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Silent Angel Bonn N8 Audio Grade Ethernet Switch

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amirm

amirm

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I have a second such switch in its standard form. Compared in two systems. Many people want charts, numbers. What for? Do you have a calculator in your head?
If we had a calculator in our head, we would be all set. Instead, we have a mind with great imagination and inaccuracy. Fortunately when said mind sees real charts and graphs, it realizes it has made a mistake in its subjective assessment. In logical people of course. Many walk around denying hard data and believe in folklore.....
 
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amirm

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I respect any of your views on the bonn n8 and the like, but tonight in a comparative listening of the bonn n8 with a cheap tp link of € 35, the difference was huge in favor of the bonn n8. With better sound of course...
We believe it. Just repeat the test where you don't know which is which. Do the test 10 times and see if you guess correctly which is playing 8 or more times out of 10. You won't be able to because all the differences you think you heard is because you listened differently to each device.
 

evam1

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Το πιστεύουμε. Απλώς επαναλάβετε το τεστ όπου δεν ξέρετε ποιο είναι ποιο. Κάντε το τεστ 10 φορές και δείτε αν μαντέψετε σωστά ποια παίζει 8 ή περισσότερες φορές από τις 10. Δεν θα μπορέσετε επειδή όλες οι διαφορές που νομίζετε ότι ακούσατε είναι επειδή ακούγατε διαφορετικά κάθε συσκευή.
But that's exactly why I can distinguish the quality of each device: their difference! I think the number of 10 tests is too much, because the brain will make its own "games"
 
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amirm

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But that's exactly why I can distinguish the quality of each device: their difference! I think the number of 10 tests is too much, because the brain will make its own "games"
Not if the differences are real as you say.
 

Killingbeans

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But that's exactly why I can distinguish the quality of each device: their difference! I think the number of 10 tests is too much, because the brain will make its own "games"
Those games started the day you decided to buy the switch.
 

evam1

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Αυτά τα παιχνίδια ξεκίνησαν την ημέρα που αποφασίσατε να αγοράσετε το διακόπτη.
NO, testing first about 3 hours via qobuz, tidal (last night)!
 

Murmon

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Fortunately when said mind sees real charts and graphs, it realizes it has made a mistake in its subjective assessment.
Not about us at all! We listen with our ears..
 
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amirm

amirm

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Совсем не про нас! Мы слушаем ушами.
You didn't listen with just your ears. You listened with your eyes as well. Do the test where you don't know which is which and then you will learn the truth. Meanwhile, please make sure your messages are in English.
 

Murmon

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I have two Zyxel GS-108B v3. One of them has been changed. And yes, I have compared them several times in a blind test. First I set the clock, then added power to the board. I will soon remove the linear RS1117 and include it on the Ultra Low Noise board from NewClassD. Screenshot_2022-01-25-13-35-26_1.jpg
 
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Murmon

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Modified Zyxel GS-108B v3 and standard warmed up in five days. Listening to familiar songs for 15 minutes with switching only network (Audioquest CAT700 Forest White) wires. Connector 2 - streamer, connector 7 - router. The commutation was carried out by the son.
 

BDWoody

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Modified Zyxel GS-108B v3 and standard warmed up in five days. Listening to familiar songs for 15 minutes with switching only network (Audioquest CAT700 Forest White) wires. Connector 2 - streamer, connector 7 - router. The commutation was carried out by the son.

How many trials? Did he know what he was switching?
 

Murmon

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The trials five. Yes, the son soldered the components himself, so he clearly knows what he is doing.
Switches switched behind a wall. Then he announced the result. Each time, the detailed and at the same time analog handwriting of the modified switch was accurately guessed.
 
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BDWoody

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The trials five. Yes, the son soldered the components himself, so he clearly knows what he is doing.

I mean, if he did the switching, and he knew what he was connecting and when, you end up with the 'Clever Hans' problem.

 

Jinjuku

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This guys setup mirrors my suggestion of using JRiver Zones for comparison versus my other method of creating an 802.3ad setup feeding a single destination computer to DAC:

 
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amirm

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The trials five.
Five trials is insufficient. I have gotten that right but then hopelessly lost after that. You need to perform at least 10 trials and get 8 or more right.

