Networking Logic - Intro

tuga

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Yes. It’s part of my network, so wonder if it would benefit from a better power supply?
You will do better by putting a switch between the router and your streamer than feeding the router with a 'clean' supply (you might be able to use the LPS on the switch).
 
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Nestor Turton

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Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think boutique network switchers for their hifi are a pretty neat idea

With apologies to the late great Douglas Adams

I spent rather a long time working on bespoke network switch design and the claims made by Innuos seem no less strange than the techniques expounded in the link below. I have heard some of Innuos products and they are still off my shopping list. Perhaps others can hear the claimed improvements, but playing a digital remaster version of The Mothers of Invention's third album no improvements were apparent.

Please click for free sound improving techniques

In the end if you prefer the buzz of a linear PSU to the nice quiet SMPS in your Benchmark, Linn or Chord kit then it's a free world and if you enjoy the music then that is all that counts. I use Power over Ethernet to light up my HP switches.

I'm no longer in search of the lost chord because when I play the Moody Blues I am sure I have already found it. Most system receive bit perfect data and then regenerate and process it and leave all the nasty noise behind adding no doubt a bit of their own - well that's my take, but I'm just a singer in a rock n roll band.
 
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Nestor Turton

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You will do better by putting a switch between the router and your streamer than feeding the router with a 'clean' supply (you might be able to use the LPS on the switch).
Agree - except for the linear PSU. Use a decent SMPS or PoE and avoid big magnetic field inducing transformers - works for me. I've posted the link to Benchmark Media's explanatory note before, but it's here for those interested https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/ap...audio-myth-switching-power-supplies-are-noisy
 
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Billz

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You will do better by putting a switch between the router and your streamer than feeding the router with a 'clean' supply (you might be able to use the LPS on the switch).
I said in my first post that I had a switch with an upgraded power supply. I am looking for a recommendation of a good power supply for my BT router.
 

JustinTime

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In the end if you prefer the buzz of a linear PSU to the nice quiet SMPS in your Benchmark, Linn or Chord kit then it's a free world
There’s noise… and there’s noise!

I much prefer the cleaner sound from my system when avoiding most SMPS. A light hum from the LPS when I have my head 12” away is irrelevant as this is not my listening position for music appreciation.
 

JustinTime

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I said in my first post that I had a switch with an upgraded power supply. I am looking for a recommendation of a good power supply for my BT router.
IFi iPower as a minimum; probably SBooster if you are looking at LPS.
 

tuga

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I said in my first post that I had a switch with an upgraded power supply. I am looking for a recommendation of a good power supply for my BT router.
Sorry, I misread. You don't need a good power supply for your BT router. Spend your money on an Intona Ethernet or USB filter instead.
 
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rabski

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Agree - except for the linear PSU. Use a decent SMPS or PoE and avoid big magnetic field inducing transformers - works for me. I've posted the link to Benchmark Media's explanatory not, but it's here for those interested https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/ap...audio-myth-switching-power-supplies-are-noisy
You will find as many manufacturers stating the opposite. The cynic in me also wonders whether manufacturers may just be slightly swayed by the not inconsiderable other benefits of SMPS, such as easy compliance with standards, lower cost and universality of input voltage.

I'm certainly not suggesting that SMPS is inherently bad, nor that linear supplies are inherently good. Both have their issues and it's possible to find well-designed examples of both. Sadly, it's far easier to find poorly designed or implemented SMPS though.
 

JustinTime

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I refer the learned gentleman to my last comment . You can state , tell and insist all you like . I ask again have either of you borrowed or bought a unit and listened to it ? If not the you do not know if the claims are accurate or not . If it makes a positive difference in sound then we are just not measuring the right things . I have no way of arguing about your belief that the clock does it does not make a difference . But if the unit sounds better then something makes a difference . My router sounds different if I use an SMPS or LPSU power supply .I prefer the LPSU but according to measurements it makes no difference . I know because I did it . So whose right ? In my case in my system with my music and my ears I am , only way to really say any different is to listen to it yourself and hear .
I don’t think we’re necessarily as far apart as you think (indeed @tuga and I are in very different places on the subjectivist-objectivist spectrum). I often try stuff and then sometimes try to work out how it can make the difference I hear. I don’t always insist on logic or “evidence” before I even try stuff. I have my limits as we all do of course.

I don’t think anyone (except perhaps the venerable @Nestor Turton ?) is saying an ethernet clock can’t possibly make a sonic difference and if folk were to do as you suggest they might well hear it for themselves. The only point there is disagreement on is the possible mechanism(s?) through which it might make the difference which is heard. For me it could be noise or vibration or whatever; the only thing I’m ruling out is ethernet clock accuracy. It’s not being a flat-earther to do this.
 

tuga

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I don’t think we’re necessarily as far apart as you think (indeed @tuga and I are in very different places on the subjectivist-objectivist spectrum). I often try stuff and then sometimes try to work out how it can make the difference I hear. I don’t always insist on logic or “evidence” before I even try stuff. I have my limits as we all do of course.

