I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again … audiophoolery knows no bounds. Long before computer based audio became mainstream many of us who had been using computer based audio for over a decade predicted there would soon be audiophile ethernet cable and switches - it’s a natural response for an industry founded on exploiting the human condition and a natural reaction from the very market they target. As long as it floats your boat keep at it, just don’t expect everyone to follow the pied piper.
Sad to see people on this thread enjoying themselves around the same old audiofools theme post after post. Please try to contribute positively and open mind.
About the question on ´high end’ system: yes it will reveal more signal, for increased fidelity. It also means 2nd order ´noises’ will be heard, such as in poor recordings.
Exactly a week ago, I found myself in a reassuringly expensive fish restaurant in Florida, surrounded by work colleagues. A young lad on my team sat opposite and proceeded to order pasta. I asked him why he wasn’t ordering fresh grilled lobster tail and shrimp like I was. He told me that he doesn’t like fish. When I asked him whether he had ever tried either lobster or shrimp, he replied no. I suggested he change his order and he agreed and ate the same as me. Of course, he later told me that it was one of the best meals he had ever eaten.
Yes, but NOISE isn’t defined as part of what you - misleadingly - call “more signal”. On the contrary, it’s something we all (?) want to get rid of, isn’t it? Added noise isn’t the same as “increased fidelity”.
Interesting analogy. So it’s the price tag that tells me if I like how my food tastes or if I’m happy with how my system sounds? I don’t think so…
BTW, I love eating fish but I’ve never felt tempted to convince a “work colleague” that he shouldn’t order pasta in a fish restaurant (expensive or not)…
It is hard to keep an open mind while hearing all the denial of scientifc facts.
No! I can’t have an open mind, hearing the world is flat and I only have to trust my own eyes.
But I understand the power of the brain. If you have paid a lot of money for a device it MUST be an improvement in sound quality. Otherwise you have to admit that you fall for snake oil and that can not be. So, your brain helps to avoid that flaw and let you think it was worth it.
So, with a real open mind, it is hard, but often there is not really an improvment. And yes, I try to have this kind of open mind and not let my own brain tricks me to think otherwise.
Timing/phase aspects and psychoacoustics … as stated earlier, for audio applications (like RAAT, which is TCP-based), Ethernet is completely frame asynchronous; there is no clock. You are simply throwing out buzzwords, in this context.
For an Ethernet switch, there is no audio-specific better shaped packets (traffic shaping), unless you configure QoS based on DSCP classification and RAAT is also setting the right flag (DSCP marking). Of course, you could set a QoS priority for a given port range (e.g. RAAT uses, I think, TCP 9100-9200).
My $47.00 Netgear supports all of the above, which is really designed for VoIP and video conferencing in densely populated Ethernet environments.
But what’s the point? Your home network isn’t a densely populated Ethernet environment and audio data payloads are trivial.
For everyone else, if you are reading this thread and wonder if you need a $2,000 switch to get the most out of Roon, I can assure you that the switch linked below will do everything you need and sound exactly the same as the $2,000 Melco; spend the extra money supporting your favorite artists and buy more music.
Try audiophilestyle, there’s a ready made audience craving confirmation bias on just about every pseudo product catering to near on all audiophool predilections known to man, especially those that science cannot measure. Also unlikely to encounter any challenge, only confirmation.
Actually, it wasn’t. It was used to depict sophistication when selling the British-brewed lager to the masses who thought they were getting something special. Ironic really.
I’m pretty sure you’re aware of the fact that I wasn’t referring to the people who COINED said phrase. I was clearly referring to your restaurant analogy in the context of this thread. Maybe you were trying to be funny, but you definitely did NOT use your analogy “in a humorous context”. Your point seems to be that it doesn’t make sense if people criticize/reject something that they’ve never even tried. My answer to that is that there’re lots of things in life we don’t have to try to know they aren’t worth it…
To cut a long story short, there’s no ethernet switch that is worth 2000 quid (at least not from a sound quality perspective)…
Over in this thread, @Mark_Brown points out that you can disconnect the ethernet cable from your overpriced ethernet switch, and the music will continue to play (until the buffer is exhausted).
So, my question to you is: when you disconnect the ethernet cable does the SQ
improve,
get worse or
stay the same?
Even better, have a friend connect/disconnect the cable and see whether you can “hear” whether it is connected or not.
