I’ve never blowtorched my hand, but my brand of unfair and wrong scientific absolutism tells me it isn’t necessary that I try.
I do heartily encourage anyone who believes their watery mass would provide them with better subjective evidence, and disprove my conjecture, to feel free to try.
Why do you keep saying that people shouldn’t make any comments unless they’ve “tried it”. What do mean by that? I bet most people here HAVE tried. I’m pretty sure the overwhelming majority of Roon users have owned more than one switch in their life (for whatever reasons), but most of us have never noticed any sonic differences… Does that make us less “experienced”?
Nah, just means we’ve only used crappy switches, cables and kit and have poor hearing to boot.
I’m sorry, poor analogy. Wrong sense.
Erm… @Charles_Peterson , when you say “not every device or cable will bring a change”, aren’t you contradicting yourself?
There’s no such thing as an audiophile switch, but there are plenty audiophool switches emerging.
Software such as Roon provides extra/better functionality. Not better sound quality.
Just pointing out the distinction.
I’ve used dozens of different switches (no changes because of audio-related reasons!) and I’ve never heard any differences. In this sense, I’m as “experienced” as you are - unless, of course, you’ve done some kind of testing beyond informal A/B comparisons…
So those of us who HAVE compared switches and haven’t heard any differences have compared the wrong kind of switches? Most switches sound the same, but some sound really different?
In my experience, all switches sound the same. Maybe some sound even “samer”…
Yes, but most people (including my wife) would say a Sonos is much more functional and could care less about the sound. So where does that leave us?
I guess in the end we all need to agree to disagree. Try a better switch, cables, fiber, etc or don’t. No skin off each other and some will enjoy the simplicity and extra money in their wallets because they don’t hear (or don’t believe in) any change in sound; others will throw gobs of $ at it and hear (or believe they hear) considerable improvements in the sound. Personally I’m in between - I don’t think it take lots of dollars, just wise choices such as Blue Jeans Cat 6a and a used $30-100 Cisco switch.
@Charles_Peterson
Please read my post again.
Soundstaging is a funny thing: highly dependent on room reflections and countless other factors (which have nothing to do with ethernet switches).
There are 3 versions of that song on Qobuz (from the albums “Time to Kill”, “Going Home” and “Decade of Dreams”). When I listen, the precise position of her voice @ 1:10 varies by more than 30cm between these different recordings. And I didn’t have to get up, walk around the room, and sit back down to experience this.
By contrast, I’ve certainly experienced small shifts in the soundstage of many recordings, just from walking around and sitting back down, with no change in the playback gear.
The foolery criticized by some people in this threads is then the search for a better sound goes into unscientific and esoteric areas.
I love a good meal and try to improve my cooking, but I would never “improve” the electric circuits in my kitchen with the expection that my meals will taste better afterwards. That would be foolery.
Funny thing: I found this post I posted 4 years ago. After reading this thread, I think I should have started that business. Too bad I am not conscience-proof enough to do that. 4 years ago it was a joke about something so far fetched as possible, but now …
Ok, makes sense now. No, I don’t do A/B because with network gear that’s a pin. I have had the same analog setup for years now, so I do know when I insert something I can hear a change. And it’s not always for the better - I have a couple of AQ Cinnamon and a Melco Opal cables going on the market that sounded worse than the BJC Cat 6a I have in now (for a 1/4 of the price). The Cisco main house switch, which is $1200 retail, cost me used $150 and it sends power to another 2960CPD via poE that has all of the audio devices on it and is totally disconnected from the mains since it’s being powered by the other switch. Then I go through a pair of opticalModules from Sonore to the microRendu and Naim DAC. Since I’m always working with the same base sound it’s pretty easy to tell differences when I add or subtract something in the chain. Haven’t tried an etherRegen, three figure costing cables, or anything like that and don’t plan too.
But fug it I’m not to be believed so not sure why I’m bothering with this. Time to go get some work done.
Ok, the old “this improvements only work for audio” argument 
My wine tastes different, it must have been transported by a Mack truck rather than a Scania.
Maybe time to post this classic. I think everything has been ticked now.
You claim that an
( ) audible
( ) measurable
( ) hypothetical
improvement in sound quality can be attained by:
( ) upsampling
( ) increasing word size
( ) vibration dampening
( ) bi-wiring
( ) replacing the external power supply
( ) using a different lossless format
( ) decompressing on the server
( ) removing bits of metal from skull
( ) using ethernet instead of wireless
( ) inverting phase
( ) installing bigger connectors
( ) installing Black Gate caps
( ) installing ByBee filters
( ) installing hospital-grade AC jacks
( ) defragmenting the hard disk
( ) running older firmware
Your idea will not work. Specifically, it fails to account for:
( ) the placebo effect
( ) your ears honestly aren’t that good
( ) your idea has already been thoroughly disproved
( ) modern DACs upsample anyway
( ) those products are pure snake oil
( ) lossless formats, by definition, are lossless
( ) those measurements are bogus
( ) sound travels much slower than you think
( ) electric signals travel much faster than you think
( ) that’s not how binary arithmetic works
( ) that’s not how TCP/IP works
( ) the Nyquist theorem
( ) the can’t polish a turd theorem
( ) bits are bits
Your subsequent arguments will probably appeal in desperation to such esoterica as:
( ) jitter
( ) EMI
( ) thermal noise
( ) existentialism
( ) cosmic rays
And you will then change the subject to:
( ) theories are not the same as facts
( ) measurements don’t tell everything
( ) not everyone is subject to the placebo effect
( ) blind testing is dumb
( ) you can’t prove what I can’t hear
( ) science isn’t everything
Rather than engage in this tired discussion, I suggest exploring the following factors which are more likely to improve sound quality in your situation:
( ) room acoustics
( ) source material
( ) type of speakers
( ) speaker placement
( ) crossover points
( ) equalization
( ) Q-tips
Indeed! All cooking should be done with gas.
Actually, I don’t. The streamer doesn’t matter, it’s just a computer. And you shouldn’t buy DACs and amps that require “improved” power supplies – that should be designed in to the component itself.
Unless they need a power supply to work…
Anyway, you’ve all convinced me nothing matters. I’m off to sell it all and get me a Sonos or Bose. Should sound great. Oh, I’m sorry, measure great.
Here are the two things that matter more than anything else. Get better speakers and improve the acoustics of your listening room. And nobody in their right mind will ever tell you this won’t make a big difference…