Just went backwards with the digital front-end....
 

Today, I got two Blue Jeans Ethernet Cat6A cables in today, as well as a TP-link Ethernet Switch. The Blue Jeans cables were bought to replace the cheap, generic Cat 5e cables I was using to connect the Mac Mini to my AT&T U-Verse Pace router in the bedroom, and the for the Ethernet over Power adapter in the dining area. I should point out that the Ethernet cable for the bedroom Ethernet over Power adapter is now also conncted to the new Ethernet switch with the same cable that was connected to the Pace router.

Anyhoo, I replaced the generic Cat5e Ethernet cable that was going from the Mac Mini in the bedroom to my AT&T Pace router with a Blue Jeans Ethernet Cat 6A cables, now going to the TP-LInk Ethernet switch instead of the Pace router's Ethernet ports, and also a Blue Jeans cable in my dining room area from the EoP Adapter to the Fiber Media Convertor, and the sound quality is absolutely horrible....ghastly. Its hard, thin, ringy, strident, harsh, edgy, utter garbage. :damnit:

The night before last, with the Shunyata Alpha USB and long run of fiber in place, my system sounded absolutely amazing: smooth, sweet, full-bodied, open, airy, fully extended with superbly natural highs, and fleshed-out, musical, and overall, just gorgeous with beautiful midrange and finely defined and articulated bass. I even wrote to MasterLu about it.

It is now so bad, it literally drives me right out of the room; I can't stand it. :puke:

It could be the TP-Link Ethernet switch, it could be the cheap-*ss LPS for the Ethernet switch, or it could be the Blue Jeans cables. At this point, I just don't know. I put back the generic Cat5e cable in my dining area connecting to the FMC, and its better, but still not as good as it was the night before last. Whether or not its the Blue Jeans cable, the ethernet switch or its el-cheapo LPS that is the root cause still remains to be seen, I'll be able to determine once I go back to my previous configuration.

So...I now have to go back to the original setup, and make systematic changes one at a time, and find out what changes caused a superb-sounding digital front end to go from sublime to absolutely ghastly.

Well, after an evening of experimentation, the biggest culprits were the two Blue Jeans Ethernet cables; they completely mess up the highs, which have a very strident, edgy and thin sound that is most uncomfortable. It comes across to me to some degree as a form of ringing so it may also be something llike a 7th or 9th, etc. odd-order harmonic. The TP-Link Ethernet switch also seems to add some of the same type of wonkiness to the highs, but not to the same degree. This could well be due to the cr*p linear power supply that powers the Ethernet switch.

At this point, the base setup, with the generic Ethernet cables I was using, plugged into the Ethernet ports of the Pace router, sounds the best. Outstanding, actually.

I'll likely get an ifI iPower LPS for the Ethernet switch and see if that improves using the switch.

Sorry to hear of your problems, Puma Cat. Wish I could make a useful suggestion to help, but I am struggling with my own digital setup!

Failed experiments are positive learnings.

Just went backwards with the digital front-end....
 

Puma, others...

I highly recommended a route following what I did, it can be done in parts or as a whole, I am overly impressed right now...



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Hi Ed,
Thanks for the link. I will definitely review it. I've also reviewed your thread on Noise and watched an excellent Hans Beekhuizen YT video on the AQVox SE Ethernet Switch you are using. The information you posted about that was very helpful and informative. Its very clear that using a cheap Ethernet switches is notable source of noise when streaming music data files.

Thanks again!

-Stephen

Any chance the cables need to break in?

S'possible, its a good question.

I don't know if I want to listen to the system while they break in. Ouch!

I could set them up and let the system steam overnight each night for a few weeks.

Here is my recent experience:
In the past few days I noticed dropouts when streaming. This was never the case. At first I assumed that it was due to internet speed. But a speedtest showed that this was not the case. It was not WiFi either since I had Ethernet connection.

After some head scratching I remembered that a technician had added an extra switch to my home network in the past week. Then I realized that he had changed the data flow.

Initially, the flow was:
Street cable->router->switch->component

The technician had changed it to:
Street cable->router->switch->switch->component

Notice that the signal now went through two switches intead of one. The second switch is on another floor. Had I not used an Ethernet cable of different color to connect to the upstairs switch it would have been very difficult to find what the problem was.

Anyway, changing the flow to the original set up fixed the issue.

So... my experience leads to believe that your problem could be related to the switch that you are using. If connecting your component directly to the router fixes your problem, there is your answer. I personally have not noticed sound changes when using cat 5e or cat 6 Ethernet cables.

I’m so happy with the way my network is sounding. It is simply amazing. I added the DJM GigaFoilv4 Ethernet Filter as the last step before my Select II DAC and the results were stunning. The GigaFoilv4 optically filters out 99.99999% of the noise in the network. I also added a Keces P3 Linear Power Supply for the Ethernet Filter and Keces P8 LPS for my Roon Nucleus Plus core server. Each LPS got an Audience AU24SE MP power cord. Lastly, the network got AudioQuest Diamond Ethernet Cables.

There are still other tweaks I can implement such as Linear Power Supplies for my Synology DS-3018XS NAS, Netgear Nighthawk X10 Router and Cable Modem. I may also add an audiophile switch but frankly, the Nighthawk X10 works and sounds so excellent with its 6 Ethernet LAN ports, I’m reluctant to add another switch in the chain when it’s really unnecessary.

Ken