Article: SOtM sNH-10G Network Switch Review

[Archimago]

11 hours ago, firedog said:

I don’t know if devices like this make a difference or not. If you look at Archimago’s blog, he’s measured similar stuff that audiophiles think is important and found it to have no measurable effect. 
In any case, the SOTM devices and accompanying PS are quite pricey. If I was going to try this stuff, I’d go with less expensive products from Sonore or Uptone first. Assuming they do make a difference, I’d bet the result per dollar on them is a lot better than for the SOTM ones. Audiophilia is a classic area of diminishing returns, You get a lot of performance for lesser sums, and improving that performance tends to cost lots of money for very small increases in performance. And the more upscale a component is, the more you spend on cosmetics instead of performance. Nothing against cosmetics, but they don’t contribute to performance. 

 

Oh my...

 

There's this article from awhile back looking at the "noise" when plugging a Pi/DAC into a router vs. just WiFi.

 

Hmmm, maybe I'll try that one more time with my even better RME ADI-2 Pro FS ADC to see if I can detect any noise or distortions out to near 200kHz plugged into my 10GbE-capable switch ($200) in the next few weeks.

 

I have yet to see any company release data to back up claims that there's any extra noise being produced by a DAC when plugged into a wired ethernet (other than my experiment above which shows very minimal difference). Would be nice if SOtM produced some information as to what issue a >$1000 switch actually addresses? Then we can talk about facts and consider actual benefits instead of ruminate over vague claims?

 

Nonetheless, I do like the music suggestions used for the evaluation though...

[Archimago]

10 minutes ago, thyname said:

 

I have found that whatever he measures has no measurable effect. I am starting to think that whatever is measuring, with whatever measuring tool he is using, is totally irrelevant in Audio. To use a crude analogy: does measuring the sperm count matter for a patient with a heart disease?

 

Not true. There was a measurable difference as you can see in that post! And for most devices tested, there are actually differences I highlight - even between some cables! DACs easily show jitter differences.

 

What's more important is for folks to actually recognize that maybe... Just maybe... The power of the mind to produce and claim differences and attribution theories is way more powerful than what is actually there.

[Archimago]

7 minutes ago, incus said:

If you follow the various threads on this forum about clocking, re-clocking, phase noise, etc. I think you'll see that a) John Swenson appears to be building a measuring device capable of showing what he and the folks at Uptone are addressing with their switch and why, and b) this goes beyond the current ways one understands "noise" in a system. The way I look at it, streaming-based digital audio has ushered in a new era of research - subjective and objective - that cannot really be equated to older analog ways of looking at noise.

 

Bring it on.

 

Did Swenson even produce any of the promised measurements that he said he was going to from back in the day of the USB Regen (mid-2015)???