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Silent Angel Bonn N8 Audio Grade Ethernet Switch

AudioSceptic

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Adding a switch between a dac and nas really doesnt reflect the typical home use setup where multiple devices may be simultaneously bouncing traffic through a hub/ router.

We have 3 phone, 3 laptops and a tablets plus pi and dac on our home network.

Take a look at the traffic on your network, if you have no lost packets, all good. If you do maybe a reconfiguration with static ip for the audio stuff and a managed switch might actually help eliminate collisions and lost packets.

It's certainly not going g to help in a 3 point music only network. So why test that way.

Identify an issue exists, then address it, dont proclaim an item is useless when you've only tried it in a no fault system.
The issue is not that a switch might be beneficial in some cases, it is that the concept of an overpriced "audiophile" ethernet device is nonsense in itself.
 

sq225917

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Yes but you dont disprove the audiophile bullshit by testing a zero need case, you do it testing the audiophile version and standard rated products against each other in a confirmed need case.

I'm 100% anti foo, I just happen to dislike equally bad testing just as much.
 

Hugo9000

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I don't normally bother posting on these topics, since it's all so silly and everyone in audio forums seems to be going about this all wrong.

Don't all "real audiophiles" have a dedicated internet connection solely for their music streaming service? And a separate service for browsing the internet, etc. (Remember that if you have subscriptions to multiple streaming services, you must have a separate internet service provider and path for each one, well-isolated from each other.)

Maybe that's the real problem, these audiophile wannabes are trying to use one internet connection for everything. How lame! If they had a dedicated connection for audio only, they wouldn't need the 'band-aid' of these cheesy 'regen' or 'isolation' devices. hahahahaha!

I'd bet those audiophiles who sensibly get their own transformer from the power company know better. :cool:

:D:D:D
 

Soniclife

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I don't normally bother posting on these topics, since it's all so silly and everyone in audio forums seems to be going about this all wrong.

Don't all "real audiophiles" have a dedicated internet connection solely for their music streaming service? And a separate service for browsing the internet, etc. (Remember that if you have subscriptions to multiple streaming services, you must have a separate internet service provider and path for each one, well-isolated from each other.)

Maybe that's the real problem, these audiophile wannabes are trying to use one internet connection for everything. How lame! If they had a dedicated connection for audio only, they wouldn't need the 'band-aid' of these cheesy 'regen' or 'isolation' devices. hahahahaha!

I'd bet those audiophiles who sensibly get their own transformer from the power company know better. :cool:

:D:D:D
And don't forget to use an audiophile ISP.
 

Jinjuku

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Yes but you dont disprove the audiophile bullshit by testing a zero need case, you do it testing the audiophile version and standard rated products against each other in a confirmed need case.

I'm 100% anti foo, I just happen to dislike equally bad testing just as much.

Here is the way to test. The Tin Ear can listen blind and someone else can swap the cables.

 

AudioSceptic

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Yes but you dont disprove the audiophile bullshit by testing a zero need case, you do it testing the audiophile version and standard rated products against each other in a confirmed need case.

I'm 100% anti foo, I just happen to dislike equally bad testing just as much.
I'm with you there. As I've said elsewhere, devices such as this should be tested with deficient products, to see if they help in those cases, not with excellent products unlikely to benefit.
 

Mnyb

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But it cost less to replace the bad product than the fix ? Products that need this are dumpster fires to be avoided :)
And are likely to have plethora off other problems :rolleyes: that this do not fix ? This is simply criminal activity to robb the gullible
 

sq225917

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Yeh, anyone wasting money on a switch before downloading network analysis software and interrogating their network is a fool
 

AudioSceptic

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But it cost less to replace the bad product than the fix ? Products that need this are dumpster fires to be avoided :)
And are likely to have plethora off other problems :rolleyes: that this do not fix ? This is simply criminal activity to robb the gullible
Agreed, but remember the target consumer. They spend several £/$k on an "audiophile" DAC, most likely one with objectively poor performance. They are unlikely to replace that with something properly designed, but are suckers for "audiophile" gadgets claimed to produce a "night and day" improvement by the same type of pundits who also praise the deficient DAC.

Criminal? Maybe, but we know that the "audiophile" industry is full of overpriced products of dubious value, which no one is forced to buy.
 

balletboy

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I don't normally bother posting on these topics, since it's all so silly and everyone in audio forums seems to be going about this all wrong.

