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$2,295 5-port Ethernet Switch for Audiophiles

56 points by rbranson 5y ago

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
I mean, c'mon, how can this be real (same company): https://www.synergisticresearch.com/accessories/turntable/uef-record-weight/ https://www.synergisticresearch.com/accessories/turntable/ue... I'm feeling almost convinced that this is deliberate satire.
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  The weights are a real thing. $900 weights... idk.
rubatuga 5y ago
This author is deluding him/herself. Oh well, not my money.
- CarVac 5y ago
  The site is called positive-feedback for a reason. Did you expect it to be a critical review?
bediger4000 5y ago
What would distinguish an ethernet switch "for audiophiles" vs a regular ethernet switch? This has the same feel to it that those green magic markers they sold to audiophiles. You were supposed to use the markers on the edges of CDs to make the data reads richer and more vibrant and warm or some such hogwash. I'm also reminded of "directional" audio cables, and the "DiscWasher" scam from the 70s, although heaven knows, LPs really needed help.
- greedo 5y ago
  I had a Dishwasher back in the day, never knew it was meant to improve sound quality; I just liked to use it to remove dust from my LPs. Plus it was a fun part of the Tea Ceremony.
  - bediger4000 5y ago
    Ha ha you make joke. DiscWasher was a popular LP cleaner in the 1970s. There was a fibrous cleaning pad attached to a handle, and some special fluid that came in a small eyedrops-style squeeze bottle. The fluid was the expensive part, $5 for one or two fluid ounces, quite expensive for the day. You'd carefully squeeze out a drop of magic fluid on the cleaning pad, and while your LP was spinning, let the cleaning pad drag over the surface of the LP. Turns out the $5/oz ($40 a cup!) special DiscWasher fluid was distilled water. Lawsuits and hilarity followed! This epic tale of audiophile gullibility is not even on the Internet, it appears. The past is dead.
    - greedo 5y ago
      Oh I owned one. Never knew the contents of the squeeze bottle. The brush itself was well made, and seemed to clean my LPs pretty well. I never bought a refill, and I think the Dishwasher was a gift. Mine was made of nice wood with the cleaning pad attached and a hollow to hold the squeeze bottle.
- spenczar5 5y ago
  > What would distinguish an ethernet switch "for audiophiles" vs a regular ethernet switch? price?
  - MengerSponge 5y ago
    And a homemade power cable
- bee_rider 5y ago
  There are diminishing returns in terms of objectively measurable quantities as you move up the price-continuum in audio equipment. "Audiophile" vendors have realized that there's a subset of the population for which the subjective enjoyment experienced is actually determined more by the latter than the former variable... Can't blame them for trying, although their apparent success is quite concerning.
- CPLX 5y ago
  > What would distinguish an ethernet switch "for audiophiles" vs a regular ethernet switch? two grand
Wolfenstein98k 5y ago
A fool and his money.
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  The spoon farted.
  - nayuki 5y ago
    ^ rhymes with "are soon parted".
somehnguy 5y ago
A sucker is born every minute I guess.
mosselman 5y ago
The reviews of the music they tested are great and could both be parody as well as what they probably are, namely the dellusional ramblings of someone who got swindled: "Via the Ethernet Switch UEF, we have a much more defined and explosive brass section. You get the proper metallic blast and blatt without strain. The piano is now wonderfully fleshed out with plenty of timbral purity and proper weight. High hat cymbals have never sounded better. Exciting stuff!" "When engaging the Ethernet Switch UEF, your room boundaries will evaporate in all directions. The band is now in the venue with you. The bongos are unleashed with additional color and tone and with a bottom end wallop that might just startle you. Goose bump city!"
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  I don't believe they were swindled - these review sites would most likely be in on it and get the units for free (or on loan, but given the true cost of one of these I don't believe it's even worth the logistics of shipping it back).
  - mosselman 5y ago
    Good point, so even worse, they are scamming people knowingly.
noodlesUK 5y ago
This is utterly hilarious. Is it satire? The idea that an Ethernet switch could have any impact on listening other than maybe some weirdness with a ground loop or whatnot is absurd. If an audiophile were really truly worried about Ethernet they should use fibre, and then they’ll never have to worry about anything.
- R0b0t1 5y ago
  No ground loops in Ethernet. The signalling wires are driven through transformers, isolating them from ground to improve noise immunity. Latency maybe, but the article doesn't talk about it, and this is typically solved the same way it is inside your computer when feeding the sound card: deliver too much info then wait. The real time delivery constraints that you can patch into the Ethernet stack on Linux are only necessary for reducing roundtrip time.
  - odiroot 5y ago
    If only USB did the same. Would be a big improvement to USB connected instruments and audio interfaces. A man can dream.
    - cassianoleal 5y ago
      Indeed. I had to get a USB ground loop eliminator in order to run my Line6 Helix connected to the computer. Now with USB-C-only computers, it's Helix -> cable -> ground loop eliminator -> adapter -> computer. Without the need for it, I'd have just replaced the USB-A cable with a USB-C one and connect directly to the computer.
  - walrus01 5y ago
    technically you can ground-loop passive high powered PoE gigabit ethernet (like for 85W radios or big beefy heated pan/tilt/zoom cameras), but that's not the scenario here.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    Not defending this BS by any means, but certain cables have metallic connectors which I believe are connected to the cable's shielding jacket, and if the ports on either side are metal they are probably connected (maybe unintentionally though physical contact with the chassis) to the device's ground, so wouldn't that create a conductive path for interference?
micw 5y ago
I doubt it works well without a golden oxygen free ethernet cable that costs at least $1,500 per meter.
- runariot 5y ago
  Here you can find a golden one for 3500eur and extra 2400eur cables ;) https://jcat.eu/product/m12-switch-gold/ https://jcat.eu/product/m12-switch-gold/
  - micw 5y ago
    I _knew_ that there's a use for such a switch if you just get the right cables ^^
- walrus01 5y ago
  Only if your golden oxygen free ethernet cable has also been hand-blessed by tibetan monks, and its jacket made from single source organic free range non-GMO nylon
  - micw 5y ago
    Of course. But that is so obvious that I saw no reason to mention it.
jgalt212 5y ago
Beware of the jitter, that's what the audiophiles say. But like how much buffer do you need to completely eliminate any effects of jitter?
- rubatuga 5y ago
  Probably 2kb buffer
allo37 5y ago
I have a hot take on this: Sound only exists inside your head, so if you convince yourself something sounds better because you paid a $shitton for it, then for all practical purposes it DOES sound better. You're paying top dollar for a placebo effect, but it's every bit as real as "sound" is.
- muziq 5y ago
  Absolutely.. Currently working with a new HD audio codec and although I know it’s nonsense, it sounds and feels better than ever at times, in fact I can relate to his description of the clarity with his new gadget.. A simple 3 minute ABX test tells me I’m smoking crack and 1:1 normality is once again restored..
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  Unless you're actively thinking about how awesome your equipment is the entire time you listen, I don't think placebo is a very useful improvement. And more accurate reproduction that enables you to hear everything in the recording is not subjective either. (And if you want certain equalizer settings you can always do that yourself on top of quality hardware.)
- james_in_the_uk 5y ago
  You can extend this analysis further. The reason that audiophiles listen to music is for enjoyment. Thus, if they get enjoyment from paying $gazillions for a cable, then it is money well spent.
fennecfoxen 5y ago
I bet if you figured out a way to offer this with fiber-optic 10GbE to the music server, you could double your margins.
