Posh switch - another cause of Audiophilia nervosa?

I would advise a specialist audio switch like the Paul Pang with good power supply is the way to go, I have tried 5 or 6 set ups over the last year and it is way ahead, more musical and dynamic.

Keep us posted HH, will be interested to hear your thoughts once you've had it in the system for a few days.

Something I have never worried over and I doubt I ever will. I bought a little plastic switch for twenty quid from a local electrical retailer three years ago, plugged it in and then left well alone

Good on you for trying something a bit different, HH. (OK, not so different at all for someone who works in the industry, but for the rest of us, these things can seem like a blind leap into the unknown). A few months ago I wanted to network my house, and discovered that you could do it with optical cables instead of Cat5. It wasn't overly expensive, but I had no idea if it would work, or what I'd do if it didn't. As it happens, it worked really well, and possibly even improved the sound a bit too. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.....  

RICHYH posted:

I would advise a specialist audio switch like the Paul Pang with good power supply is the way to go, I have tried 5 or 6 set ups over the last year and it is way ahead, more musical and dynamic.

I have tried the Paul Pang switch and it did bring a small uplift. Then added a IFI Power Supply to it and again another small uplift.

HH, yes I wait with baited breath...

Thete isn't really anything such as an audio specialist switch in the context we have here, however quality switches tend to have better clocks with less jitter on the Ethernet PHY interface  and better back planing, as well being able to set priorities on ports. I heard improvements with 2960 over other consumer switch ports I had. Sound tends to be more musical/natural with the 2960. Transport jitter is somewhat of a curse whether it be on USB, SPDIF or Ethernet... those intermods get everywhere....

The Paul Pang switch looks like a regular consumer switch but  with a better clock for the PHY layer.. it should sound better than some general consumer devices because of this.

For the record, I have found decoupling the DAC from the streamer tends to make some of these enhancements less noticeable... even FLAC vs WAV differences are significantly reduced.

Have you tried just a deticated modem direct into your N272 

Yes - we like 'industrial' type switches

Cisco Gigabit GS200-18 here...

greekspec2 posted:

Have you tried just a deticated modem direct into your N272 

I don't understand that. Can you explain?

greekspec2 posted:

Have you tried just a deticated modem direct into your N272 

If by modem you mean wireless hub (?)   then yes.      272 (NDX in my case) > wireless hub > NAS.     Adding my little £20 cheap dumb Netgear ProSafe GS improved the SQ significantly.   That was some time back,  I've since tried it again,  this time with a different wireless hub that has a much higher & smarter spec & has all gigabit ports,  although not so different this time, the better SQ especially with 24/96 & higher data rates,  is via the switch.         

A couple of observations. In terms of use, the Qnap seems to take longer to wake up with the Cisco compared to with the Netgear. I expect there is a setting somewhere that could address that. But once the Qnap is awake everything is about the same speed as before. 

In terms of sound, I think it's improved quite a lot. But is it my inagination, or some sort of optimism bias? I don't think so. To me, the music seems more solid and stable, and to flow better. The soundstage is a bit clearer and somehow it sounds bigger. Overall it's just more natural, and nicer to listen to. I'm listening to a John Holloway Biber recording on ECM and the sound is quite extraordinary. The album has violin, organ and harpsichord, and the way you are drawn in to the interplay between the three musicians is quite beguiling, and more so than  I've heard it before, and it's a record I know really well.

Maybe it is all imagination, but if £49 can deliver this size placebo effect I'm not going to complain. I know that Dave M is trying one of these switches at the same time and it would be interesting to hear from him. I'd put this off for a long time but I'm glad I've now done it. In a world where a £300 Ethernet cable is now fairly common - that's what mine cost anyway - and where you can spend £1,500 or so on a 1m cable if you go really posh, a decent switch to plug them into seems quite sensible really. 

Is that a S series 2960 Nigel?

It's a WS-C2960-8TC-L, manufactured in 2011, if that helps. I don't imagine they wear out!

Thanks Nigel. That's very useful.

I might drop one of these in a shopping basket for delivery when I get back to England next week. Can't hurt.

Not for £49, it can't. 

Hungryhalibut posted:

greekspec2 posted:

Have you tried just a deticated modem direct into your N272 

I don't understand that. Can you explain?

