Pakedge or Cisco switch

The sq effects are subtle, and I believe any sq differences are down to the cleanliness  od f the physical sync clock on the send  pairs on the Ethernet segment and resultant coupled intermodulation noise.... so unless you are wanting to chase this .. I would be happy with what you have...

I was hoping you'd see this Simon. So it doesn't matter that my 272 and NAS are connected directly to my router ports and hence don't need a switch with more ports or would you go with the higher capacity switch.

thanks

I wouldn't want to argue with Simon on a network matter and anyway I think I am agreeing with him, but personally from a SQ point of view I don't think it makes any difference at all, or maybe it's very subtle and too subtle for me, but the only reason I would worry about plugging something into the router was if it affected discovery.

Having said that, connecting all the audio stuff into a switch and running that back to the router with one Ethernet cable is the best way to go I think, if it's reasonably easy to do.

best

David

There was a Cisco fad about a year ago. Catalyst 2960 IIRC. I bought one from eBay at about the going rate but moved it on quickly. It caused what I regarded as an unnatural selective emphasis in the treble in my system. It wasn't more detailed. Just voiced to emphasise parts of the mix which my ears thought over emphasised. Your results may vary. 

I don't understand how a switch affects SQ either. Any more than I (don,'t) understand how different brands of Ethernet cable can. But they do. What works for you, doesn't work for you or makes no difference to you, will be down to your room, system, ears and brain.  At least it's not a ruinously expensive experiment or an irreversible modification. And while you're twiddling, some ferrite cores are worth a punt.

jsaudio posted:

I was hoping you'd see this Simon. So it doesn't matter that my 272 and NAS are connected directly to my router ports and hence don't need a switch with more ports or would you go with the higher capacity switch.

thanks

Indeed, if connecting to the switch ports on your broadband router works fine, then carry on. As said above there were some cheaper consumer devices on the market and ISP bundles a few years back that didn’t process some TCP/IP protocols and functions correctly and features like multicast used for discovery didn’t work reliably... but because of the explosion of consumer gadgets and apps requiring these functions now, home network consumer devices tend to be far better behaved.

If you want to tweak and experiment with SQ, then by all means get a used catalyst 8 port switch... used they are not too expensive... and you can always sell on if no benefit for you.

i loaned one in the past , didn't notice any difference.   a few weeks ago i replaced the switch  with a cisco /Linksys  8 port switch/metal  small footprint , very small leds    excellent product      £  40