Hokusai 5y ago
I really don't know if the web is satire or for real. I tried the manufacturer site: https://www.synergisticresearch.com/accessories/ethernet-switch-uef/ https://www.synergisticresearch.com/accessories/ethernet-swi... I still do not know.
- manuelabeledo 5y ago
  Ethernet cables for $299. A $6,000 power cable. If this is not satire, they have no shame.
  - the8472 5y ago
    > Ethernet cables for $299. Entry-level. https://www.audiovisualonline.co.uk/product/8041/audioquest-diamond-rj-e-ethernet-cable-12m/ https://www.audiovisualonline.co.uk/product/8041/audioquest-...
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  Video tour of their factory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yzjA9ZYYNk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yzjA9ZYYNk It seems like there's enough market for this BS to sustain a legitimate factory operation with full-time employees. Now while there's no way to tell whether the founder is just a conman or delusional as he'd never admit it, I wonder what the employees think of all this. This video also includes a good drinking game - drink every time he says "by hand". The "lab" looks like a small repurposed kitchen. I've seen better labs at electronic hobbyists' homes.
  - diimdeep 5y ago
    LOL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_XS1jaO5EY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_XS1jaO5EY This is what Russ Hanneman[1] startup would look like targeting people from three comma club [1] https://silicon-valley.fandom.com/wiki/Russ_Hanneman https://silicon-valley.fandom.com/wiki/Russ_Hanneman
spookthesunset 5y ago
For what it is worth, here is the actual product page: https://www.synergisticresearch.com/accessories/ethernet-switch-uef/ https://www.synergisticresearch.com/accessories/ethernet-swi... I wonder if it crossed any of these reviewers minds that the audio they listened to traversed countless switches, network routers, fiber amplifiers and who knows what else before it ever hit that switch. I have zero clue who buys this stuff. Perhaps I'm in the wrong business!
- pipodeclown 5y ago
  You mean you would stream your music instead of having local flac files?! You audio peasent!
  - crtasm 5y ago
    How did you obtain your 24bit 96kHz flac files without them passing through non-audiophile networking kit?
- sparky_ 5y ago
  In some sense, it doesn't surprise me that there's some market for this. For the older audiophile who doesn't understand digital music or networking, their only analog is.. analog. :-) So if you look at the setup with "vinyl goggles", where upgrading your stylus or pre-amp or cartridge _does_ have some impact to audio quality - since the physical diamond or sound chambre can vary - you can see how someone without any IT knowledge could conclude that, likewise, upgrading the devices in the "signal path" (network) for digital music would make an impact. Now like, obviously that's wrong, but if someone is willing to pay you $2000 for a Realtek switch in a fancy case.. Clearly the market will oblige!
freitasm 5y ago
This has to be a joke.
jsheard 5y ago
Ah, the perfect companion for a NAS with audiophile-grade SSD storage https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/62753-nvme-ssd-designed-for-audiophiles https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/62753-nvme-ssd-desi...
- hrrsn 5y ago
  Don't forget to grab a few $2,995 Ethernet cables! https://www.synergisticresearch.com/cables/galileo-sx/galileo-sx-digital/galileo-sx-ethernet/ https://www.synergisticresearch.com/cables/galileo-sx/galile...
  - CPLX 5y ago
    The description of those sure is something: Galileo SX Ethernet cables were designed around a brand new UEF Filter featuring Graphene and a special UEF Tech first developed for our award winning Blue Fuses to eliminate digital noise through an inductive process that takes place outside the signal path. UEF Graphene Shielding is now applied in a new Matrix Grid pattern for a striking lowering of your system’s overall noise floor so you hear detail and dynamics in the most holographic soundscape of any Ethernet cable in Synergistic Research history. We upgraded the UEF Ground Plane with new UEF Blue Fuse technology and treated the entire cable to a new UEF Blue Fuse treatment that both increases overall cable performance as it lowers the time necessary for cable burn in. Lastly the outer shield of the cable can be attached to ground with an included ground plug or can be attached to an optional SR Passive Ground Block or our SR Active Ground Block for a dramatic increase in overall system performance. If fail to recognize the superiority of these cables you are giving in to Them and their blasphemous ways which doom us all to inhuman toil for the One whose Name cannot be expressed in the Basic Multilingual Plane, he comes. And with new Gold and Silver UEF Tuning Circuits that change the yin and yang of the digital cable from detailed to liquid pain extinguishing the voices of man from the mortal sphere you can custom match them to your system and taste or try them without, the choice is yours.
    - walrus01 5y ago
      I fed that into a neural network based text generator and got something that is no more or less sensible and logical. Next step: fully automated audiophile marketing copy generation? =============== And if you are a system builder and want to make sure you're in the right class, let's talk about the final piece. We went back to the drawing board and developed an outer jacket and inner shield made from unbreakable material with customizable applications. With these exceptional cables we assure that your system will stand the test of time and will also stand up to the power of the Graphene RF head stage. Galileo SX Ethernet Cable Features 1)High Strength Diamond Strand Spliced Cable: -Band with closed, crimped jacket with 600 strand copper lacing that is non-conductive making it easier to splice using RCA terminals and soldering -Unbreakable Diamond Strand Spliced Cable - 100% diamond strand, zero standing wave, perfect for any extreme use. This cable is MADE TO SHINE, ALL the way through. It is almost as shiny as it sounds. -Unbreakable 900 Volt rated jacket, clad with Nomex. 2)UL Certified Platinum Wire Terminals: -20 feet of unbreakable Platinum Wire Terminals. 3)Radial Wire Terminals and 4 Ohm Fitting: -100 foot of Radial Wire Terminals and an 8 ohm Fitting (2.4 Ohm rounding up to 1.4 Ohm). How to use Galileo SX Ethernet Cable 1)Communicate over USB: -Use the included 3 pin high voltage USB cable to charge the Galileo SX. 2)Locate Transmitters/Transmitters: -Pair the TX/RX cables on the Graphene wireless receiver to each transmitter on the radio to receive the signals. 3)Setup Channel: -Use the included 1.5mm 4 wire installation kit to route the QRP channel to the channel provided. Special thanks to: For backing the Galileo SX system with your pre-orders, for testing the Galileo SX and answering our questions, and for helping us design this new Graphene Ethernet 3.5mm cable, we'd like to thank Ben McMullen from WinRadio Shack and Mike Schulz from Radio Shack. To get a hold of us, you can email us at glynner (at) wryqr.com or check out our contact page on GrapheneRfans.com. Again, thank you for your support! , B BGN: -33h53m
marcodiego 5y ago
The only way I can think this could make any difference is if generates less electrical noise from its internal power source or emanates less RFI that could be picked up by the rest of the audio gear. I'm sure not all audiophiles are dumb and I think a few educated ones pay for expensive cables that are used for digital data. I'm really curious why.
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  So obviously there is "high quality" and "frivolously expensive" cables, but there is a reason to get a good digital data cable: shielding. Think of something like UDP traffic. If you have poorly shielded cables, you could corrupt a packet. In the case of UDP traffic, you will never get that packet back. Do this enough, and it may impact sound quality of eg. streaming audio.
lormayna 5y ago
It costs like a 2960S with 24 GigE + 4 SFP with lot of more advanced features.
lowbloodsugar 5y ago
