Ethernet cable from LAN Switch and playing local files

[ken6217]

Man, I couldn't come up with a Topic name without it being a paragraph. LOL.

 

I have an ethernet cable from my router to my Aqvox AQ-Switch SE. Then ethernet to my NUC, and then USB into the DAC. I can understand hearing different sound quality when I stream Tidal and Qobuz when changing ethernet cables, or plugging the Aqvox from my Hubbell to Furetech outlets. But why would I also hear a difference when playing files from the SSD in my NUC? 

 

When playing local files, the only thing that is traveling via ethernet are my commands telling my NUC what to play via my iPad , but the music goes only travels USB, as opposed to streaming which first travels ethernet before it hits the NUC and DAC.

 

Thanks!

 

 

[Blackmorec]

Hi ken6217,

 

When you change something on your network and you hear a +ve difference in the sound of local files it means that you are preventing noise from entering the system via your network, benefitting the sound of the entire system 

I heard the same thing. I made some fairly major improvements to remote streaming to the point I thought it must have overtaken locally streamed files, only to find the improvements had uplifted the entire system.  

[ken6217]

Hi,

Thanks for the comments. It’s really amazing how all of these changes affect the whole system. 

[Nenon]

Start playing your local files and unplug your network cable. Wait a little bit... do you hear a difference? If you do, you have heard the positive effect of removing the noise entering your computer through your network port. 

 

[ken6217]

Yep, I did. Amazing. 

[Nenon]

Cool. What are you planning to do to fix this?

You may benefit from optical isolation - fiber media convertors like the Sonore OpticalModule or even some cheaper ones work great. There are some medical grade Ethernet filters like the Baaske MI 1005 that can potentially help. There is the gigafoil v4 isolator too. A JCAT NET Femto card also works great with or without some of the other methods. Network cables where the shielding is not connected to both ends typically work better in those situations. 

There are many ways to fix that... I have settled on an EtherREGEN switch with a JCAT NET Femto NIC and an AudioQuest Vodka ethernet cable for now. 

[ken6217]

It was fixed to begin with. I was just wondering why local files benefited from fixing ethernet. 
 

My setup is Ethernet cable into my AQVOX SE switch, and then short Ethernet cable into an EMO EN-70E isolater into a SOtM dCBL-CAT7 Ethernet cable with filter into my NUC running Euphony software. 
 

Then USB from the NUC into Empirical Audio Offramp 5 USB/SPDIF converter into Metrum Pavane DAC via AES/EBU cable.