Ethernet connections do have influence on the sound quality

[@Currawong]

The last part of the video also validated vibration damping of components. That's a double-whammy.

[@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel]

👍🏼

[@aussie8114]

Jaap and yourself get my vote of confidence. However having now got my system pretty complete I find the recording quality of the music is by far the important factor in the listening experience. Many recordings are far less than great.

[@Pok-001]

True. That’s why I went away from speaker’s tilted up or too analytical gear. Need my 90s music to sound good. 😂 Rolling Stones or Van Halen are good tests for a systems musicality

[@georgecav]

Totally agree! Rubbish in, rubbish out. Great sounding files sound great on almost anything and make much more difference than spending thousands on ‘better’ equipment. Also unfortunate Jaaps channel hasn’t done better as I find it great but perhaps he isnt enough of a charming influencer who I avoid like the plague. One of Jaaps videos included a Paul Pang network switch which was in two parts. One of its features was that the order in which various ethernet cables were located in the switch bodies made a difference to the sound. I played around with my Ubiquiti switch and also found it made a difference and worthwhile improvement and cost nothing but a little time and effort.

[@JordanPhegley]

Thanks for tackling this subject again for us Hans

[@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel]

👍🏼

[@jamesfarrow6752]

I recently had a network switch on loan from a dealer and it only took one evening of serious listening to realise what an improvement it made. I already had a switch designed for audio but the difference is much greater than I expected, I already have an ADOT fibre kit but because the new switch has SFP connections, the ADOT is now connected to one of the ports with my Melco server connected to the other. The addition of an SBooster power supply for the switch improves things further. The initial comparison was done using my previous configuration with my server connected directly to the ADOT so as to ensure this was a like for like compression. The SFP’s were then added followed by the SBooster I have absolutely no background in engineering and science but I have often wondered if the things we hear aren’t always measurable so I’m glad to see there is some evidence too. Thank you, Hans

[@brown-eyedman4040]

Great information as always sir. For years we have heard how things can't possibly effect sound quality. And yet for years I and many others clearly hear differences.

[@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel]

So true. Story of my life🤔

[@urbangardan1]

I have five filters between the modem and streamer - each adds benefit - some remarkably so

[@Pete.across.the.street]

The flat earthers at ASR are going to be very upset at this one🎉

[@jondu-sud274]

Grab the popcorn!......here we go 😅

[@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel]

@jondu-sud274 keep it nice guys

[@jondu-sud274]

@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel Hello Hans, I was just agreeing with Pete that we can expect some "grumpy" comments from certain parts of youtube. Nothing more than that. Cheers

[@michaelmityok1001]

​@jondu-sud274 actually looking forward to it lol

[@dtsdigitalden5023]

This claim isn't *THAT* egregious. But it does raise an interesting equivalence, i.e., that perception can only take us so far, and then we require science to verify that what we perceive represents reality.

[@bakkerem1967]

I'm glad my ears are not that sensitive :-). Saves me a lot of hassle, and money. A close friend of mine does have very sensible ears, and he vastly prefers analog-from-source-to-speaker.

[@OzSteve]

I love the term 'Snake Oil' I've added a lot to my system. I've added 2x Gustard N18 Pro's and the Master Clock (even the fuses I added) and a bunch of Wireworld ethernet cables. I noticed a wider soundstage and 'cleaner' and deeper bass. End of the day, it's MY money and MY system and I'll do what I want to it 😊 and I don't care about measurements. The measurements I use are my wife. I played songs she knows well on my system and then I removed the network kit and she could hear a difference. That's all I need to hear Great review as always Hans, keep up the great work

[@Nefty_]

Amazing video Hans. Thanks also to Jaap. You and him are my two patreon donations and that is the reason why.

[@dannyrichie9743]

You are right, those of us that can hear these differences have been aware of them for a really long time. It is always funny to me how many people think that digital is just 1's and 0's. It is only written in code that way. The transmission has always been an analog electrical signal of high or low voltages. As with any electrical signal, it is easily effected by RFI, EMI, any stray electrical fields, the ground plane voltage, shielding, and dielectric absorption or constant, etc. It is very fragile and easily altered in a way that affects the conversion process.

[@OldGuyHifi]

Thank you for clearing the air on this subject. I have been taking beating in my comment sections because I advocated for the use of a DDC. Good work.

[@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel]

🙏🏻

[@drivingdan55]

Thank you Hans for the 'simple' scientific explanation that most people can understand. But most of us audiophiles would rather be considered crazy and ridiculous and ignorant while enjoying our music.

[@giuseppelazzarotto2630]

Thank you Hans for this extremely clear and understandable video. An interesting aspect of managing digital data in a hifi system is the possibility of "playing" and experimenting and therefore keeping our passion alive, in addition to listening to good music obviously!

[@DaSixSixOne]

Interesting that the best and worst measurements you pointed out used the same power supply. I upgraded my entire network setup with iFi Power X on router, two LHY SW-6 switches, Designacable Ethernet cables and a fiber connection to my streamer. Sibilance disappeared, soundstage improved and more. Hard to explain but it makes a difference. Thanks for all of your work in this field, Hans!

[@krismccall4911]

Well done, I had purchased a network switch and will not go back

[@Infynyte]

@@krismccall4911 Hello mate, please what network switch you get for your system? Cheers!