Some audiophiles are used to spending thousands on cabling and power cleaning and it does make a difference if $100k has already been spent on the gear. So when presented with a switch like this it makes sense to them. But they are snakeoil. One thing that these things claim is jitter reduction - because jitter was an issue on the original USB devices using synchronous protocol. But try to explain that any kit they have is already buffering ethernet because it is impossible to do otherwise, and you'll just hit a brick wall. Better to drop $2k on this, and another $10k on special ethernet cables, just to be safe! Hang out on a website devoted to high end audio, like Meridian [1], and you'll see half the people starting threads about some new $10k cable they bought, and the other half studiously avoiding telling them they are wasting their money. Just don't get involved. [1] https://www.meridianunplugged.com https://www.meridianunplugged.com
- hagbard_c 5y ago
  > it does make a difference if $100k has already been spent on the gear. That sounds like a sunk cost fallacy, why does it matter how much was spent? It should be the other way around where "clean power" makes a noticeable difference with cheap playback equipment with flimsy filtering capacitors in their power supplies. So-called "audiophile" equipment of boat-anchor weight should not need "clean power", that should be handled by the power supply. The whole "audiophile" scene is rife with mass-delusion, they fall for the same scams as those who e.g. buy "amulets for protection against evil spirits". Neither of these do anything but both may feel better by having them. The "audiophile" may get the same satisfaction from listening to whatever he plays as whatever random person does listening to his or her music using whatever equipment they have at hand. The difference is that the random person did not have to pay a scammer to achieve satisfaction. The same was true for the "audiophile" before he fell into the trap but now he's lost that ability.
Flocular 5y ago
The only thing more ridicously expensive would be an NFT of an image of this switch.
aljarry 5y ago
Let's assume that the author actually believes that music sounds better with this hardware, and it's not paid-for review. Would it be ethical to push such person through double-blind test, which (I assume) would disprove that there is a perceivable difference?
- teraflop 5y ago
  The most die-hard believers will insist that if two pieces of equipment sound "obviously" different when you know which one you're listening to, but they're indistinguishable under a double-blind test, then the only explanation is that the testing methodology must be flawed. They simply find the "placebo effect" explanation absurd and refuse to accept it. https://web.archive.org/web/20090304012729/http://www.avguide.com/forums/blind-listening-tests-are-flawed-editorial https://web.archive.org/web/20090304012729/http://www.avguid...
walrus01 5y ago
I've seen a gold plated audiophile TOSLINK cable before. Which is actually a fat multimode optical connector. But the part you pushed into the socket sure was shiny! edit: I found it again! https://www.amazon.com/FosPower-Toslink-Digital-Connectors-Strain-Relief/dp/B00T8HWUVS https://www.amazon.com/FosPower-Toslink-Digital-Connectors-S...
- RedShift1 5y ago
  At least the price is normal. I'm ok with 6 euro for a one meter TOS link cable. Nice touch with the "can't lose those" protective tip covers, I really miss that when moving stuff around.
walrus01 5y ago
If you google "expensive audiophile ethernet cable", you can buy some $3000 to $10,000 cables to go with your new switch. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=expensive+audiophile+ethernet+cable https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=expensive...
scrumper 5y ago
I second the incredulity in every other comment here, but the bit that really struck me was the aluminum chassis reinforced with carbon fiber to _dampen vibration and resonance_. In an ethernet switch. What? I guess, if I had to stretch to say something nice, it's good that people like the author exist so that some engineers get to have a bit of fun designing a boring old switch with a no-compromises budget. EDIT: their website (the maker, not the reviewer) is pure (oxygen free, directional) gold. They have a ten thousand dollar power cord with extra little plugs on it that you can attach to something called a carbon fiber tuning module to "voice your system."
- walrus01 5y ago
  Basic carbon fiber plate in a few mm thickness is actually really cheap now, you can get custom cut quadcopter frames (with all of the CNC work included) for $40 to $50.
Nav_Panel 5y ago
I am so so glad these guys exist: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php
- unzadunza 5y ago
  Even that site, though, feeds into audiophile irrationality. The DAC reviews, for example, throw a bunch of measurements at you, but there is no way a human could hear the difference in the best and worst DAC.
  - Nav_Panel 5y ago
    > there is no way a human could hear the difference in the best and worst DAC Are you sure? Remember that a DAC in this context is also an audio circuit, not just an IC performing digital -> analog conversion. I can say with certainty that switching to a USB DAC made a big difference vs using the output on my motherboard, no computer noise + I lost an unnecessary amplification stage. Of course, I would never spend $$$ on a DAC, because as you mention it's a very low-impact component of the system. The other thing is that DACs which support high sample rates can play your high sample rate music without software resampling, which is obviously not a useful feature for a lot of people but is definitely audible if you do have high sample rate music for whatever reason.
mindcrime 5y ago
Clearly I am in the wrong business. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to set up shop selling high-end audiophile gear. Our first product will be a series of speaker cables, enhanced with cadmium for better alignment of the electromagnetic fields. Price, $700.00 USD / foot. If you have to ask how much the special gold-plated connectors cost, you can't afford them.
KingMachiavelli 5y ago
I swear there must be a form of tinnitus which is only present when you are actively listening to something such that people are convinced the sound is some ground feedback loop.
IiydAbITMvJkqKf 5y ago
Connecting your home audio system to a personal utility pole can create even better midranges.
gaze 5y ago
Does anyone who has looked into this know what's _actually_ going on here? If I made up a scam ethernet switch company, I doubt positive-feedback.com would pick it up and review it positively. How much do I pay for a positive review? How well do all these people know each other? It must be a small in-group of people who all know each other getting rich off this shit.
- kuratkull 5y ago
  I (a random Internet person) also consider this theory to be the most likely after many years spent in cyberspace.
RedShift1 5y ago
This is a joke right? Have I fallen into the trap of Poe's law?
sschueller 5y ago
That switch looks like one of these modules [1] that costs around $10 and the IEC power socket is the exact same [2] cheap crap I used on my 3d printers... [1] https://a.aliexpress.com/_mqS2quO https://a.aliexpress.com/_mqS2quO [2] https://a.aliexpress.com/_mNpTLDU https://a.aliexpress.com/_mNpTLDU
marcodiego 5y ago
Analysis of rocks (like stones, not the rolling ones) for audiophiles: http://www.adventuresinhifiaudio.com/26/01/2018/audiophile-rocks-down-the-rabbit-hole-once-again/ http://www.adventuresinhifiaudio.com/26/01/2018/audiophile-r... "This wasn't a subtle improvement and yet I did a fair few Volcano on, Volcano off comparisons before I could really accept what I was hearing. In all honesty despite hearing the positive effects the Vibradome Blue star had made to my other system I was still shocked and surprised this item could make such a difference by just sitting on the amps case. Its not heavy enough to damp it and yet it was making a difference and a positive one; frankly I don't know how."
- walrus01 5y ago
  if you google "audiophile ceramic cable elevator" this is apparently a whole high dollar product category.
an-allen 5y ago
Shannon be damned! The only way I can surely transmit the highest quality 1 and 0 over a noisy channel isn't through clever encoding and parity checking... its only with high quality copper. Otherwise my 1's and 0's will certainly degrade into 1.1's 0.2's and even negative values!
ganbatekudasai 5y ago
