Why do I need a switch?

Over the last years also tried Fiber conversation with standard FMC as well as with EtherRegen and very new Sonore OM Deluxe V2 with Finisar SFPs and Farad Super3 with SR Purple fuse, Furutech inlet and a AQ Monsoon power cord, all devices connected to a Audioquest Niagara 5000. All Ethernet cabling is with AQ Diamond.

It definitely reduces noise and makes things more calm, darker/quiet background etc. 

Though when using the Network Acoustics Muon Pro things were even more organic and intense / emotional. 

Hm, so I guess clocking would be another step up - but instead of getting an external clock for the EtherRegen I would like to get a better switch with a high end clock build in which should be even more effective.

if you get any recommendations I am glad to hear  

@markush

What is the streamer and DAC you are using? The key to this is that performance is highly dependent on how high a quality your streamer is. The better your streamer the less dependent you are on switch’s… also the downstream components matter determining how highly resolving your system is.

For instance, I run my system from a wall wart WiFi extender and a very high end streamer. In this scenario an EtherGen did no improvement. As I have upgraded routers. There has been no sonic difference.

Thanks.

Everyone has differences in their systems and not surprisingly have differing results.  I try to normalize my streaming results by comparing it to my other sources.  I have four different sources now: Vinyl, CD, FLAC files stored on my music server and Qobuz.  I'll stay away from vinyl for now.  So on the digital side I am using a CD transport and separate DAC.  Then I have a music server with USB to the DAC.  I ripped my CD collection into FLAC files stored on my music server.  After trying a couple of different USB cables I'd say that my CD to FLAC files are very close in sound to playing my CD's directly.  I did some back and forth but mostly I like to listen to a song and then play it again from the other source.  I am satisfied that to me the music server and CD transport are very nearly the same.  I use ROON but do not use any oversampling or conversion.  I have ROON set as basically a pass through with PCM output to my DAC.  I tried DSD output with various filters but never sounded as good as direct PCM out.

When I started streaming I was using an ethernet cable from my router directly to the music streamer.  Streaming 16/44 was clearly less than CD quality.  Then I added a cheap network switch and heard some improvement.  Next, I tried FMC's and found fiber was a good upgrade in the sound.  The differences between streaming 16/44 and CD was getting smaller.  I took out the cheap network switch and found that was an improvement.  Next added the Finisar 1475 SMP's (these are the plug-ins found on the FMC boxes) and got a nice improvement.  At this point 16/44 streaming was very close to CD and hi-res FLAC files vs streaming hi-res was also very close.  Finally, I added the LHY SW-8 network switch after the Fiber and changed to Pangea ethernet cables.  I hear no difference now between spinning CDs, FLAC or streaming.  

@ghdprentice As a streamer I am using a LUMIN U2 Mini which is tuned with a Farad Super3 (purple fuse & furutech inlet with a AQ Dragon power cord) instead of the standard SMPS. The amplifier / DAC is a Devialet 440 Pro.
Between the LUMIN and the Etherregen there is the new Network Acoustics MUON Pro streaming system which is an additional improvement.
Having a system which is highly resolving I hear every slight change - so very much looking forward what area to address that will gain another uptick in sound quality.