Wow…
Or
- I know how Ethernet works
- I don’t know how Ethernet works.
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regarding the hammer analogy, true about the rust, but it will “not do” since the extension to “throttles down your connection speed by a factor of 10” as some sort of detriment is inherently flawed. A 100 meg connection far, far exceeds anything required for audio so not having gigabit speeds is irrelevant.
Concerning marketing hype and irrelevant buzzwords as a reason to dismiss it, or the fact that some guy took some very limited readings with an analyzer, or we have resident ethernet experts who dismiss it out of hand because they don’t see how it could possibly make a difference… … who cares? At the end of the day it doesn’t matter how it works or how they describe how it works. It doesn’t really even matter if they even understand how it works. Maybe they got lucky and stumbled across something. Maybe it is filled with Oompa Loompas polishing and carrying the bits across the moat, really don’t care… All that matters is it either improves the sound or it doesn’t.
While it may interest some to discuss how it works and some won’t accept it unless they think they understand how it works, let me say it again so it can soak in…
All that matters is it either improves the sound or it doesn’t.
The next concern for you as a consumer is whether or not the amount of improvement, if any, no matter how it is achieved, is worth $640 for the EtherRegen or is worth $2000 or whatever it costs for the Melso switch, and so forth for everything in your system.
So pontificating that it definitely does not work because you can’t see any possible way that it does work is a waste of time.
The guy with the audio analyzer is my favorite. He measured the output of a single mid-fi DAC using 2 different frequencies, and based on that declared it was proof that there was no effect. On the one hand, the idea that measurements will definitely predict how something sounds is ridiculous. On the other hand, the measurements he did make are so extremely limited in scope that they are worthless.
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I absolutely adore the way you missed the salient point of the analogy, namely the invention of a nonexistent problem.
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you are the one who brought it up and now talk down to me for mentioning it?? I took it to mean you thought the throttle was a problem as I hadn’t seen that mentioned, maybe I missed it, but if that was not your point I stand corrected.
You are not the first to mention something similar . It is a figure of speech that some latch onto to make a point that doesn’t exist. No piece of stereo equipment has a sound in the strictest sense. Your preamp has no sound, the amp has no sound. They all somehow affect the electrical signal passing through them and therefore affect the sound that is ultimately produced. When someone says “that preamp sounds bright” they don’t mean they put their ear up to the preamp and hear bright sounds. They mean that when they use that preamp the sound coming from the speakers is brighter. So when it is stated that the sound is better using this switch, it doesn’t mean you can literally hear the switch, it means the switch affects the sound coming from the speakers. And again, as an end user it doesn’t matter to me how it affects the sound, whether through earth or whatever, it only matters that it does, or doesn’t.
AND it’s not the fact that it is just data. If that were true then all transports, all means of digital transmission like USB and toslink, all bit perfect music streamers, etc. would all sound exactly the same. There are other factors involved, some of which we may not understand as well as some here claim to, and some like jitter that we seem to have a better handle on. So unless you believe that data is just data and that is the end of it, then we can move on from that distraction.
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I think you underestimate peoples knowledge.
Ethernet is not like USB audio and TOSLINK. Ethernet is true asynchronous with error detection. It is just data. There is no jitter/clocking problems with Ethernet.
Everytime we discuss Ethernet, people drag out “what about USB, TOSLINK, DACs, elephants, whatever”. It is irrelevant for Ethernet.
I only want to know how does a product like a $2000 Ethernet switch improve sound quality.
No one can answer me. They only repeat “I heard a difference” and “there is is something we don’t understand”.
Please, someone, explain to me. I’m pretty sure I can understand.
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Without a blind test there’s no way to know if it improves the sound or not. A listener who believes they hear a change in sound while performing a sighted test cannot say for certain if it actually does. That also matters a great deal.
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I believe Frank is referring to the “rust” part of the analogy (which I really enjoyed). In the analogy, the titanium hammer company has invented a fake problem (rust on a hammer) and now sells a solution which solves a condition which is not actually a problem. This is analogous to audiophile switch manufacturers attempting to resolve conditions which are not actually impediments to sound repoduction.
In the analogy the titanium hammer indisputable resolves the concerns about rust (more convincingly than in the real case of audiophile switches, in fact) which begs the question. It’s left unaddressed that rust on a hammer doesn’t impair its hammering performance in any way.
So just hearing an improvement doesn’t count, to “know” requires further testing? How about just enjoy the music (better)?
Correct. Expectation bias can absolutely lead someone to hear things that aren’t (or the opposite). It’s that precise reason that testing methodology has developed. To eliminate the confounding influence of our easily-fooled brains from the process as much as possible.
If one aspires to “just enjoy the music” then that’s great also. No need to buy any special ethernet hardware at all if that’s your aim.
and there is our difference. If somebody hands me a black box that I can buy for $640, and I can afford it, and I feel like it gives me at least $640 worth of improvement, why should should I care what is in the box? Of course I am curious, but what I’m really paying for is the end result i.e. what it does, not how it does it.
Call me a fool, but I paid waaaaaaay more than that for a DCS DAC that to my ear is a bargain for what it delivers. I have an electronics background, I understand the fundamentals but but I do not pretend to understand the intricacies of how they implement the ring DAC, the software and hardware required to do it, and so forth, but guess what? I don’t care. It sounds wonderful so it is wonderful.
and isn’t that what this really all boils down to? A bunch of people who have taken the position that “if you can’t explain to my satisfaction how it works I refuse to use it. I not only refuse to use it, if you can’t explain to my satisfaction how it works, I refuse to consider there is any possibility that it can work.”
if you truly believe as some here appear to, that you completely understand everything there is to know about how of all of these devices work and how all of them interact, then IMHO you are delusional. sorry… tough love
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So there’s a difference between hearing and knowing. I’m happy to hear, that’s what I pay for. Is your suggestion is that when I know, I will hear differently?
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sorry, ridiculous. You can’t tell the difference between the sound from your laptop and a high end system without a blind test. Of course you can. So why with this device must we have a blind test? Does it only apply to devices that you are convinced don’t work in the first place?
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I certainly wouldn’t resist performing a blind test to confirm my belief. And I wouldn’t question the utility of blind testing or assert that they are not worthwhile. It sure seems like the people who are so dismissive of blind testing are the ones who are afraid of the results.
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If someone says drink bleach to cure all ills, would you do it? I’m not a chemist but I can detect baloney.
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As they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If someone told me that they could hear a difference between a 2" paper cone radio shack speaker and a Focal Chora I’d be inclined to believe them. And a blind test in that case would seem excessive. It would still be definitive though. That’s not the situation we have here, though. We have a device with no purported mechanism for improving sound. No credible theory for how it even influences sound for better or for worse. And we have nothing but vague and esoteric descriptions of nuanced improvement with only sighted comparisons ever mentioned.
No matter what you believe about this device you have to admit that it’s an extraordinary claim that an ethernet switch can improve the quality of an audio signal that passes as data through the switch. Is it really so surprising that someone, even an owner, might demand a bit of rigor in how they evaluate the manufacturer’s claims or even their own sighted perceptions? If there has ever been a situation that called for a blind test – this is it.
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Is that you did with all your components/speakers?
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Please explain me one thing.
If this switch can improve the data it passes by, it must affect all data, not only data containing music. So, did the poetry in my word files become more depth and did the numbers in my excel file be sharper?
It is not logical that it will only have an effect on audio.
Please explain!