"Audiophile" products get me so mad, I don't even want to look at them to mock them. It's blatant anti-science, willful ignorance. To the chagrin of people's urge to keep optimizing, digital audio has been solved decades ago: CD audio can perfectly represent audio containing tones up to 22kHz, with a 96dB signal to noise ratio. Those are both figures that seem to exceed the hearing of even the best listener on earth. For studio use, 24 bits offer some benefits for editing, but not because it sounds better, because we cannot hear better. Instead, if you mix audio it's useful to have some headroom over the dynamic range of your music (headroom you cannot hear), before you mix it back down to 16 bits for listening. Think about pasting pictures into a bigger canvas before cutting it back down. Things like 96kHz or even 192kHz audio can actually be harmful for listening: Not because you can fundamentally hear a difference (you can't), but because if you have any nonlinearities in your audio playback chain, those inaudible frequencies above ~20kHz will cause intermodulation distortion in your audible range. Congrats, you've taken some useless crap over your hearing range and reflected it back as ugly crap into your hearing range. Anyone who has invested time into understanding Fourier transforms and digital sampling on a fundamental mathematical level realizes that, and just gets angry at the lies. The Fourier transform and the sampling theorem don't know what an "open sound stage" or an "airier voice" is, if you think changes in sample rates and jitter translate into such human concepts instead of plain noise, you live in some phantasy non-physical world. What is not solved is speakers and room acoustics. That remains notoriously hard, because a room easily can (and most often does) reflect parts of the spectrum such that it cancels itself out. No amount of equalizing can fix that (it's mathematically impossible), you need to change your room or speaker arrangement. If you want to optimize audio, nerd out about that. Or if you absolute must, argue about lossy encoding formats (e.g. AAC vs. MP3) and bitrate. There is much less hard math in your way there, as they strongly rely on psychoacoustics. But anyone who claims that they hear a difference with 192kHz (on a provably linear audio chain) or an "audiophile Ethernet switch" shows that they're talking bullshit to begin with, so why would I trust their opinion on some potential real difference.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  While I agree 110% with everything you've said here, I think we should be careful to not rule out the possibility that our sensation of "hearing" may involve parts of the body ouside the ear. For example, I think it's a long shot, but there is some vague possibility that supersonic frequencies may be detectable by other parts of the body. I would prefer to not be in the group laughed at in 110 years from now: "back in the 21st century, those idiots thought that we only experienced sound through our ears". That said this product and audiophilia in general is just pure unadulterated BS.
allears 5y ago
If you think this is interesting, check out the $10,000 "ground block" the same company sells. Supposed to align your audio with the "Schumann Resonance." The mind boggles.
- gumby 5y ago
  Do I need a different one if I plan to listen to Mendelssohn?
gumby 5y ago
At first I thought "...components that might have peaked my interest..." was surely a typo, but then I realized that at these prices you should only be buying if the product brings your interest to a lifetime high. Though I suppose that would only allow you to buy a single component, as by definition only one could be at the zenith of interest. And then the rest of your life would be a letdown.
kuratkull 5y ago
Synergistic Research seems to be selling a $30,000 audio cable at https://www.synergisticresearch.com/cables/srx-cables/srx-sc/ https://www.synergisticresearch.com/cables/srx-cables/srx-sc... I guess even a company like that has to see how far they can go before even their whales scream in disgust.
gumby 5y ago
The same company sells a standard three prong to two prong adaptor for $45. Package of three for a buck at my hardware store. Admittedly for $45 you get a sticker on the side and a product that "treats it with 1,000,000 volts of electricity in a process we call Quantum Tunneling for an amazing transformation in sound quality from this modest plug." https://www.synergisticresearch.com/isolation/accessories/quantum-ground-lifter/ https://www.synergisticresearch.com/isolation/accessories/qu...
villuv 5y ago
Screw that 300km of power lines built in the 70s, it is the last half a meter that makes the difference....
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  There was a story of some audiofools (in Japan if I remember right) who paid a huge chunk of cash to have their own last-mile transformer (not sure of the exact term, but basically whatever converts the last HV stage into normal household voltages) for this exact reason.
PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
Many years ago, I came across a very basic description of how digital anything worked. The key concept, which at the time was like a bullet between the eyes, was/is that all digital systems are fundamentally binary, they recognize the existence of noise in electrical signals, but represent 0/1 with two values that differ by orders of magnitude than the noise floor. So, in a 5V system, zero is represented by 0V, and one by 5V. And sure enough, if you could look in enough detail at the voltages, you'd find that sometimes the zero was actual 0.001V and the one was actually 4.912881V. The whole point of digital is that THE NOISE DOESN'T MATTER. Even in the presence of those fluctuations (which are real), the system sees only zeroes and ones, and everything is perfect, always. Please don't be the modern EE who tells me that this is how things used to work, and it's not true anymore :)
- hagbard_c 5y ago
  > Please don't be the modern EE who tells me that this is how things used to work, and it's not true anymore :) Things don't work like that any more in e.g. QAM [1] and multi-level [2] (DLC/TLC/QLC/PLC) flash storage. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrature_amplitude_modulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrature_amplitude_modulatio... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_cell
- spookthesunset 5y ago
  > So, in a 5V system, zero is represented by 0V, and one by 5V. And sure enough, if you could look in enough detail at the voltages, you'd find that sometimes the zero was actual 0.001V and the one was actually 4.912881V. It’s way cooler than that. Sit back and watch the master explain it: https://youtu.be/eq5YpKHXJDM https://youtu.be/eq5YpKHXJDM
- candiodari 5y ago
  https://xkcd.com/670/ https://xkcd.com/670/ (and little nit: there's more plusses than just eliminating noise. For example, multiplexing)
- rasz 5y ago
  How about an EE from the nineties? It never worked like that :) Logic one and zero are represented by voltage ranges. There are safety margins everywhere. https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/logic-levels/all#ttl-logic-levels https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/logic-levels/all#ttl-lo... https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/digital/chpt-3/logic-signal-voltage-levels/ https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/digital/chpt-3/log... ECL is a fun one with minus ~5V supply, and minus 1.3V switching threshold.
jasonpeacock 5y ago
Tell me you don't understand technology without telling me....
908087 5y ago
This will be great for when I'm laying in my new MedBed healing all of my ailments with the power of crystals.
beej71 5y ago
You haters just don't understand how much _fuller_ a `1` bit sounds when it passes through this switch!
RedShift1 5y ago
Interestingly the comments on the article are moderated. Needs approval before publicly visible. Some website...
hagbard_c 5y ago
Q: Are fuses directional? A: Yes, fuses are directional. Electricity should flow from the left to the right when you view the fuse. If you do not know the direction of flow you should listen to the fuse inserted in both directions. One direction will sound more detailed. This is the correct way. https://www.synergisticresearch.com/fuses/blue/ https://www.synergisticresearch.com/fuses/blue/ This site is proof of the fact that there is no positive correlation between affluence and intelligence. Maybe they should sell a fuse direction swapper which turns the fuse around 50/60 times per second so the "electricity flows" in the "correct" direction? Imagine a carbon fibre box around the fuse with that logo on it, containing one of those $0.02 fuses which they sell for $160 and a stark warning not to look inside the box or the magic will disappear. Add $1000 to the price and some audiophile snob will buy it.

