Denafrips Hermes/ Terminator combo
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