Installed a new switch today

Audio Systems
55

I think this one explains it all:

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56

Thanks Erno! I hadn’t seen that particular post from Brian before!

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57

Brian is a genius!

Everyone interested in Roon, how it is working, and why so, should save this document for future reading, or even print it and hang above your bed :smile:

Roon RAAT.pdf (135.6 KB)

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58

Indeed, both Brian and Danny are among the best in the industry IMHO; they’re been doing network based Audio streaming for a very long time (I was on the verge of acquiring a Sooloos system just before Meridian acquired them).

Speaking of which, not to open another can of worms, but I’m curious on your personal take, subjective or otherwise, on the whole dCS DAC Mosaic/UPnP vs. Roon/RAAT sound quality debate? Care to weigh in publicly (or not, your choice, no pressure :rofl:).

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59

Maybe this belongs to a separate topic, but I never use Mosaic for music playback because I prefer the convenience of Roon. For the rest, I am with this:

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60

Ahhh, makes sense, especially given your souped-up Roon core :+1:t2:

Not sure it warrants a separate thread though; there will always be a fringe few who don’t quite get something right in their set-up (or are over-imaginative :rofl:) and hear a difference despite such a clear statement of fact from dCS;

61

We both referred to the same post :grinning:

Over the years home audio has shifted from analogue to digital. From vinyl, cassette and tape to streaming, and DAC. From physical media connection to abstract. From media you can hold, see, and manipulate to just consume. All progress in SQ comes at a cost. To get it right asks for more knowledge.

To be honest, back in the days, I enjoyed listening to analogue music actually even more than I do now. Despite the improved SQ.

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62

I know that feeling. For me, it’s not 100%, but there were definitely times in my youth, when I first got into hifi, that the fun trumped the SQ. Now, as good as the SQ is, some of that fun is more ephemeral. I remember the joy of saving enough money for a few new LPs, and listening to them over and over. Now, I can play almost anything anytime anywhere. As good as my systems are, I probably still have the most fun with music in the car. The SQ at home is amazing. The music in the car sounds very good, though not as good, but I listen just for fun.

You know that old joke between musicians about audiophiles: “ordinary people listen to your music with their equipment; audiophiles listen to their equipment with your music.”It’s beguiling.

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63

This! My latest car came standard with a fancy sound system and it sounds damn good. Special bonus - when I play EDM at full volume and bury the throttle it’s like a Fast and Furious movie!

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64

so true
you may forget your first girlfriends name but you’ll never forget your first hifi gear :wink: and what fun that was


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65

Because test gear, especially with a pure tone, has little to do with how we hear music.

If you choose to believe an audio analyzer tells you everything you need to know, so be it; from my experience it’s a crude tool at best.

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66

It’s also an old canard rolled out to make fun of audiophiles that has little to do with the truth.

Yes, there are some that do as stated but that’s no more the norm than people with ears who actually believe all CD players sound the same and you should buy on features.

67

Well, it may be “crude” to you, but along with multi-tone tests and other current measurement techniques, it’s still able to very easily debunk every audiophoolery out there. :laughing:

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68

“Debunk” meaning if you can’t measure it, you will never admit to hearing it, and if that works for you, you do you.

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Debunk as in prove objectively beyond any doubt - we can measure galaxies 33 billion light years away, and the mass of the Higgs Boson. We can certainly measure the sounds from your HiFi. The only thing we can’t measure is the Audiophile’s vivid imagination. :rofl:

In any case, we digress. Would be good to see some real new commentary about the topic at hand - comparing Ethernet Switches - rather than useless generalities over and over again.

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70

I see that Anup and Ermos have replied covering that so if there’s anything else you need just shout


BR

Phil

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71

The thing is, we don’t understand our sense of hearing any more than we understand any of our other sensors.

We can come up with digital sensors to do just about everything except reproduce the signals any of our organs actually send to the brain, so there’s an incredible amount we simply don’t know.

We can only “hear” down to 20 Hz, but why do sounds below 20 Hz affect our perception of space? Is it purely a sensory by feel nature, or is there something else? We don’t know, and no one’s funding the research.

We can predict some aspects of human emotion, but we can’t predict emotion. Despite their being innumerable medications on the market, we don’t understand how depression works, or how to kill cancer cells without also doing a good job of killing the patient by blasting both with radiation.

We can measure the mass of the Higgs Boson, but is light a wave or particle? “It depends on if it’s being measured and how.”

Those for whom measurements mean ALL can’t be accepting of much of quantum mechanics.

The bottom line is we’ve become very skilled at measuring things we know how to measure, but not as skilled at measuring things for which measurements do not tell all, and it’s clear what audio analyzers measure between 20 Hz - 20 KHz are not all that goes into how we hear and what affects our perception of soundstage and our sense of space and reproduction of it.

Measurements mean a lot, but they haven’t explained why some gear that measures extremely well sounds horrible and other gear that doesn’t measure all that well sounds absolutely heavenly. :man_shrugging:.

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72

For many other sensory pleasures of life, how can they be measured? Can you measure that one vintage wine is better than another, or one painting is better than the rest?

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Exactly. Attempting to measure subjective responses is pretty useless IMHO. :laughing:

In any case, bringing the discussion back to the topic of audible impact of Ethernet Switches
 I think fundamentally there are really only 2 questions;

  1. Whether or not noise and/or jitter emanating from Ethernet Switches can somehow make its way to, or otherwise impact, the analog output of a particular Streamer/DAC, such that it’s audible.

  2. Do the results of 1. from one particular Streamer/DAC automatically apply to every other Streamer/DAC?

The tests conducted by AA addresses 1., but without measuring the DAC’s output, it’s really half-done. Other than AA I’ve only seen two other attempts tackle this objectively.

As for 2. like practically every piece of equipment, I’m 100% certain YMMV applies :grin:

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74

Imperfect comparisons at best. But they illustrate an interesting point. We can both taste the identical wine and reach different (subjective) conclusions. And we can recognize that some people are able to discern (accurately) what grapes and yeast went into its making, while others are clueless but still “know what they like.” We can both see the same painting and reach different (subjective) conclusions. And again, some people can instantly identify the artist, period, and even paint pigments used, while others cannot. And we can both listen to the very same audio system and reach different subjective and objective conclusions about it. All perfectly natural.

But when one changes an element of the evaluation, e.g., switches from Riedel glassware to another brand, and purports to taste the difference in the wine, then a very different perception process has happened. And that process is known to be subject to human cognitive bias. If one doesn’t take steps to remove or blunt that bias, one cannot know with any degree of certainty if one is actually tasting a difference or not.

Again, this is a hobby, and I fully support the tweaky nature of our hobby(itself a source of pleasure for many independent of the music), and every person’s right to spend their money how they see fit. More importantly, I believe each of us hears what we say we hear. My listening auditions of dCS equipment had no ability nor made any effort to remove cognitive bias. My addition of Vivaldi Clock, and then the Kronos1 Reference Clock didn’t even involve comparative listening until after the fact. My lengthy evaluation of Black Cat clock cables could not completely remove cognitive bias, but I made an effort to blunt it. But in each case, I know what I heard—or didn’t. :wink:

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