56 points by rbranson 5y ago

I mean, c'mon, how can this be real (same company): https://www.synergisticresearch.com/accessories/turntable/uef-record-weight/ https://www.synergisticresearch.com/accessories/turntable/ue... I'm feeling almost convinced that this is deliberate satire.

vineyardmike 5y ago
The weights are a real thing. $900 weights... idk.

rubatuga 5y ago

This author is deluding him/herself. Oh well, not my money.

CarVac 5y ago
The site is called positive-feedback for a reason. Did you expect it to be a critical review?

bediger4000 5y ago

What would distinguish an ethernet switch "for audiophiles" vs a regular ethernet switch? This has the same feel to it that those green magic markers they sold to audiophiles. You were supposed to use the markers on the edges of CDs to make the data reads richer and more vibrant and warm or some such hogwash. I'm also reminded of "directional" audio cables, and the "DiscWasher" scam from the 70s, although heaven knows, LPs really needed help.

greedo 5y ago
I had a Dishwasher back in the day, never knew it was meant to improve sound quality; I just liked to use it to remove dust from my LPs. Plus it was a fun part of the Tea Ceremony.
- bediger4000 5y ago
  Ha ha you make joke. DiscWasher was a popular LP cleaner in the 1970s. There was a fibrous cleaning pad attached to a handle, and some special fluid that came in a small eyedrops-style squeeze bottle. The fluid was the expensive part, $5 for one or two fluid ounces, quite expensive for the day. You'd carefully squeeze out a drop of magic fluid on the cleaning pad, and while your LP was spinning, let the cleaning pad drag over the surface of the LP. Turns out the $5/oz ($40 a cup!) special DiscWasher fluid was distilled water. Lawsuits and hilarity followed! This epic tale of audiophile gullibility is not even on the Internet, it appears. The past is dead.
  - greedo 5y ago
    Oh I owned one. Never knew the contents of the squeeze bottle. The brush itself was well made, and seemed to clean my LPs pretty well. I never bought a refill, and I think the Dishwasher was a gift. Mine was made of nice wood with the cleaning pad attached and a hollow to hold the squeeze bottle.
spenczar5 5y ago
> What would distinguish an ethernet switch "for audiophiles" vs a regular ethernet switch? price?
- MengerSponge 5y ago
  And a homemade power cable
bee_rider 5y ago
There are diminishing returns in terms of objectively measurable quantities as you move up the price-continuum in audio equipment. "Audiophile" vendors have realized that there's a subset of the population for which the subjective enjoyment experienced is actually determined more by the latter than the former variable... Can't blame them for trying, although their apparent success is quite concerning.
CPLX 5y ago
> What would distinguish an ethernet switch "for audiophiles" vs a regular ethernet switch? two grand

Wolfenstein98k 5y ago

A fool and his money.

robbedpeter 5y ago
The spoon farted.
- nayuki 5y ago
  ^ rhymes with "are soon parted".

somehnguy 5y ago

A sucker is born every minute I guess.

mosselman 5y ago

The reviews of the music they tested are great and could both be parody as well as what they probably are, namely the dellusional ramblings of someone who got swindled: "Via the Ethernet Switch UEF, we have a much more defined and explosive brass section. You get the proper metallic blast and blatt without strain. The piano is now wonderfully fleshed out with plenty of timbral purity and proper weight. High hat cymbals have never sounded better. Exciting stuff!" "When engaging the Ethernet Switch UEF, your room boundaries will evaporate in all directions. The band is now in the venue with you. The bongos are unleashed with additional color and tone and with a bottom end wallop that might just startle you. Goose bump city!"

Nextgrid 5y ago
I don't believe they were swindled - these review sites would most likely be in on it and get the units for free (or on loan, but given the true cost of one of these I don't believe it's even worth the logistics of shipping it back).
- mosselman 5y ago
  Good point, so even worse, they are scamming people knowingly.

noodlesUK 5y ago

This is utterly hilarious. Is it satire? The idea that an Ethernet switch could have any impact on listening other than maybe some weirdness with a ground loop or whatnot is absurd. If an audiophile were really truly worried about Ethernet they should use fibre, and then they’ll never have to worry about anything.

R0b0t1 5y ago
No ground loops in Ethernet. The signalling wires are driven through transformers, isolating them from ground to improve noise immunity. Latency maybe, but the article doesn't talk about it, and this is typically solved the same way it is inside your computer when feeding the sound card: deliver too much info then wait. The real time delivery constraints that you can patch into the Ethernet stack on Linux are only necessary for reducing roundtrip time.
- odiroot 5y ago
  If only USB did the same. Would be a big improvement to USB connected instruments and audio interfaces. A man can dream.
  - cassianoleal 5y ago
    Indeed. I had to get a USB ground loop eliminator in order to run my Line6 Helix connected to the computer. Now with USB-C-only computers, it's Helix -> cable -> ground loop eliminator -> adapter -> computer. Without the need for it, I'd have just replaced the USB-A cable with a USB-C one and connect directly to the computer.
- walrus01 5y ago
  technically you can ground-loop passive high powered PoE gigabit ethernet (like for 85W radios or big beefy heated pan/tilt/zoom cameras), but that's not the scenario here.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  Not defending this BS by any means, but certain cables have metallic connectors which I believe are connected to the cable's shielding jacket, and if the ports on either side are metal they are probably connected (maybe unintentionally though physical contact with the chassis) to the device's ground, so wouldn't that create a conductive path for interference?

micw 5y ago

I doubt it works well without a golden oxygen free ethernet cable that costs at least $1,500 per meter.

runariot 5y ago
Here you can find a golden one for 3500eur and extra 2400eur cables ;) https://jcat.eu/product/m12-switch-gold/ https://jcat.eu/product/m12-switch-gold/
- micw 5y ago
  I _knew_ that there's a use for such a switch if you just get the right cables ^^
walrus01 5y ago
Only if your golden oxygen free ethernet cable has also been hand-blessed by tibetan monks, and its jacket made from single source organic free range non-GMO nylon
- micw 5y ago
  Of course. But that is so obvious that I saw no reason to mention it.

jgalt212 5y ago

Beware of the jitter, that's what the audiophiles say. But like how much buffer do you need to completely eliminate any effects of jitter?

rubatuga 5y ago
Probably 2kb buffer

allo37 5y ago

I have a hot take on this: Sound only exists inside your head, so if you convince yourself something sounds better because you paid a $shitton for it, then for all practical purposes it DOES sound better. You're paying top dollar for a placebo effect, but it's every bit as real as "sound" is.

muziq 5y ago
Absolutely.. Currently working with a new HD audio codec and although I know it’s nonsense, it sounds and feels better than ever at times, in fact I can relate to his description of the clarity with his new gadget.. A simple 3 minute ABX test tells me I’m smoking crack and 1:1 normality is once again restored..
Dylan16807 5y ago
Unless you're actively thinking about how awesome your equipment is the entire time you listen, I don't think placebo is a very useful improvement. And more accurate reproduction that enables you to hear everything in the recording is not subjective either. (And if you want certain equalizer settings you can always do that yourself on top of quality hardware.)
james_in_the_uk 5y ago
You can extend this analysis further. The reason that audiophiles listen to music is for enjoyment. Thus, if they get enjoyment from paying $gazillions for a cable, then it is money well spent.

fennecfoxen 5y ago

I bet if you figured out a way to offer this with fiber-optic 10GbE to the music server, you could double your margins.

