Pimping your router

@brenn : I have Verizon FIOS too, with the G3100 (Home Router), but I have no idea what the coax filter is. Are you talking about a Point of Entry (POE) MOCA filter? I doubt that will do anything for audio. Not sure if it’s necessary at all for anything, as you actually have fiber going to your FIOS ONT, not coax 

mikem165 posts05-11-2021 11:13am@lalitk 
Thanks for the response. That’s the typical answer I get every time yet with no real answer.

No real answer? You got a real answer multiple times by multiple members.

It sounds to me you don't like the answer. It is easy to dismiss something as "not real" if you don't like it. It also sounds to me your mind is already set in this stuff. Ultimately, the proof is the pudding, which in this case means trying for yourself. Of course, if you have any curiosity of doing so, and willing to experiment. Or you can continue to spend your time in the forums arguing about it. It won't get you anywhere

@mikem 

Ideally a DAC would take care of ALL external negative "influences" presented by the peripherals (i.e. switches, routers, etc.). The reality is quite different, and while the DAC manufacturers have taken tremendous steps towards isolation, there is still work to be done. 

Keep in mind,  much of perceived digital audio performance is dependent upon the quality of the clock signal entering the DAC chip and the presence of jitter.  Jitter causes distortions in the audio signal coming out of the DAC.

John Swenson has done quite a bit of work on this, and identified two kinds of external influences that can cause noise on a DAC's internal ground-plane: 1) jitter carried through digital data, and 2) leakage current (i.e. from power supplies of the various networking devices, router, switch, in your network).

Leakage current can flow through power cables, audio interconnects, digital cables, including Ethernet and USB cables. The leakage will flow from a power supply, through a cable to another device or component, then through that device or component’s respective power supply back to the AC mains.

Alternatively it can flow through a cable to another box and then through a safety ground (the “third pin” of an AC plug) and return back to the AC mains.

In fact, there are two types of leakage current, traditional low-source-impedance leakage, which is found in all power supplies, and high-source-impedance leakage, which only occurs in SMPSs. This high-source-impedance leakage is hard to block and can take surprising paths to get where it wants to go.

These two different forms of leakage currents have a deleterious effect on Ethernet in audio systems. All copper Ethernet connections have transformers in each device port, and these transformers will block DC and low-source-impedance leakage. However, they DO NOT block high-source-impedance AC leakage. This is particularly important for digital networks used for audio. Most all network systems used with audio use switching supplies (SMPS) to power the digital devices, routers, switches, computers, etc. The high-source-impedance leakage current from the SMPS will travel through the network equipment, the Ethernet cables, the end-points, and into the DAC where they will create noise on the ground-plane, and thus jitter in the DAC circuitry

Digital has advanced tremendously in the relatively short period of time since the CDs were introduced, then streaming. Along with better understanding of what’s needed to make better sound, design, and implementation. Meanwhile, some folks are still stuck with “zeroes and ones” rhetoric.