Good mid-price audiophile switches

The best part about the ER (IMO), is that you can hook up a 10mHz clock to it (bypassing the internal clock) and take it to the next level.

I too am awaiting the ERv2. It's been a stint but good things hopefully come to those that wait. Based upon what the original ER does? This should be a pleasant surprise with less restrictions. All at a still, reasonable price point.

Tom
 
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Ron
I personally have 2 switches, the ediscreation fibre box and switch( the former bringing the most impact) my ubiquity router has its own internal power supply so I could not use an LPS.
On hearing it, a friend added an LPS to his router and got a bump in sq
He used one of those $100 chinese units ( Marty played with these a few years ago)
I would get a couple of these and add them to both .. you can upgrade caps easily if but I think they perform quite well out if the box

Phil
 
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treitz3 said:
The best part about the ER (IMO), is that you can hook up a 10mHz clock to it (bypassing the internal clock) and take it to the next level.

I too am awaiting the ERv2. It's been a stint but good things hopefully come to those that wait. Based upon what the original ER does? This should be a pleasant surprise with less restrictions. All at a still, reasonable price point.

Tom
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I hope so too. But I must say that in our last tests in a fellow audiophile’s system, his system with an ER fed by a LPS did not sound as good as when it was replaced by an LHY SW6. No separate clock for either. Still, I have hopes for the ERv2.
 
For transparency? The internal clock I replaced in the ER was the Mutec REF 10 SE120. That brought things into another....

Tom
 
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treitz3 said:
The best part about the ER (IMO), is that you can hook up a 10mHz clock to it (bypassing the internal clock) and take it to the next level.

I too am awaiting the ERv2. It's been a stint but good things hopefully come to those that wait. Based upon what the original ER does? This should be a pleasant surprise with less restrictions. All at a still, reasonable price point.

Tom
Click to expand...
Have you used a clock for this purpose. I was wondering how fancy it needed to be to make an impact
 
tony22 said:
in our last tests in a fellow audiophile’s system, his system with an ER fed by a LPS did not sound as good as when it was replaced by an LHY SW6.
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Did not sound as good in what ways, exactly?
 
Ron Resnick said:
Did not sound as good in what ways, exactly?
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No real changes in tonality, FR, spatiality, dynamics. It was in the area of what I’ve been calling “unheard noise” (copyright :)). That feeling there’s something there keeping the music from breaking away from the machinery, that you don’t know is there until it’s gone. You can often get a sense of that in power cable changes as well, for some reason. I think in one way or another it somehow comes down to noise. There was less of that with the SW6. It made as all feel the music was having an easier time flowing in the room. Slight, but noticeable.
 
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tony22 said:
No real changes in tonality, FR, spatiality, dynamics. It was in the area of what I’ve been calling “unheard noise” (copyright :)). That feeling there’s something there keeping the music from breaking away from the machinery, that you don’t know is there until it’s gone. You can often get a sense of that in power cable changes as well, for some reason. I think in one way or another it somehow comes down to noise. There was less of that with the SW6. It made as all feel the music was having an easier time flowing in the room. Slight, but noticeable.
Click to expand...
Thank you!
 
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pjwd said:
Have you used a clock for this purpose. I was wondering how fancy it needed to be to make an impact
Click to expand...
Besides the Mutec? I used an Afterdark clock. Mid level.

Tom
 
IMO/IME, noise is THE single most detrimental thing to enter into a signal. One does not know this, until it's gone. I cannot stress this point enough.

Tom
 
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There is a bunch of ethernet filters coming out, most thankfully reasonably priced. The best one I have tried is the Stack Audio SmoothLAN. Its only $255 USD, and the improvement as large as moving to the LHY SW6 switch itself. So a bargain really.
 
