Where to Place Network Switch

My usual advice is to focus on wall warts and cable routing. Keep any power supplies (i.e. wall warts) for your network away from power you’ve cleaned with a conditioner and keep IC’s and power cables away from Ethernet cables. Of course, using separate AC circuits is ideal for network routers, laptop power supplies, etc.

Otherwise, beware of network sourced surges. One low voltage lightning surge through your cable modem and Ethernet infrastructure can take out most of your entertainment center. I wrote about this at some length here.

You should use your best ethernet cable between the switch and the streamer. And preferably that cable should be short. It’s all about preventing EMI/RTI ingress. Can you use the clock on the switch?

+1, @antigrunge2 

Keep it short and use your best LAN cable between switch and streamer.  You can try the Ansuz switch near router to see if it makes any difference to your TV, blu-ray or receiver. My money is on switch near the dCS DAC using the best LAN cable. I am using a mass produced switch with iFI wall wart for TV, Apple TV, Blu-ray off Amazon and it does the job well. 

https://a.co/d/2ECnJEW

@antigrunge2 

Interesting question.  Not sure if the dCS Lina clock can work on the switch.  I know the cabling ties directly into the Lina DAC.  I’ll have to research that some more.

If the goal is to limit or eliminate the EMI/RTI from the cable, would make sense to put the switch, which is supposed to clean that up, on the DAC side of the cable. Right?

Switch won’t clean anything up. Keep the switch out of your audio system. Run a long cable from switch then connect it to LAN galvanic isolator and from the isolator use a short high quality Ethernet cable into your Lina.