Not sure in the UK but in the States our internet service comes into the house via DSL or coax cable then it is feed into a modem that converts it, most modems have one to four ethernet ports which you then feed to a wireless router and then that feeds a switch

We have cable internet that connects to a modem (a Virgin Media cable modem/router set to modem mode). This connects to an airport express, which connects to a switch for the Hifi. It's accepted best practice to use a switch, to keep the streaming data away from the wifi and other internet traffic. My son does online gaming and the way we have it set up isolates the music from his stuff. Connecting to the modem/router would be a backward step and I can't think why I'd do it after all the effort to set things up in an optimal way. 

greekspec2 posted:

Not sure in the UK but in the States our internet service comes into the house via DSL or coax cable then it is feed into a modem that converts it, most modems have one to four ethernet ports which you then feed to a wireless router and then that feeds a switch

In UK the internet service come in over regular 2 core twisted pair wire with the telephone service,  one service provider also uses coax,  in some cases it can be fiber.  But whatever its combined phone & broadband.   In most homes the basic minimum is the service provider supplies a one box combined wireless/modem/router which also have 4 or 5 ethernet ports & can be used as a switch.    After that basic set up people are free to add extra features such as wireless extenders or replace the ISP device with something a little more sophisticated.

I use the ISP's own wireless hub & that provides all the wireless comms to laptops, tablets & smart phones.   Its ethernet ports connect to my hifi system network switch  & another feed goes to another switch that connects TV & office.

Hungryhalibut posted:

 

Maybe it is all imagination, but if £49 can deliver this size placebo effect I'm not going to complain. I know that Dave M is trying one of these switches at the same time and it would be interesting to hear from him. I'd put this off for a long time but I'm glad I've now done it. In a world where a £300 Ethernet cable is now fairly common - that's what mine cost anyway - and where you can spend £1,500 or so on a 1m cable if you go really posh, a decent switch to plug them into seems quite sensible really. 

I was thinking along the same lines as Nigel, insofar as, having done the (semi) posh cable thing I might as well be plugging them into something a step up from the basic Netgear switch, so did the fleabay thing, and bought a Cisco switch, (WS - C2960 - 48 TC -L).

I've not had the chance to sit down for an extended listen yet, so it's too early to say whether it has made any difference.

Normally, I leave new cables in situ for a week or so, before reverting to the original, at which point any improvement, or not, usually becomes clear.

For an outlay of twenty of Her Majesty's finest folding, certainly worth a try. 

£20? Wow, that was a good bargain. A 24 port would have been far too big, and maybe uses a bit more power too. It'll be interesting to hear what you think of it, given that you have a much higher level system, which will presumably be more sensitive to changes. 

Nigel, in the early days I wondered too if it was my mind playing with me because at that time I had seen no mention of this anywhere.... I had some favourite tracks, and I let someone swap the leads between switches without me knowing... I did indeed notice it, and the attributes were not so different to what you describe.

Now if you get curious and want to use some of the functional benefits of this managed switch, you will need to get a bit low level to configure it... which may or may not be an option for you.. you need some basic IT skills. Examples are improved performance from multicast discovery, and faster port activation such as waking up from sleep are examples. Incidentally the reason almost certainly the wakeup is taking longer is the switch goes through various loop protection checks before enabling the port (which you can turn off) ... in commercial/industrial networks blindly activating a port can be catatostrophic, in the home it usually doesn't matter.

PS I think your 8 port is optimal as they are silent, low power, compact and fanless... the larger 2960 switches have fans which means care needs to be taken where to place them because of noise.. as such often the smaller 8 ports paradoxically command slightly higher used prices...

This is completely bonkers....................or it's all in my imagination, whatever.

Been listening this afternoon, and the music seems to acquired a previously unheard sense of scale, more "authority", if you like.

So, it looks as if I'm following Nigel down the yellow brick road, firstly with (semi) posh ethernet cables, and now with an upmarket switch.

I'll still restore the original Netgear switch in a week or so, just to be sure I'm not deluded, but then, going back a few years, "what possible difference can mains cables make?"

It's all good, if a little puzzling. 

Got to try these things and see if they work. Looks like they do so good work Nigel / Dave in trying them 

Scale and authority. Exactly, and what a good description. 

The switch you are talking about is like this one? There are many models with different prices.