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audiobomber said:
Were you using fiber or ethernet cables? I found quite a difference in fiber vs. copper with the SW-10, in favour of fiber.
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At the time of testing, my system was (still kinda is...) Ethernet only.
Our external line is fiber, but our provider uses an ONT box to convert optical to Ethernet since the stock router is Ethernet input only.
The funny thing is that the router has an SFP output, which I have used when I had the SW10 and SW6 feeding either one with mixed results.
That could have been the effect of that particular SFP use case though.
Bridging the two switches via fiber was definitely much better than having them connected via Ethernet, but in my use case it was not possible to effectively determine if that was due to bridging the switches or due to the effects of fiber alone or even both.
Using either switch on its own or both switches bridged and connected via fiber instead of my PhoenixNET plus SOtM isolator combination was still not as good (less natural...not as ease-full...).
Using either switch just after my router, instead of the non-audio switch I use, was certainly "better" but not enough to justify an upgrade but I guess the effect of having the above mentioned combo after either switch must not have been insignificant either.
However, both switches performed very well.
In comparison with a stock SOtM sNH-10G (no clock upgrade - fed by an sPS-500) the SW6 was clearly better on all aspects.
LHY audio have also released an FMC unit which is also very interesting: https://www.beatechnik.com/fmc and I'd like to give that a spin too.
My layman's take on all this is that we are in a transitioning period and the right blend of noise reducing technologies is not yet offered as a complete package.
And while Ethernet filters do a lot for reducing noise affecting the timbre of music, switches do the same for dynamics, bass and physical presence, with fiber providing clarity and speed and better clocks transparency and flow.
So, one would still have to experiment with optimal solutions according to their particular use case.​
 
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tony22 said:
I wonder how one of these would compare to the highly regarded (and more costly) MUON Pro.
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Be great if it was competitive but at 7x the price the Muon should win. But compared to the cheaper ENO (which is still 3x the price) some people on Audiogon liked the SmoothLAN better, while others liked the ENO.
 
I was reading above and interested in the LHY FMC. My FMC is a standard TP-Link. Like someone else posted running it off a battery pack, mine has been running off a SoTM 9v battery unit for 6 or 7 years. This SoTM unit has two batteries inside, one charging and the other supplying current, they are isolated and switch automatically. The batteries are replaceable, only needed to change them once so far.

The SoTM is is the only audiophile component in my audio network. I had a Fidelity Audio switch/reclocker before the streamer, but took it out a few days ago (I put an EMO isolator in its place as it was lying around) and don't miss it.

The entire infrastructure cost about £935, of which about half was specifically for audio and the rest I needed anyway. The most useful thing is the UXG Controller, which creates a VLAN for my main audio system, comprising two ports (1xRJ45, 1xSFP) isolated from the rest of the network. Those ports are for the fibre and the media library.

As this is enterprise level and mostly either from a Ubiquiti authorised dealer or Amazon, and the sound quality is totally satisfying, I'm wondering why I would ever need any audiophile components.

Red is power, blue is data.

p.s. I don't use Roon in my main system, I use it around the house in 8 zones. So the QNAP is currently not on the main audio system network, but it could be if needed, as they can run on up to 4 networks.



Audio network copy.jpg
 
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agisthos said:
Be great if it was competitive but at 7x the price the Muon should win. But compared to the cheaper ENO (which is still 3x the price) some people on Audiogon liked the SmoothLAN better, while others liked the ENO.
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I wonder. Would it be better, or just different?
 
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ssfas said:
I was reading above and interested in the LHY FMC. My FMC is a standard TP-Link.
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I was running the TP-Link MC220L with iFi X power supply into my EtherRegen. I upgraded to the opticalModule Deluxe v2, because of discussions on Audiophile Style about how much of an improvement it was versus the previous oMD.

Due to the Covid chip shortage, the latest version of the oMD required a new chip, which turned out to be much more capable than the original. I suspect this new chip will also show up in the ER v2, since both are designed by John Swenson. The difference between the oMD and the TP was a revelation.
 
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If you are just using one port on the switch, Edison of Ediscreation would recommend the Fiberbox II instead of a switch, though he makes both. Come standard with LPS built in but can be further upgraded. Fiberbox II is about $1000 shipped. Mine is burning in now, haven’t tried any audio through it and won’t till next week.
 
One more vote for the Muon Pro Ethernet Cabling system. It is awesome in every musical aspect
 
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audiobomber said:
I was running the TP-Link MC220L with iFi X power supply into my EtherRegen. I upgraded to the opticalModule Deluxe v2, because of discussions on Audiophile Style about how much of an improvement it was versus the previous oMD.

Due to the Covid chip shortage, the latest version of the oMD required a new chip, which turned out to be much more capable than the original. I suspect this new chip will also show up in the ER v2, since both are designed by John Swenson. The difference between the oMD and the TP was a revelation.
Click to expand...
The promo material talks about "dirty internet" coming in. I have fibre running from close to my modem. Sonore do not have UK distribution.
 
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