Hokusai 5y ago

I really don't know if the web is satire or for real. I tried the manufacturer site: https://www.synergisticresearch.com/accessories/ethernet-switch-uef/ https://www.synergisticresearch.com/accessories/ethernet-swi... I still do not know.

manuelabeledo 5y ago
Ethernet cables for $299. A $6,000 power cable. If this is not satire, they have no shame.
- the8472 5y ago
  > Ethernet cables for $299. Entry-level. https://www.audiovisualonline.co.uk/product/8041/audioquest-diamond-rj-e-ethernet-cable-12m/ https://www.audiovisualonline.co.uk/product/8041/audioquest-...
Nextgrid 5y ago
Video tour of their factory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yzjA9ZYYNk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yzjA9ZYYNk It seems like there's enough market for this BS to sustain a legitimate factory operation with full-time employees. Now while there's no way to tell whether the founder is just a conman or delusional as he'd never admit it, I wonder what the employees think of all this. This video also includes a good drinking game - drink every time he says "by hand". The "lab" looks like a small repurposed kitchen. I've seen better labs at electronic hobbyists' homes.
- diimdeep 5y ago
  LOL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_XS1jaO5EY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_XS1jaO5EY This is what Russ Hanneman[1] startup would look like targeting people from three comma club [1] https://silicon-valley.fandom.com/wiki/Russ_Hanneman https://silicon-valley.fandom.com/wiki/Russ_Hanneman

spookthesunset 5y ago

For what it is worth, here is the actual product page: https://www.synergisticresearch.com/accessories/ethernet-switch-uef/ https://www.synergisticresearch.com/accessories/ethernet-swi... I wonder if it crossed any of these reviewers minds that the audio they listened to traversed countless switches, network routers, fiber amplifiers and who knows what else before it ever hit that switch. I have zero clue who buys this stuff. Perhaps I'm in the wrong business!

pipodeclown 5y ago
You mean you would stream your music instead of having local flac files?! You audio peasent!
- crtasm 5y ago
  How did you obtain your 24bit 96kHz flac files without them passing through non-audiophile networking kit?
sparky_ 5y ago
In some sense, it doesn't surprise me that there's some market for this. For the older audiophile who doesn't understand digital music or networking, their only analog is.. analog. :-) So if you look at the setup with "vinyl goggles", where upgrading your stylus or pre-amp or cartridge _does_ have some impact to audio quality - since the physical diamond or sound chambre can vary - you can see how someone without any IT knowledge could conclude that, likewise, upgrading the devices in the "signal path" (network) for digital music would make an impact. Now like, obviously that's wrong, but if someone is willing to pay you $2000 for a Realtek switch in a fancy case.. Clearly the market will oblige!

freitasm 5y ago

This has to be a joke.

jsheard 5y ago

Ah, the perfect companion for a NAS with audiophile-grade SSD storage https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/62753-nvme-ssd-designed-for-audiophiles https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/62753-nvme-ssd-desi...

hrrsn 5y ago
Don't forget to grab a few $2,995 Ethernet cables! https://www.synergisticresearch.com/cables/galileo-sx/galileo-sx-digital/galileo-sx-ethernet/ https://www.synergisticresearch.com/cables/galileo-sx/galile...
- CPLX 5y ago
  The description of those sure is something: Galileo SX Ethernet cables were designed around a brand new UEF Filter featuring Graphene and a special UEF Tech first developed for our award winning Blue Fuses to eliminate digital noise through an inductive process that takes place outside the signal path. UEF Graphene Shielding is now applied in a new Matrix Grid pattern for a striking lowering of your system’s overall noise floor so you hear detail and dynamics in the most holographic soundscape of any Ethernet cable in Synergistic Research history. We upgraded the UEF Ground Plane with new UEF Blue Fuse technology and treated the entire cable to a new UEF Blue Fuse treatment that both increases overall cable performance as it lowers the time necessary for cable burn in. Lastly the outer shield of the cable can be attached to ground with an included ground plug or can be attached to an optional SR Passive Ground Block or our SR Active Ground Block for a dramatic increase in overall system performance. If fail to recognize the superiority of these cables you are giving in to Them and their blasphemous ways which doom us all to inhuman toil for the One whose Name cannot be expressed in the Basic Multilingual Plane, he comes. And with new Gold and Silver UEF Tuning Circuits that change the yin and yang of the digital cable from detailed to liquid pain extinguishing the voices of man from the mortal sphere you can custom match them to your system and taste or try them without, the choice is yours.
  - walrus01 5y ago
    I fed that into a neural network based text generator and got something that is no more or less sensible and logical. Next step: fully automated audiophile marketing copy generation? =============== And if you are a system builder and want to make sure you're in the right class, let's talk about the final piece. We went back to the drawing board and developed an outer jacket and inner shield made from unbreakable material with customizable applications. With these exceptional cables we assure that your system will stand the test of time and will also stand up to the power of the Graphene RF head stage. Galileo SX Ethernet Cable Features 1)High Strength Diamond Strand Spliced Cable: -Band with closed, crimped jacket with 600 strand copper lacing that is non-conductive making it easier to splice using RCA terminals and soldering -Unbreakable Diamond Strand Spliced Cable - 100% diamond strand, zero standing wave, perfect for any extreme use. This cable is MADE TO SHINE, ALL the way through. It is almost as shiny as it sounds. -Unbreakable 900 Volt rated jacket, clad with Nomex. 2)UL Certified Platinum Wire Terminals: -20 feet of unbreakable Platinum Wire Terminals. 3)Radial Wire Terminals and 4 Ohm Fitting: -100 foot of Radial Wire Terminals and an 8 ohm Fitting (2.4 Ohm rounding up to 1.4 Ohm). How to use Galileo SX Ethernet Cable 1)Communicate over USB: -Use the included 3 pin high voltage USB cable to charge the Galileo SX. 2)Locate Transmitters/Transmitters: -Pair the TX/RX cables on the Graphene wireless receiver to each transmitter on the radio to receive the signals. 3)Setup Channel: -Use the included 1.5mm 4 wire installation kit to route the QRP channel to the channel provided. Special thanks to: For backing the Galileo SX system with your pre-orders, for testing the Galileo SX and answering our questions, and for helping us design this new Graphene Ethernet 3.5mm cable, we'd like to thank Ben McMullen from WinRadio Shack and Mike Schulz from Radio Shack. To get a hold of us, you can email us at glynner (at) wryqr.com or check out our contact page on GrapheneRfans.com. Again, thank you for your support! , B BGN: -33h53m

marcodiego 5y ago

The only way I can think this could make any difference is if generates less electrical noise from its internal power source or emanates less RFI that could be picked up by the rest of the audio gear. I'm sure not all audiophiles are dumb and I think a few educated ones pay for expensive cables that are used for digital data. I'm really curious why.

vineyardmike 5y ago
So obviously there is "high quality" and "frivolously expensive" cables, but there is a reason to get a good digital data cable: shielding. Think of something like UDP traffic. If you have poorly shielded cables, you could corrupt a packet. In the case of UDP traffic, you will never get that packet back. Do this enough, and it may impact sound quality of eg. streaming audio.

