Do you remember a time when the words “computer network” were only mentioned at schools or large offices, and often only by those required to administer them? Now, every single one of us has a network of some sort in our home. Even if that network is nothing more than a single wifi router which allows your computer to surf the web and provide wifi to your many “i” devices.
Chances are, that if you are reading this, you also make use of your home network to stream music. Whether that’s from Spotify or Tidal or maybe from a NAS drive. The fact is, streaming has all but completely taken over as the medium of choice for music consumption in our homes. Also, if you are reading this, you are most likely interested in good sound and have optimized your system by selecting good speakers, a good amplifier, good cables, etc. Which brings us to a problem: Achieving good sound over a computer network isn’t as simple as it sounds. Sure you can simply plug your network streaming player into the router, attach cables to your amp and you’re set. It will work just fine, but you will not be getting the best performance that the streaming player is capable of. The cause of this performance degradation is noise. Not noise that you can hear, but noise that exists on every single piece of data cable on the planet.
When you stream music from Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, etc. the song you select is sent from a server far away in another country. The server works great a server but does nothing to optimize for a noise-free music environment that we so badly want. The song travels along miles of cable, usually copper, which picks up noise. It is then handed off to a multitude of network switches, each with its own noisy power supply which do what? Add noise! Eventually the song makes its way into your home and is handled by your router which has a noisy power supply, adding more noise. It might then get handed off to a switch which also has a noisy power supply and finally it makes its way into your network music player (which hopefully does not have a noisy power supply) and by now that song has been riddled with so much noise it’s a wonder your player can even decode it! The good part is your player can and does decode the file but the quality of the digital to analog conversion that it can perform has been compromised.
Does this sound at all familiar? Remember the time you first learned about power conditioners? Well we’re not far off, because there exists a device which is designed to clean the noise from the ethernet signal so that your network streamer can sound its best. That device is the Ansuz PowerSwitch. On the surface it’s an 8 port switch, albeit in a much larger case, but on the inside it’s a completely different story. The Ansuz PowerSwitch contains circuitry which literally dissipates noise off the ethernet signal. There are different levels of PowerSwitch and as you go higher, their ability to dissipate more noise improves.
Your next question must be “how much of an improvement can I expect?” One client exclaimed that installing an Ansuz PowerSwitch delivered a bigger improvement than his last high end preamp upgrade (which was a $30,000 investment). Another said “My system now sounds so much more analog-like.” Give your network streaming player the best possible opportunity to perform the way it was meant to perform by adding an Ansuz PowerSwitch!