[@mikeconnell698]

Great video. Jitter (time) distortion is more annoying and in smaller amounts than other types of distortion. Most test gear averages the measure being looked at over 1000s of cycles. You don't get to see instantaneous values.

[@renatomorais8136]

I try to follow Alpha Audio as much as I can but I hadn't seen that clock video. That's insane!! As to CAT cables, it was another thing that I could not believe when I heard it. I've changed from some generic amazon CTA6 cables to another generic CAT8 because I needed different sizes and the 8s were on sale. It was an immediate difference and I'm not saying that is due to the 8s being thicker and having more shielding but ones are clearly better than the others. I think I even heard Jaap saying that maybe shielded cables might not sound as good as non-shielded. There's so little we know about audio, how music forms in our brain that one really has to hear and decide, regardless of what theories have to say. Science isn't final and I think in this field, it doesn't even know how to frame questions the right way, there are concepts missing that we still don't know about.

[@patrickmccrank8414]

I can't explain why some things sound better. I either hear a difference or I don't. People who say "it cant be because I cant measure or explain it". Then be satisfied with a "lesser" system.

[@Bottlestyx]

Hans I wish my bass went this deep!😊

[@michaelwright1602]

Thank you again Hans, another outstanding video.

[@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel]

🙏

[@tongsan523]

That's why Zero G sensitivity oscillators are so darn expensive.

[@scientificaudiophile]

Sadly, when buying a switch, how do we know which one sounds better? Also, your video says "Members First" but I don't see a JOIN button?

[@swinkles]

Is it safe to say that WiFi is the preferred connection because it completely removes the need for better switches and ethernet cables, etc? When I bought my HoloAudio Red earlier this year, I didnt care that it is not WiFi capable because I thought i would definitely use a wired connection anyway. Now I'm thinking in the opposite direction. I was already planning on trying the new version of the Bluesound Node once Dirac Live is ready to be used with it. An added benefit is that it works on WiFi. It strikes me now that the Node will be the only dedicated streamer that Dirac is compatible with. It would be nice to have some higher-end options, my understanding is that the Node's sonic performance is only average. Speaking of which, I wonder if the new Node Icon is worth the extra money just for streaming quality. I dont want to pay for better DAC performance when I'm not going to use it as a DAC.

[@jmtennapel]

WiFi is the worst connection, unless the manufacturer has gone out of its way to isolate the noise from the transmitter/receiver of the wifi signal in the component. Auralic is the only brand that I know of.

[@ChaseNoStraighter]

I spent decades developing RF sources for superconducting RF accelerators where noise ,particularly phase noise, is critical. Jitter to phase noise scales with frequency so a frequency of 3.9 GHz is 19500 times is more sensitive that 20kHz and everything mentioned here is on steroids in that world. Oscillators are double or triple isolated and clock systems can take years to develop. What is most likely is that there is crosstalk between clock systems as even very small coupling will cause intermodulation in a nonlinear clock signal chain. I think our ears are very sensitive to IMD and that is probably those with ears that good are hearing. This is all fixable in a dac system but as you have demonstrated it takes motivation, setting a requirement, developing of the test setup and then the willingness to put the engineering effort in to it.

[@truman4956]

Love the straight talk of Hans

[@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel]

🙏🏽

[@mesterha]

Great video. Very informative. I assume some amount of jitter is already baked into the signal during the original A/D process. Any work on removing it? I've been thinking that deep neural nets might work. They are already used to up sample images to higher resolutions. Should be relatively easy to create training data with music that has typical A/D embedded jitter. Has anyone done this?

[@rodrigosoler1]

Wifi is better or worst then ethernet cable for audio streaming in this case?

[@vladimirdorta6692]

Great, as always.

[@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel]

🙏

[@grommie]

Love this subject❤

[@trekkis]

Of course they can - by simply introducing additional electrical noise. So galvanic isolation is good thing.

[@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel]

It's not only galvanic separation...

[@noahbirdrevolution]

Hard to argue. I've not spent much time on this subject, but I'm curious as to how the POE is dealt with when receiving an audio signal. I know power from a USB that's transmitting data can create higher noise than running power from separate psu so the USB is data only. Could not only switch and cable quality, but how POE is dealt with by the convertor board create more noise?

[@danielguderian4649]

interesting. clear presentation👍

[@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel]

Glad you liked it

[@theklipschcave3389]

Very interesting. Digital doesn't mean perfect...

[@connorduke4619]

Hans, the Effe-01 Optical Ethernet Isolator (using fibre-glass) for 400 pounds got a positive review from Srb at iiWi. Would be great to see your review of it as well.

[@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel]

There are many device and only 52 fridays in a year🤔

[@thinkIndependent2024]

Hans you are not hearing things but!! mitigation of Ethernet is simple! ! power is the main source of jitter. Lab grade correction is accessible for under $175.00 at nano volts ripple levels along with ferrite beads. Maybe it's time to reconsider Tesla/ Edison and Alternating Current verses Direct Current . Also consider linear supply is just a lower frequency switching power !!Diodes cause current switching noise with cascading harmonics. My comments are based on testing a completely Direct Current Audiophile system. There were a few faults in Alpha Lab presentation I did comment on his post.

[@thinkIndependent2024]

Thanks!

[@jakobgooijer]

Actually, people are right when they say that you hear things that aren't there...they are probably talking about noise. We hear that very well when it is absent