Don't all "real audiophiles" have a dedicated internet connection solely for their music streaming service? And a separate service for browsing the internet, etc. (Remember that if you have subscriptions to multiple streaming services, you must have a separate internet service provider and path for each one, well-isolated from each other.)

Maybe that's the real problem, these audiophile wannabes are trying to use one internet connection for everything. How lame! If they had a dedicated connection for audio only, they wouldn't need the 'band-aid' of these cheesy 'regen' or 'isolation' devices. hahahahaha!

I'd bet those audiophiles who sensibly get their own transformer from the power company know better. :cool:

:D:D:D

I understand the idea of the Sonos Bridge was to provide a dedicated wireless stream unaffected by other usage, and Devialet Air does the same, allowing 24/192 streams from a MacBook or similar without any glitches.

However, once a wired ethernet connection from modem to audio system is installed, bandwidth ceases to be a practical issue.

I don't know if I'm an audiophile or not and I don't care for the label anyway, but I have a dedicated ethernet line. My modem had two output sockets. One feeds a Netgear GS108 that feeds the rest of the house and the other goes into my Roon server that sits next to it, with a cheap 1m ethernet cable. From that location, two cables run 25m under floors and behind furniture to my audio and AV. The audio connects directly by ethernet, so there is no switching involved and I use an Audioquest Pearl CAT6a cable. The other cable is fibre optic and connects to a router that provides wifi and distributes satellite video around the house.

So my audio is totally unswitched and frankly I've not bothered putting it via the GS108 to see if a switch degrades. I don't need to know.

I have switched the audio vs. everything else between CAT6a and fibre and there is no impact on sound quality and no bandwidth issues. The AV is HD, not super HD, and is happy with CAT or fibre. The fact that it is a relatively long run and the cables run parallel to lots of domestic power cables under the floorboards seems to make no difference either.

I chose the Audioquest Pearl because the supplier told me they provide better connectors than the generic ones and physically it seems to have a much stronger protective sheath than the Amazon ones I was using before. For £3/$4 per meter it seemed worthwhile. I live in an old house and shoving stuff under floors puts it at risk of damage and I was surprised that we got the fibre cable though and that it worked at all when we plugged it in. That was cheaper, about £15/$20 for the cable and £40/$50 for a pair of TPLink converters with cheap 1m ethernet CAT6a making the final connection.

What I've never understood is that consumer modems tend not to have more than 2 ethernet outputs. Years ago when my service provider only provided a 2.4g modem I replaced it with a 5g Asus modem router, but now I just use the supplied 5g router.
 
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balletboy

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But it cost less to replace the bad product than the fix ? Products that need this are dumpster fires to be avoided :)
And are likely to have plethora off other problems :rolleyes: that this do not fix ? This is simply criminal activity to robb the gullible

No, it's not criminal activity.

Criminal activity is someone putting a knife to your throat and demanding your money.

People making stuff and persuading people to buy it is called capitalism.

Personally, I suspect there are a lot of people here who over-estimate the size of the audio snake oil market. True snake oil stuff, this product included, probably accounts for a minute percentage of global sales, I would think a small fraction of 1%, because the vast majority of audio consumers don't even know it exists. A company like Beats with annual revenue of $1.5 billion probably has more annual sales than a large part of the entire high-end hifi market.

Look at the fashion industry and the audio industry is almost saintly by comparison.
 

balletboy

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I don't need to read wikipedia to know what fraud is.

I had a look at their website and can't see that they say anything that would even merit a consumer complaint, let alone a potential civil action for misrepresentation. Relief is normally injunctive, e.g. via the ASA, and a civil claim for compensation would likely be defeated by the fact that the two places I looked have a money-back returns policy.
http://www.thunder-data.com/bonn-n8-1

The website says a lot of technical stuff about components. They don't appear to say anywhere that it will definitely make your audio system sound better.
 

balletboy

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Evidently you need to be reading something, seeing as your current understanding of what constitutes a crime appears somewhat limited.

Well, I've been doing civil and criminal litigation for 30 years, so I'll take your advice.
 

Human Bass

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According to the logic of such products, any audio should sound like 8-bit chiptunes after travelling all around the world in non-audiophile routers, servers and such.
 
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