Where should I go from here with my digital front end?


Good morning

My digital front end consists of a recently purchased  Lumin U2 Mini hard wired with Supra ethernet cable from an Eero mesh unit. Modem and Eero router located on 2nd floor. My listening room is in the basement.

My listening is 100% streaming from Tidal and Quboz with a budget of under $1k

should I:

1) upgrade the supra cable

2) add an Etherregen or Eno filter

3) add an audiophile switch such as the English Electric

4) other

Thanks!

 

emil

For cable I went with relatively inexpensive but solid AQ forest for my long run (8 meters). The forest uses silver plated conductors which I think digital benefits from. For more money you can get more silver as you move up the line. If they don’t make this in long enough sections for you, then I would look for bulk calble with silver coated conductors and a klein cable crimping kit. I have a buddy with that kit and it does a good job.

I did go with an audiophile switch. I put it 18" from my streamer and then used a much higher quality cable for the short run (AQ Vodka right now, IIRC, I hate all these random names). The swtich also provides ethernet to my TV, an AV streamer, and my PS audio power plant (yes, it likes to talk to headquarters).

I used an Etherregen switch. Love the performance of it. It runs kindo warm which may lead to reliability problems down the road. but so far so good. You’ll have to buy it on the secondary market but they are available. If you aren’t going to do this tomorrow, soon Uptone audio will be releasing a new version.

The other thing you can do is a power supply upgrade to the swtich. Uptone sells one but it runs way hot and indeed has reliability concerns. I resold mine to a guy who loves the power supply and is stocking up on them since he has experienced failures. I highly recommend Farad power supplies which run much cooler and are very, very clean. I have their stack powering my Dave DAC and will get one soon to power my etherregen switch.

Jerry

PS you mentioned English Electric.   That switch was high on my list and I'm not sure how I decided on the Etherregen over it.  But this is a Chord company and as I mentioned above I have their flagship DAC and love it.  

Can you post all of your system components under your profile?

If you are going to cleanup digital, start with filtered Ethernet cable as your last link prior to entering the streamer.  Also, do whatever you can afford to clean up the last  few feet of power to your components.

I just got a U2 mini and love it. I had a high end digital coax cable, a mogami digital coax cable and a mogami digital AES cable (xlr).  I could not hear any difference between the cables.  I think it is because the Lumin and the Dac are so good.  

I heard a huge difference between my Esoteric dac and my reimyo dac.  I would focus on upgrading your dac.  If you have questions on cables Mike Kay of Audio Archon is an expert in digital music streaming plus he is honest and has stopped me from spending more money on cables that won't make a diff. 

Best JH

I was using a 30' CAT 6a cable from my hub to my streamer and recently switched to isolation using fiber endpoints and a short CAT 8 (LinkUp) cable. The upgrade was significant on my system. Guessing there was more noise than expected on the old line and it was affecting the sound/signal.

Given the distance you are covering with your system, this might be a good fit. It is cheap to try, about $100. There is thread here on AG discussing it and recommended components.