Here is an example:
foo_abx 1.3.4 report
foobar2000 v1.3.2
2014/07/09 17:39:55

File A: C:\Users\Amir\Music\Arny's 30 Hz Jitter File\Arny's new files\no jitter.wav
File B: C:\Users\Amir\Music\Arny's 30 Hz Jitter File\Arny's new files\30 Hz jitter barely noticable level .015.flac

17:39:55 : Test started.
17:40:40 : 00/01 100.0%
17:41:30 : 01/02 75.0%
17:41:41 : 02/03 50.0%
17:41:52 : 03/04 31.3%
17:42:04 : 04/05 18.8%
17:42:19 : 05/06 10.9%
17:42:32 : 06/07 6.3%
17:42:46 : 07/08 3.5%
17:42:58 : 07/09 9.0%
17:43:12 : 07/10 17.2%
17:43:27 : 07/11 27.4%
17:43:42 : 08/12 19.4%
17:43:53 : 08/13 29.1%
17:44:15 : 08/14 39.5%
17:44:46 : 09/15 30.4%
17:45:00 : 10/16 22.7%
17:45:12 : 11/17 16.6%
17:45:30 : 12/18 11.9%
17:45:52 : 12/19 18.0%
17:46:23 : 13/20 13.2%
17:46:28 : Test finished.

----------
Total: 13/20 (13.2%)

I got 7 out of 8 right initially only to fail after that. Result is that 13% probably of chance which is well over 5% we target. In actuality, I like to get below 1% probability of chance seeing how people say the differences are obvious and real.

Make sure you don't see the actions, impressions, etc. of the person doing the switching. As Brad showed, you can fall victim to Clever Hans syndrome in single blind tests.
 

Markush

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@amirm When you say „The noise from the CPU and operating system activity is so much more significant than any switch upstream.“ you mean that the NAS running the ROON core for example is having a far greater impact?
 

radix

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@amirm When you say „The noise from the CPU and operating system activity is so much more significant than any switch upstream.“ you mean that the NAS running the ROON core for example is having a far greater impact?

Generally the audio player is a user-space application. This means that packets are received by hardware and put in a DMA queue. The operating system then, after some random delay, transfers the packet to the kernel memory. The packet then goes through a bunch of kernel network code (more random delay) and ends up in a memory queue to be transferred (usually copied) to an application. The application gets some signal from the kernel that there's memory to read (again more delay) and it copies the memory out of the kernel to user space (again more delay). The application can then decode the packet and process it (again more delay). Application processing, of course, is preemptive multiprocessing in user space, so there's more random delay. Then what does the user-space code do? It sends some other memory block back down into the kernel to be DMA transferred to a sound card, which again has at least 1 memory copy and 1 DMA (or other mechanism) to the hardware (could be USB transfer to DAC etc).

All of these delays are in micro-seconds, maybe even 10s or 100s of micro-seconds, from the time the last bit of a Ethernet frame is received in hardware to the time user-space code has turned around and delivered audio to the sound card.

If you are playing music via Roon from a NAS, remember that the NAS has its own operating system and random delays reading data and packetizing it to send to Roon, which then has the above process on the core and then another network transfer to the Roon bridge where there's that same process yet again.

Random timing between Ethernet bits just shouldn't come into play. The randomization between whole Ethernet frames is huge compared to that, and the random delays in kernel and user space apps is huger.

yes, there are some ways do to direct NIC to user space app transfers and cut out most of the kernel, but I don't think streamers and audio players are using those DPDK-like techniques.
 

Markush

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Thank you @radix very interesting! That I can imagine too - also the difference the various I/O Interfaces (HDD vs SSD) have.
So even though there is buffering on the operating system level / layer as well as on the software / app level (which is often claimed equals any differences jitter or timing differences cause including network traffic).

So in a chain of a NAS (QNAP) running ROON and streaming to a LUMIN as an endpoint which is connected to a Devialet (acting as a DAC and amp) what would be the area to address?
 
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