English Electric 8Switch (Audiophile Network Switch)

[lindsayt]

If I had a system that allowed, I'd use 10 gigabit fibre optic connections.

This would involve getting a 10 gigabit fibre switch plus 10 gigabit fibre network cards for the relevant items in the sytem.

Fibre optics would have zero electronic background noise. Also less power consumption for a given network speed.

If I had to stick to copper connections, I'd get a used Cisco or HP Procurve gigabit switch. One of the proper business ones with a CLI (Command Line Interface).

I'd put a fairly basic config on the switch. One that set up options like Spanning Tree Portfast correctly.

My guess is that there are quite a lot of people that are using Cisco switches with just the basic factory fresh config on them. Which is OK in that they will work and pass on network signals. But it's not the same as a properly configured switch.

It's easy for me to say that I'd configure the switch as I've installed hundreds of Cisco and HP Procurve switches over the years.

And on the cabling front, I wouldn't bother with fancy Cat 6 audiophile cables.

I'd buy some Cat 8 cables - eg from Farnells for £20 a pop and use them as my base reference.

[Eli7]

@ Has anyone managed to hear the EE 8Switch yet?

I had the Silent Angel Bonn N8 (Thunder Data) with me several times to try it out. It seems to me that the EE 8Switch and the NuPrime Omnia SW-8 have the same inner workings as the N8 in a different housing. But I could be wrong.
I heard the N8 with my old LAN cable setup MicroConnect Cat6a / NoName and also with my new BJC Cat6a / BJC Cat6a which ran for over 100 hours.
For me the Silent Angel is a typical audiophile product. My impression is it improves the hi-fi criteria but kills the music. With the N8, the music seems "wonderfully" soft to me, softened and the music sinks into an unbearable insignificance. I tried to adjust the setup of my speakers. Unfortunately without success.
I was always happy when my Netgear GS108Tv2 (or my Cisco Catalyst 2960C-8TC-L) was used again.