Ethernet - Analog/Digital Signal Clean Up

Much like Amirm, I have over 30 years networking experience. I installed my 1st Ethernet in 1987 , "thicknet" complete with vampire taps. The last 10 years or so I have focused on circuit emulation over packet based networks , primarily for the Power generation and distribution folks. Jitter & latency reduction does play a big role in certain circuit types such as teleprotection. But latency is not a factor in music streaming, and network  jitter  cannot  be a factor , as the I mentioned above , the ethernet frames are long gone by the time the data content is buffered, uncompressed and sent to the DAC.. The DAC clock , has nothing to do with the ethernet network, and  vice versa. Unless of course the streamer is doing some type clock recovery via synchronous ethernet , or RFC 1588. And I highly doubt that.  Of course this does not even take into account that some streamers are TCP based , and packets are arriving in clumps and are acknowledged. But, if you like the idea, or feel you hear a $600 difference, who am I to argue.

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@larry5729 Let’s not derail this conversation please as I feel it is beneficial for a lot of members of this community who stream and have systems/rooms/ears to not need a blind test to hear the difference. Also, power conditioners are not being discussed here. 

@scottfraser from EE standpoint a lot of things in high end audio will not make sense to you. In this particular example I’m not qualified to provide any scientific answers or explanation, I’d be just speculating and thinking out loud.  

I would encourage you do your research and do your own testing in your system to hear if there was any improvement and whether or not it’s worth the investment.

For me in my system the addition of fibre optic converters gave me a glimpse into what’s possible with the difference (positive) made to the overall sonic presentation.

I’d like to stay on topic guys, if we can please. I’m seeking opinions from people who had incorporated changes in their systems to overcome some of these challenges with streaming. 

@sns

@lalitk

makes sense with the streaming DAC. Not excluding the possibility that I will give it try at some point. I’m just hearing for the first time now what my system is capable of and apparently I haven’t reached the ceiling yet.

@audphile1, I’m a huge fan of the ENO Streaming System Ag because it is a passive filter and it does exactly what Rob Osborne and Rich Trussell at Network Acoustics said it would do. I have one network switch between my router and the ENO, and I’m about to add another because as you mentioned two switches are better than one.

When I was putting together my streaming system Rob answered all of my emails and gave me practical solutions for improving the SQ of my listening chain without me having to empty my bank account.