Why do I need a switch?

OP - Do you have a CD transport? Have you compared the same title/version of a CD with the streamed file to see if you can hear the difference?

I am streaming with my ASUS laptop gaming computer hooked up with an inexpensive USB cable to my PSA PerfectWave Mk II DAC. The computer is receiving its signal by WiFi. According to conventional audiophile wisdom, this setup should sound terrible.

I also have a PSA PerfectWave Transport hooked up to the same DAC. If I play a track from a CD and then stream the same version they sound identical. I have done this at least a dozen times and the results are consistent.

Does anyone think that the streamed track will ever sound better than the same track played from a CD (through the same DAC)? Every time I read reports of our audio brothers spending thousands of dollars on digital tweaks I want to know if they have ever compared their streaming setup with the corresponding CD. Does their streamed version sound clearly inferior to the CD? Is this why they are adding hardware, cables, and expensive streamers to their system? After they spend the big bucks, does their streamed music sound better than the CD?

CD playback has been optimized for sound quality for 50 years. It is relatively simple and straightforward compared to streaming. They both play the same original file. The difference is that the streamed file has been folded, stapled, split apart, knitted back together, and abused in countless ways before it reaches your DAC. Can anyone explain to me how a streamed file would ever sound better than the original CD played through the same DAC? When audiophiles spend tens of thousands of dollars on their streaming setup are they simply trying to match the quality of playing a CD through a decent quality transport? If that's the case then why did they go with streaming in the first place if they really care about sound quality?

Before you spend the time and money tweaking things like digital switches, my recommendation is to get a handle on how your streaming quality compares to CD playback. If you don't have a transport you can pick one up for a reasonable cost. Then, if you decide to add esoteric digital equipment to your streaming setup you can check the SQ effect with each "upgrade." My guess is that if you do this you will quickly find that the digital signal is quite robust and that if you compare to a standard (CD playback) you will determine that adding things like switches don't make a perceptible difference.

Using some sort of control - in this case CD playback - is critical to making SQ judgements IMO.

@erik_squires  nothing has changed, I said the same thing then as I say now, there is no need for these Ethernet filters, they do not do anything for audio at all. Never will. 
 

the standard you are referring to specifically states what it is for, to prevent current leakage that could take life preserving equipment offline. And your filters are for equipment that doesn’t have it built in. At no point will it improve the signal, and the standard certainly doesn’t state that. 

oh man here we go again... 🙄

I added a high end Ethernet cable which feeds my Aurender. The claim was that this cable minimized noise, but I believe that the N20 input is galvanically isolated, so in theory, the expensive last few feet of Ethernet cable should have been a waste of money, but at the time I thought it improved the sound. I’ll need to replace it with a cheap cable and see if it makes the same difference after I have lost my return privileges.

BTW “snake oil” is the mother’s milk of politics and it has been used to control the masses for thousands of years.  So, a bit of audio snake oil is more amusing than a serious issue.

At no point will it improve the signal, and the standard certainly doesn’t state that.

Not an argument I ever made, except in the cases of shielded Ethernet, in which case I could see only grounding one end as being a good idea.