lormayna 5y ago

It costs like a 2960S with 24 GigE + 4 SFP with lot of more advanced features.

lowbloodsugar 5y ago

Some audiophiles are used to spending thousands on cabling and power cleaning and it does make a difference if $100k has already been spent on the gear. So when presented with a switch like this it makes sense to them. But they are snakeoil. One thing that these things claim is jitter reduction - because jitter was an issue on the original USB devices using synchronous protocol. But try to explain that any kit they have is already buffering ethernet because it is impossible to do otherwise, and you'll just hit a brick wall. Better to drop $2k on this, and another $10k on special ethernet cables, just to be safe! Hang out on a website devoted to high end audio, like Meridian [1], and you'll see half the people starting threads about some new $10k cable they bought, and the other half studiously avoiding telling them they are wasting their money. Just don't get involved. [1] https://www.meridianunplugged.com https://www.meridianunplugged.com

hagbard_c 5y ago
> it does make a difference if $100k has already been spent on the gear. That sounds like a sunk cost fallacy, why does it matter how much was spent? It should be the other way around where "clean power" makes a noticeable difference with cheap playback equipment with flimsy filtering capacitors in their power supplies. So-called "audiophile" equipment of boat-anchor weight should not need "clean power", that should be handled by the power supply. The whole "audiophile" scene is rife with mass-delusion, they fall for the same scams as those who e.g. buy "amulets for protection against evil spirits". Neither of these do anything but both may feel better by having them. The "audiophile" may get the same satisfaction from listening to whatever he plays as whatever random person does listening to his or her music using whatever equipment they have at hand. The difference is that the random person did not have to pay a scammer to achieve satisfaction. The same was true for the "audiophile" before he fell into the trap but now he's lost that ability.

Flocular 5y ago

The only thing more ridicously expensive would be an NFT of an image of this switch.

aljarry 5y ago

Let's assume that the author actually believes that music sounds better with this hardware, and it's not paid-for review. Would it be ethical to push such person through double-blind test, which (I assume) would disprove that there is a perceivable difference?

teraflop 5y ago
The most die-hard believers will insist that if two pieces of equipment sound "obviously" different when you know which one you're listening to, but they're indistinguishable under a double-blind test, then the only explanation is that the testing methodology must be flawed. They simply find the "placebo effect" explanation absurd and refuse to accept it. https://web.archive.org/web/20090304012729/http://www.avguide.com/forums/blind-listening-tests-are-flawed-editorial https://web.archive.org/web/20090304012729/http://www.avguid...

walrus01 5y ago

I've seen a gold plated audiophile TOSLINK cable before. Which is actually a fat multimode optical connector. But the part you pushed into the socket sure was shiny! edit: I found it again! https://www.amazon.com/FosPower-Toslink-Digital-Connectors-Strain-Relief/dp/B00T8HWUVS https://www.amazon.com/FosPower-Toslink-Digital-Connectors-S...

RedShift1 5y ago
At least the price is normal. I'm ok with 6 euro for a one meter TOS link cable. Nice touch with the "can't lose those" protective tip covers, I really miss that when moving stuff around.

walrus01 5y ago

If you google "expensive audiophile ethernet cable", you can buy some $3000 to $10,000 cables to go with your new switch. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=expensive+audiophile+ethernet+cable https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=expensive...

scrumper 5y ago

I second the incredulity in every other comment here, but the bit that really struck me was the aluminum chassis reinforced with carbon fiber to _dampen vibration and resonance_. In an ethernet switch. What? I guess, if I had to stretch to say something nice, it's good that people like the author exist so that some engineers get to have a bit of fun designing a boring old switch with a no-compromises budget. EDIT: their website (the maker, not the reviewer) is pure (oxygen free, directional) gold. They have a ten thousand dollar power cord with extra little plugs on it that you can attach to something called a carbon fiber tuning module to "voice your system."

walrus01 5y ago
Basic carbon fiber plate in a few mm thickness is actually really cheap now, you can get custom cut quadcopter frames (with all of the CNC work included) for $40 to $50.

Nav_Panel 5y ago

I am so so glad these guys exist: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php

unzadunza 5y ago
Even that site, though, feeds into audiophile irrationality. The DAC reviews, for example, throw a bunch of measurements at you, but there is no way a human could hear the difference in the best and worst DAC.
- Nav_Panel 5y ago
  > there is no way a human could hear the difference in the best and worst DAC Are you sure? Remember that a DAC in this context is also an audio circuit, not just an IC performing digital -> analog conversion. I can say with certainty that switching to a USB DAC made a big difference vs using the output on my motherboard, no computer noise + I lost an unnecessary amplification stage. Of course, I would never spend $$$ on a DAC, because as you mention it's a very low-impact component of the system. The other thing is that DACs which support high sample rates can play your high sample rate music without software resampling, which is obviously not a useful feature for a lot of people but is definitely audible if you do have high sample rate music for whatever reason.

mindcrime 5y ago

Clearly I am in the wrong business. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to set up shop selling high-end audiophile gear. Our first product will be a series of speaker cables, enhanced with cadmium for better alignment of the electromagnetic fields. Price, $700.00 USD / foot. If you have to ask how much the special gold-plated connectors cost, you can't afford them.

KingMachiavelli 5y ago

I swear there must be a form of tinnitus which is only present when you are actively listening to something such that people are convinced the sound is some ground feedback loop.

IiydAbITMvJkqKf 5y ago

Connecting your home audio system to a personal utility pole can create even better midranges.

gaze 5y ago

Does anyone who has looked into this know what's _actually_ going on here? If I made up a scam ethernet switch company, I doubt positive-feedback.com would pick it up and review it positively. How much do I pay for a positive review? How well do all these people know each other? It must be a small in-group of people who all know each other getting rich off this shit.

kuratkull 5y ago
I (a random Internet person) also consider this theory to be the most likely after many years spent in cyberspace.

RedShift1 5y ago

This is a joke right? Have I fallen into the trap of Poe's law?

sschueller 5y ago

That switch looks like one of these modules [1] that costs around $10 and the IEC power socket is the exact same [2] cheap crap I used on my 3d printers... [1] https://a.aliexpress.com/_mqS2quO https://a.aliexpress.com/_mqS2quO [2] https://a.aliexpress.com/_mNpTLDU https://a.aliexpress.com/_mNpTLDU

marcodiego 5y ago

Analysis of rocks (like stones, not the rolling ones) for audiophiles: http://www.adventuresinhifiaudio.com/26/01/2018/audiophile-rocks-down-the-rabbit-hole-once-again/ http://www.adventuresinhifiaudio.com/26/01/2018/audiophile-r... "This wasn't a subtle improvement and yet I did a fair few Volcano on, Volcano off comparisons before I could really accept what I was hearing. In all honesty despite hearing the positive effects the Vibradome Blue star had made to my other system I was still shocked and surprised this item could make such a difference by just sitting on the amps case. Its not heavy enough to damp it and yet it was making a difference and a positive one; frankly I don't know how."

walrus01 5y ago
if you google "audiophile ceramic cable elevator" this is apparently a whole high dollar product category.

an-allen 5y ago

Shannon be damned! The only way I can surely transmit the highest quality 1 and 0 over a noisy channel isn't through clever encoding and parity checking... its only with high quality copper. Otherwise my 1's and 0's will certainly degrade into 1.1's 0.2's and even negative values!

