are NET Switches worth considering?

It is all pretty counterintuitive. As the thinking goes, this is not about packets and the ethernet protocol, which is "perfect" by design. Instead it is about noise elimination. In my experience, a change like a better network switch, fiber isolation, reclocking, master clock, etc, each contribute to removing noise. With each step things can improve ... and you don't know the noise was there until its gone. 

I started with Etherregen. Then LPS for the Etherregen. Then added master clock. Each made a really big difference, the clock most of all, which just doesn't make sense to me, but here we are. 

Fiber in theory should be best, but I found ethernet to have more life and more bite and on most music think it is better. But currently I'm trying out the Gustard NP18 as media converter, then fiber to the NP18 Pro that is connected to the same master clock as my Etherregen. This is very nice! The LHY mentioned above does some of this in a single box, but without the external clock.

There are many permutations. Way too many.

Ethernet cables sound different too. Supra is hard to beat for the money. 

I've come to believe that all of the upstream system for streaming matters more than the dac. But maybe I'll end up where @grannyring is now and revert back to a raw feed from my router. What I do know right now is that if I remove the external clock, everything collapses. Turn it back on and it's holographic again. 

With each step things can improve ... and you don't know the noise was there until its gone. 

@kstirman Yup, that is what I have found as well. I haven't done the clock upgrade on the Etherregen yet, because I know some who have replaced the ER, power supply, fancy dc cable, clock, and fancy power cables on all of them with a NA Tempus and they claim it is better, so I'll hold out for that. I have no problem with how the system sounds right now, could live with it forever, but always more to do. 

What I do know right now is that if I remove the external clock, everything collapses. Turn it back on and it's holographic again. 

a few weeks ago Roon wasn't cooperating; not sure if it was Qobuz or Roon (still is not working well, had some issues on Squeeze as well...) but I unplugged the ER with power supply, the SoTM ethernet cable and Smoothlan that goes into the streamer, and used the generic 30 foot ethernet cable direct from the router to the streamer to see if the connectivity issues improved. It didn't and I gave up for the day. A few days later I was listening and something sounded very wrong- grainy, etched, sibillant, very digital sounding, and then I realized I forgot to plug them all back in, I did and what a huge improvement. My raw feed from the router/gateway is significantly inferior. 

It's a long thread, but lots of interesting discussion in the original etherregen design thread. The designer doesn't think many of these things should matter (master clock, LPS, fiber, etc). I think we are still learning. 

The Tempus looks great. Just pricey. 

Many say the Grimm MU1 is immune to many of the issues these changes try to address. So we might all end up there, also pretty pricey. 

And a new Etherregen is coming, also in that thread. 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/38968-etherregen-the-long-development-thread-some-gen2-dev-pics-and-update-starting-on-page-92/page/15/#comments

@kstirman 

I beg to differ respectfully on your take with external clock with Etherregen. I used to own Etherregen before moving on to other switches with external master clock option. The external clock feature on an Ethernet switch may sound important, but it’s mostly misunderstood and rarely necessary. 

Ethernet is packet-based and already buffered. “Re-clocking” it before it reaches a streamer doesn’t improve playback timing. Any differences people hear from clocking a switch (atleast the inferior ones) are almost certainly noise-related, not data-related. 

Ethernet doesn’t operate like digital audio clocks. Data is sent in discrete packets, each of which is buffered, error-checked, and reassembled. Packet arrival timing does not equal audio playback timing because your streamer buffers the incoming data and uses its own internal clock in the output stage. In other words, streamer decouples network timing from audio playback timing. 

I’ve tested this extensively with high-end switches fed by a very high-quality master clock, the same clock I currently use with my DAC/Roon player and also used with Aurender N30SA (sold last year). 

In my experience, if you want to clean up noise and simplify your streaming system, an Ethernet switch with optical isolation is by far the most effective solution. Give it a try…you can thank me later 🙂

Yeah, as described, I have fiber between my router and the Etherregen. I have also experimented with different SFP modules, which certainly to my ears have a more subtle effect than cat6a vs fiber. As I said, Ethernet sounds better to me than fiber in some ways. 

I hear you on theory of why an external clock shouldn't sound better. Even if it is a better clock, surely the clock adjacent to the chip would be better than the 75 ohm cable and terminations and distance that comes with an external clock. But it is obviously better with the clock. And maybe that is attributable, as you say, to noise. Certainly other changes have reduced noise. 

Different Linux distributions sound different, Ethernet cables, switches, LPS, and soon. It's maddening!

I would certainly prefer a more simple setup and spending less money. My biases work against where I have arrived so far.