Stack Audio SmoothLAN network filter

[EERecordist]

The company is back with the "SmoothLAN Regenerator." For their chassis, the baseplate has individual machined out wells for each of the 6 PCBs.

The copy is all nonsense - I'm not sure what a "dual-layer filter" is. Then they go back and forth between phase noise and jitter.

I'm relieved that "The supplied cable is an oxygen free copper, CAT 7 cable, with gold plated connectors." We wouldn't want oxygen to impede those electrons.

I think there are several snake oil companies with similar products marked for audio. Similar to the USB reclocker teardown, it looks like some temperature controlled crystal oscillators, some Ethernet Phy chips, a multi-layer PCB, and a lot of opto-isolators for some reason.

If I play Smooth Operator through it will it sound better?

 

[Purité Audio]

I met Theo ( Stack) a really nice then, young man, we discussed his plans for a streamer, he even showed the prototype in Munich, pity that he has subsequently wandered into ‘peripheral’ products but I guess that’s where the market is.
Keith

 

[tw99]

They've missed a trick by not making it directional, any true audiophile knows that this is very important.

 

[wwenze]

Better buy a cable that is proton-free if you really want the electrons unimpeded

 

[fatoldgit]

They've missed a trick by not making it directional, any true audiophile knows that this is very important.

your into something here...

One ethernet channel for incoming data packets and one channel for the outgoing ack's

With an ethernet port per receive/send the PHY's would be less congested cause we know how overworked a single 1GBit link is when handling data related to music playback.

This would truly lower ethernet jitter in addition to not having to have the incoming data packets and outgoing ack's make space for each other on those tiny wires inside the ethernet cables.


/s (if it's really needed)

Peter

 

[kemmler3D]

The company is back with the "SmoothLAN Regenerator." For their chassis, the baseplate has individual machined out wells for each of the 6 PCBs.

The copy is all nonsense - I'm not sure what a "dual-layer filter" is. Then they go back and forth between phase noise and jitter.

I'm relieved that "The supplied cable is an oxygen free copper, CAT 7 cable, with gold plated connectors." We wouldn't want oxygen to impede those electrons.

I think there are several snake oil companies with similar products marked for audio. Similar to the USB reclocker teardown, it looks like some temperature controlled crystal oscillators, some Ethernet Phy chips, a multi-layer PCB, and a lot of opto-isolators for some reason.

If I play Smooth Operator through it will it sound better?

View attachment 432661

Well, really if you're trying to make money and not try to compete with audio engineers that actually know what they're doing, these ethernet / USB snake oil devices make more sense than real audio gear.

For a device like this, all it has to do is meet the functional spec for Ethernet, which is already a bargain basement commodity. Have a little fun over-engineering something that's otherwise a dime a dozen and call it a day.

They don't (can't) do anything for the sound either way, so you have no chance of failure.

The product works simply by virtue of the fact that the customer paid money for it, via placebo effect.

They in turn leave/write good reviews on the same basis. Rinse and repeat.

It's really the perfect business model.

 

[wwenze]

your into something here...

One ethernet channel for incoming data packets and one channel for the outgoing ack's

With an ethernet port per receive/send the PHY's would be less congested cause we know how overworked a single 1GBit link is when handling data related to music playback.

This would truly lower ethernet jitter in addition to not having to have the incoming data packets and outgoing ack's make space for each other on those tiny wires inside the ethernet cables.


/s (if it's really needed)

Peter

Haha, that's why 100Mbps ethernet has separate wire pairs for RX and TX. Anyone remembers crossover cables?