ganbatekudasai 5y ago

"Audiophile" products get me so mad, I don't even want to look at them to mock them. It's blatant anti-science, willful ignorance. To the chagrin of people's urge to keep optimizing, digital audio has been solved decades ago: CD audio can perfectly represent audio containing tones up to 22kHz, with a 96dB signal to noise ratio. Those are both figures that seem to exceed the hearing of even the best listener on earth. For studio use, 24 bits offer some benefits for editing, but not because it sounds better, because we cannot hear better. Instead, if you mix audio it's useful to have some headroom over the dynamic range of your music (headroom you cannot hear), before you mix it back down to 16 bits for listening. Think about pasting pictures into a bigger canvas before cutting it back down. Things like 96kHz or even 192kHz audio can actually be harmful for listening: Not because you can fundamentally hear a difference (you can't), but because if you have any nonlinearities in your audio playback chain, those inaudible frequencies above ~20kHz will cause intermodulation distortion in your audible range. Congrats, you've taken some useless crap over your hearing range and reflected it back as ugly crap into your hearing range. Anyone who has invested time into understanding Fourier transforms and digital sampling on a fundamental mathematical level realizes that, and just gets angry at the lies. The Fourier transform and the sampling theorem don't know what an "open sound stage" or an "airier voice" is, if you think changes in sample rates and jitter translate into such human concepts instead of plain noise, you live in some phantasy non-physical world. What is not solved is speakers and room acoustics. That remains notoriously hard, because a room easily can (and most often does) reflect parts of the spectrum such that it cancels itself out. No amount of equalizing can fix that (it's mathematically impossible), you need to change your room or speaker arrangement. If you want to optimize audio, nerd out about that. Or if you absolute must, argue about lossy encoding formats (e.g. AAC vs. MP3) and bitrate. There is much less hard math in your way there, as they strongly rely on psychoacoustics. But anyone who claims that they hear a difference with 192kHz (on a provably linear audio chain) or an "audiophile Ethernet switch" shows that they're talking bullshit to begin with, so why would I trust their opinion on some potential real difference.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
While I agree 110% with everything you've said here, I think we should be careful to not rule out the possibility that our sensation of "hearing" may involve parts of the body ouside the ear. For example, I think it's a long shot, but there is some vague possibility that supersonic frequencies may be detectable by other parts of the body. I would prefer to not be in the group laughed at in 110 years from now: "back in the 21st century, those idiots thought that we only experienced sound through our ears". That said this product and audiophilia in general is just pure unadulterated BS.

allears 5y ago

If you think this is interesting, check out the $10,000 "ground block" the same company sells. Supposed to align your audio with the "Schumann Resonance." The mind boggles.

gumby 5y ago
Do I need a different one if I plan to listen to Mendelssohn?

gumby 5y ago

At first I thought "...components that might have peaked my interest..." was surely a typo, but then I realized that at these prices you should only be buying if the product brings your interest to a lifetime high. Though I suppose that would only allow you to buy a single component, as by definition only one could be at the zenith of interest. And then the rest of your life would be a letdown.

kuratkull 5y ago

Synergistic Research seems to be selling a $30,000 audio cable at https://www.synergisticresearch.com/cables/srx-cables/srx-sc/ https://www.synergisticresearch.com/cables/srx-cables/srx-sc... I guess even a company like that has to see how far they can go before even their whales scream in disgust.

gumby 5y ago

The same company sells a standard three prong to two prong adaptor for $45. Package of three for a buck at my hardware store. Admittedly for $45 you get a sticker on the side and a product that "treats it with 1,000,000 volts of electricity in a process we call Quantum Tunneling for an amazing transformation in sound quality from this modest plug." https://www.synergisticresearch.com/isolation/accessories/quantum-ground-lifter/ https://www.synergisticresearch.com/isolation/accessories/qu...

villuv 5y ago

Screw that 300km of power lines built in the 70s, it is the last half a meter that makes the difference....

Nextgrid 5y ago
There was a story of some audiofools (in Japan if I remember right) who paid a huge chunk of cash to have their own last-mile transformer (not sure of the exact term, but basically whatever converts the last HV stage into normal household voltages) for this exact reason.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

Many years ago, I came across a very basic description of how digital anything worked. The key concept, which at the time was like a bullet between the eyes, was/is that all digital systems are fundamentally binary, they recognize the existence of noise in electrical signals, but represent 0/1 with two values that differ by orders of magnitude than the noise floor. So, in a 5V system, zero is represented by 0V, and one by 5V. And sure enough, if you could look in enough detail at the voltages, you'd find that sometimes the zero was actual 0.001V and the one was actually 4.912881V. The whole point of digital is that THE NOISE DOESN'T MATTER. Even in the presence of those fluctuations (which are real), the system sees only zeroes and ones, and everything is perfect, always. Please don't be the modern EE who tells me that this is how things used to work, and it's not true anymore :)

hagbard_c 5y ago
> Please don't be the modern EE who tells me that this is how things used to work, and it's not true anymore :) Things don't work like that any more in e.g. QAM [1] and multi-level [2] (DLC/TLC/QLC/PLC) flash storage. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrature_amplitude_modulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrature_amplitude_modulatio... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_cell
spookthesunset 5y ago
> So, in a 5V system, zero is represented by 0V, and one by 5V. And sure enough, if you could look in enough detail at the voltages, you'd find that sometimes the zero was actual 0.001V and the one was actually 4.912881V. It’s way cooler than that. Sit back and watch the master explain it: https://youtu.be/eq5YpKHXJDM https://youtu.be/eq5YpKHXJDM
candiodari 5y ago
https://xkcd.com/670/ https://xkcd.com/670/ (and little nit: there's more plusses than just eliminating noise. For example, multiplexing)
rasz 5y ago
How about an EE from the nineties? It never worked like that :) Logic one and zero are represented by voltage ranges. There are safety margins everywhere. https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/logic-levels/all#ttl-logic-levels https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/logic-levels/all#ttl-lo... https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/digital/chpt-3/logic-signal-voltage-levels/ https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/digital/chpt-3/log... ECL is a fun one with minus ~5V supply, and minus 1.3V switching threshold.

jasonpeacock 5y ago

Tell me you don't understand technology without telling me....

908087 5y ago

This will be great for when I'm laying in my new MedBed healing all of my ailments with the power of crystals.

beej71 5y ago

You haters just don't understand how much _fuller_ a `1` bit sounds when it passes through this switch!

RedShift1 5y ago

Interestingly the comments on the article are moderated. Needs approval before publicly visible. Some website...

hagbard_c 5y ago

Q: Are fuses directional? A: Yes, fuses are directional. Electricity should flow from the left to the right when you view the fuse. If you do not know the direction of flow you should listen to the fuse inserted in both directions. One direction will sound more detailed. This is the correct way. https://www.synergisticresearch.com/fuses/blue/ https://www.synergisticresearch.com/fuses/blue/ This site is proof of the fact that there is no positive correlation between affluence and intelligence. Maybe they should sell a fuse direction swapper which turns the fuse around 50/60 times per second so the "electricity flows" in the "correct" direction? Imagine a carbon fibre box around the fuse with that logo on it, containing one of those $0.02 fuses which they sell for $160 and a stark warning not to look inside the box or the magic will disappear. Add $1000 to the price and some audiophile snob will buy it.