It’s not about the bits it’s about the crap power supplies and EMI/RFI that cheap switches and many other things introduce into the HIFI analogue environment. The bits are always going to be fine, unless the switch has a real hardware issue.
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That’s another reason for my choice of DSP speakers. Everything is in the digital domain until the last moment.
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If anything is audibly influenced by the little bit of subjective crap present in an ethernet cable, then it deserves to fail any kind of certification.
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Not so much in it but eminating from it…remember in the older days of GSM one would get odd noises from their car radio/stereo when their mobiles rang…same principle applies here, noise is noise, bits are bits.
This is all my personal eningeering background thoughts and opinion. I’m not saying its all there is but its my humble opinion.
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I had replaced 2 wall warts for REL Longbow transmitters with $ 100 iFi power supplies and immediately noticed degradation of the sound. They were on a PS Audio P10 Powerplant which is on a dedicated AC line. I moved them to a plug out on the household circuit and the grit was gone. Unfortunately, I did not notice an improvement from the subwoofers. I have all my digital gear and LPS’s powered (including those for the switches) by the PS10.
I wish someone with a scope would measure whats going on and let me know.
Edit: An audio designer actually measured it and had something non positive to say. Since there are some disagreements (an understatement) about the measurements, I’ve removed a link.
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I got the JS2 and immediately my iFi Pro iDSD sounded like altogether a different DAC… It was just a pure bliss…
Human sensory perceptions in the real world are not (and never will be) digital but strictly analog, hence ACD’s and DAC’s are used in the audio chain. The last paragraph testifies to this and hits the nail on the head: much more important for the observer are the listed determining factors such as source material, room acoustics, speaker type and arrangement that even a less experienced ear can perceive, but by definition will remain subjective. Marketing guru’s who have to sell audio equipment do not have much use for this and prefer to draw from the arsenal non-verifiable miraculous electronic phenomena that are described in beautiful leaflets (for the target believers).
Greetings
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
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Very patronising. There is lots of bull out there, IMHO power cables. There’s lots of excellent stuff out there like quality DC supplies and… quality network switches. Yes, other things make a difference (room treatment usw) probably more important but don’t try to stop us hearing benefits from network switches.
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I thought it was time to run a (somewhat) controlled experiment to see if I can confirm the “Value of Audiophile Network Switches”. This configuration should allow direct comparison of the effects of introducing an audiophile switch by just changing the preamp inputs back and forth between the two identical streamer/dac sources. I have everything in house except for the fancy switch.
I’d love some feedback on the proposed experiment before I run it. If enough people agree this is a valid test, I’ll borrow an English Electric switch from my local HIFI shop and give it a go.
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IMO you would need to introduce a bog standard switch in line before the streamer/DAC #2 (with CAT7 to the streamer/DAC) otherwise the audiophile switch is not a true independent variable in this setup.
Interesting point, but how would I determine that the standard switch is “standard” enough? If switches truly have an audible effect, I might be degrading the signal coming out of streamer/DAC #2 compared to what’s coming out with just the existing Netgear switch.
Possibly, but with your design there is an extra electronic device in the “test” chain than in the “control” chain, so I would not call that a properly controlled experiment.
Easy to try it both ways I suppose.
I’m afraid the bigger issue will be that I only have access to one variant of audiophile switch.
Not sure that’s such a big issue TBH. Also the person evaluating the impact (or otherwise) of the audiophile switch should be blinded during the experiment.
No Doubt!
If anyone wants loan me a fancy switch besides the English Electric, I’d be happy to try it as well 
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Poke them in both eyes with a stick should do it 
NOW OF COURSE I’M JOKING
you have what looks to be a decent plan…make sure you have same interconnects too. but yes another switch in the #2 connection would be perhaps a better match for the signal path
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It’s amazing that people think they can hear a sonic difference with digital data packets that are transmitted using bidirectional error-correcting protocols. If digital data traversing over a network were susceptible to corruption, the internet wouldn’t work. Bits arrive perfectly whether you’re transmitting audio, a photo, or an email. It’s digital data, there’s no way for the switch to even know if it’s passing audio or a Word document.
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