Streaming, Getting the Signal, Then What?

@veemike 

You are making my life a bit easier ( also at 70 years of age ) as I am in the same situation and looking to improve my digital streaming environment with some solid gear in place - cabling, streamer, DAC.  I have watched a number of videos on this and sought out and read most of the posts here on potential routes to follow.  I cant offer advice yet but can confirm the path I am heading down as it follows a similar thread to what @tshark and the others you mentioned above have suggested.  My approach is three pronged with LPSU's, a switch/switches, and some type of filter.  I ordered last week an LHY LPSU for my router and am looking next to add a switch - something like the DLink or the Zyxel mentioned in the post above.  This is an inexpensive way to see how the switch works in the chain.  If this provides some improvement, I am than willing to invest in a switch such as the LHY SW6 or similar.  Lastly I will look at the various ethernet filters - something like the Etheregen, Smoothlan, or possibly a bit pricer Network Accoustics network filter.  Taking this approach I can see how each step impacts the streaming and its a somewhat minimal investment vs new components.  Not offering "coaching" but my 70 year thoughts as to what you are thinking through.  Good luck and thanks for the thread! 

I am over 70 as well and what I do not want to spend my time screwing around with electronics… and especially not the network (I was in IT most of my career). Just buy a better streamer. A great streamer will isolate you from the network. I have swapped enough routers and extenders and Ethernet regenerators. I just have great streamers. My Aurrender on my main system sounds as good as my great $45K vinyl leg. Life is too short to waste time stringing stuff together to improve the network (at least for me, I am not bored) when I can just have one good streamer.

@ghdprentice +1

all you need with a good streamer is basic solid network setup which is either hard wired from router, mesh or extender with a good Ethernet cable. I use amazon EERO with Purist Audio Ethernet cable and iFi LAN iSilencer passive filter between the Purist and Aurender N200. I keep the iFi filter in mostly because, inlike the fiber optic converters and the Network Acoustics Eno Streaming System that I owned, it doesn’t hurt anything and it’s cheap. Not even sure it improves sound quality as I’ve compared with and without numerous times and can barely tell it’s there on some recordings. 
The Purist Ethernet cable is a small but audible improvement in sound quality. Less so with Aurender than with other streamers I had due to Aurender caching data to its built in internal SSD that helps clean everything up.

But some people like to tinker with the network stuff as it’s a low hanging fruit that’s entertaining and cheap compared to getting a proper streamer. To each his own. 

Check out Small Green Computer and get an FMC bundle for $99 on sale now.  It turns your noisy cable into fiber optical that will clean up the noise.  A cheap solution that works.

@ghdprentice  Absolutely agree as a fellow 70 year old to your sage advice re getting a really good streamer.  You in fact influenced me earlier this year and I ended up investing more and upscaling my original plan - purchased an Aurender N200.  However, being a bit curious I am adding a quality LPSU to my router, which arrives next week.  I will be interested if I can hear any difference and report back.  Not a big investment but would urge those with an entry level streamer to put their dollars in upgrading at the streamer level first.