Changing to Digital and Audiophile Network Switch

[Nopiano]

Today, I am surprised to find out that Peter Swain sells EE8. Does he recommend or offer anything positive about it?

If I were a dealer I’d be happy to sell Chord cable products because they have something for every situation and are well liked. And it’s a high-margin product that helps keep me solvent. I’m not a great fan myself, though I happily used a purple Chord mains cable for many years.

 

[quinn_t]

If I were a dealer I’d be happy to sell Chord cable products because they have something for every situation and are well liked. And it’s a high-margin product hat helps keep me solvent. I’m not a great fan myself, though I happily used a purple Chord mains cable for many years.

My dealer also sells EE8, but he said to me that he does not personally want to know anything about it, and it’s up to me to keep it or return it in 3 months if I am not pleased.

Sure enough, it went back to the dealer in 3 months! it does not sound bad or anything like that, it’s just a regular switch, and I am not willing to pay a hefty price for it. A regular switch from Amazon cost around $20.

 

[Nopiano]

My dealer also sells EE8, but he said to me that he does not personally want to know anything about it, and it’s up to me to keep it or return it in 3 months if I am not pleased.

Sure enough, it went back to the dealer in 3 months! it does not sound bad or anything like that, it’s just a regular switch, and I am not willing to pay a hefty price for it. A regular switch from Amazon cost around $20.

I’m in the same boat. I use a Netgear switch that Linn and Lejonklou both approve of and that’s good enough for me!

 

[garn63]

The Zyxel switch (if reading the many reports) should offer a small gain in s/q & is available for only £17 ?

 

[StingRay]

My dealer also sells EE8, but he said to me that he does not personally want to know anything about it, and it’s up to me to keep it or return it in 3 months if I am not pleased.

Sure enough, it went back to the dealer in 3 months! it does not sound bad or anything like that, it’s just a regular switch, and I am not willing to pay a hefty price for it. A regular switch from Amazon cost around $20.

Who is your dealer?

 

[StingRay]

The Zyxel switch (if reading the many reports) should offer a small gain in s/q & is available for only £17 ?

Yes correct, they have a 5 port version which is even cheaper. I have the 108Bv3, it works well, improved the SQ and is very small, so easy to tuck away. Well worth trying.

 

[quinn_t]

Who is your dealer?

I intentionally left his name out from my previous post, but let’s say he used to be one of the largest Naim/Linn dealers in Southern California.

 

[Harryup]

Do you try out the network gear using any kind of power filtering?

 

[quinn_t]

Do you try out the network gear using any kind of power filtering?

I suspected that the issue of power supply or power filtering would be brought up here, and I am aware that people have been spending in excess of $10,000 on such devices such as Innuos Phoenix or Statement in order to achieve some questionable marginal SQ improvement !!!

I much prefer a simple approach to using the NGKDSM/3 optical ethernet, the simplest setup to achieve what’s needed, rather than go down the rabbit hole of spending thousands on some power supply to some switch with copper ethernet.

Some people may think that optical SFP modules sound different, or worse, but I trust what I hear, and I think the NG DSM/3 with the Cisco switch + optical sound superb.

PS: That’s said, nothing can sound more musical than a well setup LP12.

 

[quinn_t]

Btw, has anyone here tried HQPlayer NAA with USB in the NGKDSM/3? I use a Mac Mini + HQPlayer NAA + USB to up sample to 384k/24, and it sounds pretty good (to me) as well. Some can even compare HQ Player up sampling as good as the Chord Hugo M Scaler (if not better).
For some who do not have the NGKDSM/3, you can also try the SPDIF or Optical in with the HQPlayer software solution.