Network Switches

@lmcmalo  Thank you very much for contributing to this thread and topic. Your experience and perspective are helpful and valuable. I'm glad you posted!

I have (also) bypassed an 'audiophile' stand alone switch for my system. However, I have heard the results and contributions made by some of the 'audiophile' switches and fully understand the choice made and it's utility for those who go down that path. 

Like @sns I've invested in the power side, custom DC cabling, isolation (active and passive), grounding, etc. 

My personal experience with LAN cables is that they make a significant difference.

Your use of the word "delicate" is so apropos. : )

Looking forward to your further contributions.

- David.

Thanks @david.   The audio community has been fed many half truth for a long time about various digital issues.  A mix of skepticism and open mindness (i just made that up) is ‘a propos’.

Your experience about Ethernet cables is most interesting.   I can come up with multiple reasons why many things would change something: power cables, power regeneration or cleaners, any inter connect, any component, any settings, new Room couch, how warm devices are, how hot/cold the room is, and list goes on.

unfortunately I can’t make a theory about Ethernet cables unless they are not meeting CAT specs.     I built piles of switches and routers that sold for billions (not a typo).  I understand every details of how the sw, chips, hardware work together.  Not bragging, it’s my full time day job.

Now I’m not and ASR kind of dude.   Does not mean that because I don’t know or I can’t measure that it’s not happening.    I’m very curious about this issue now.    I would really love to have a chit chat with the fellows that design those audiophile switches, their spec sheets are not telling me much.

CAT 5/6 cables are a bit delicate though.  Some fancy enterprise switches have detection for bad cables.   Bad cables happen and do cause problems.   Mostly it happens at the connectors.   More to learn there is.

Ethernet cables matter and they impact sound quality in important ways. Only way to know is to try for yourself. Speculation and thinking won’t get you there. You must try. If your system is resolving enough and you care about tone, realism and other sonic characteristics, then you may appreciate the sonic impact.
I use Network Acoustics ENO ethernet cables and their ENO filter. Put both in your system and just listen. The improvement related to noise reduction was just fantastic for me.

Yes, switches also matter. I use the English Electric switch. Not as much improvement as the ENO products, but still important to me. I have an Innuos Zenith 3 server and it certainly responded to these network additions. The difference was not small for me. The end result removed some glare and smearing and helped my digital front end sound far more at ease and natural. Realism improved greatly as more and more noise was removed.


Like all things audio one has to try these in their own system and decide for themselves. No broad-brush statements saying they do nothing or everything are ever accurate in this hobby. To many complexities and variables are at play that we simply don’t fully understand.

I think it’s important we step back and realize just how little the entire human race actually knows about the topic of digital audio and how it relates to individual hearing. In the decades to come we will understand more,  but not right now. In addition, one person can only ever posses a very small percentage of the total knowledge currently available on a given subject (under 5% certainly). So the only way to really know for yourself is to try. To complicate things even further some of the products we try will work well, some not so well, and others not at all. Ha!

Perhaps it’s time to gain valuable empirical evidence with your mind wide open. I’m afraid there are no shortcuts to this experience based approach to digital audio.

Let me add this final comment. For me, me only, I find myself so engaged to my music that at times it brings me to tears connecting with both the emotions and intentions of the artists. This kind of realism and emotional impact only came about as I improved my digital front end. Everything matters, as they say, when it comes to digital. I’m intentionally curious and rather relentless in my quest for this emotional connection to music. Some call it passion.

Not all will share this passion. For them all of this switch and cable talk is nonsense and a chasing after the wind. This is understandable.