I also try stuff, for example I have a ferrite bead in my (Lindy) USB cable, a Y-USB adapter which decouples the 5V from the computer/bridge and allows you to inject power from a 'quiet' PSU if your DAC needs it for the handshake, a network bridge, a 'quiet' LPSU for the network bridge, a switch between router and the rest of the digital playback system. I've owned single-drive speakers, Tripath and op-amp amplifiers, NOS Redbook, I've even tried acoustic crosstalk cancellation as below :ROFLMAO:
But I like to keep things rational, apply logic (as much as possible), improve what matters in ways which can be improved.
I don't try stuff just for the sake of it, and I only replace audio equipment when I know what I wan't to improve and have reasonable rounds to believe that the replacement is an improvement.

xc6zNln.png
 

tuga

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I don’t think anyone (except perhaps the venerable @Nestor Turton ?) is saying an ethernet clock can’t possibly make a sonic difference and if folk were to do as you suggest they might well hear it for themselves. The only point there is disagreement on is the possible mechanism(s?) through which it might make the difference which is heard. For me it could be noise or vibration or whatever; the only thing I’m ruling out is ethernet clock accuracy. It’s not being a flat-earther to do this.

I remember discussing with The Flash that his Mutec external clock might be improving the performance of his DAC by 'filtering' noise rather than addressing jitter.
 

bencat

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I agree that there is always the possibility that a change of clock does nothing . I am also in close agreement that it may well be other changes up grades and set ups that are making the difference . I am only against the dismissal of something without even trying it . Yes I also have my limits with this and some of the stupid foo that gets passed off in the market place . Innous and others including Denafrips , Mutec and others are all quite serious companies and while they may charge more than they need to for items they are putting their reputations on the line for the work they are doing . In order to seriously comment that what they are doing is none sense and can not possibly have any effect then someone needs to have tested and tried it . If not then you can certainly state that in your personal view these sort of tweaks or upgrades are unlikely to work and have any impact on sound quality . But until you have listened and tested this with the actual unit you can not say this with any certainty .
 

tuga

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I agree that there is always the possibility that a change of clock does nothing . I am also in close agreement that it may well be other changes up grades and set ups that are making the difference . I am only against the dismissal of something without even trying it . Yes I also have my limits with this and some of the stupid foo that gets passed off in the market place . Innous and others including Denafrips , Mutec and others are all quite serious companies and while they may charge more than they need to for items they are putting their reputations on the line for the work they are doing . In order to seriously comment that what they are doing is none sense and can not possibly have any effect then someone needs to have tested and tried it . If not then you can certainly state that in your personal view these sort of tweaks or upgrades are unlikely to work and have any impact on sound quality . But until you have listened and tested this with the actual unit you can not say this with any certainty .

I and others are only dismissing the benefits of a 'better' clock in a specific application which is data transfer (computer network equipment).
As for trying, to be meaningful/valid you'd need to have the exact same switch with a regular clock and the 'better' clock. Since no such thing can be had, there's no way of knowing/determining if the audible or measured improvement comes from the 'better' clock, the 'better' PSU, the dedicated circuit, all three or a combination of two... But fret not because the switch only deals with data packets, not the digital audio data-stream.
 
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bencat

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Again statements as if they were facts . Any switch which has a switch can have that switch removed and replaced with a higher quality clock and then can be compared to a standard unit with the original clock . Just because it may be difficult and time consuming does not mean that it can not be done . Until it is then no real life conclusions can be made and only guesses based on partial measurements .
 

JustinTime

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Again statements as if they were facts . Any switch which has a switch can have that switch removed and replaced with a higher quality clock and then can be compared to a standard unit with the original clock . Just because it may be difficult and time consuming does not mean that it can not be done . Until it is then no real life conclusions can be made and only guesses based on partial measurements .
If “higher quality” means quieter, we agree; if it means more accurate we don’t.
 

tuga

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Again statements as if they were facts . Any switch which has a switch can have that switch removed and replaced with a higher quality clock and then can be compared to a standard unit with the original clock . Just because it may be difficult and time consuming does not mean that it can not be done . Until it is then no real life conclusions can be made and only guesses based on partial measurements .

Well, if I send you a Zyxel same model as my own, could you replace the clock with a 'better' one so that I can compare the two?
 

Blackmorec

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If a linear power supply produces a different sound to a switch-mode one but measures the same, then the wrong things are being measured. The main problem with SMPS is not the power they produce or any noise on the output (at least, not with a properly designed one). It's because they inherently inject some muck onto the incoming mains and the ground and often radiate high frequency EMF. The benefit of using a linear supply may therefore relate to the effects on other parts of the system, rather than on the actual item being powered.
Hi rabskiiii (its the only way spell checker will leave it alone)
My system is absolutely allergic to SMPSs, yet my amps are as fully SMPS’d as it gets and they work brilliantly. It’s not SMPSs per-se, it’s the cheap-as-chips consumer grade, 12 for a 100 bucks supplies that come in/with consumer grade network electronics that sound crap for all the reasons you give and at least ONE MORE. Every power supply in the network contributes its identity to the final sound you hear. Whether that identity comes from a $10 SMPS or a $3000 supply really matters and the difference between one and the other is HUGE….beyond transformational, when the rest of the network allows those differences to get to the end point.
 

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