It’s time for some hard truth
I get it everyone wants to get the absolute most out of their Hardware with gaming computers we're always chasing the bottleneck because my thing my GPU is my power supply enough for the new generation and with audio it's a similar story audio files are always looking for ways to improve Clarity and reduce unwanted noise that is untrue to the original recording that is why it came as no surprise to me that the aquavox switch SE an audiophile network switch that promises to improve the sound quality of streamed audio exists and even has loads of positive reviews some claiming an immediate Improvement and that straight away they could hear the difference don't get me wrong we have tried some weird techniques to mitigate bottlenecks in a PC but they all share something that the focus of today's video does not they should at least work in theory to be clear I don't blame people for wanting to find unique new ways to chase Perfection but an 800 Euro version of a 30 dollar network switch from D-Link this is not the way and we're going to explain why and even run some blind tests to prove it just like I'm gonna prove that this is the segue to our sponsor signal RGB with signal RGB you can control and sync your RGB with one free app browse their library of over 60 game Integrations at the link down below thank you from the outside this switch looks nearly identical to the 30 dollar D-Link dgs-108 that it's based on and that's because it's not a special edition or a different model op Fox is buying these switches and then allegedly modifying them to sound much better frankly for me that makes believing this even harder I cannot wait to open this thing up and find out what they have modified other than this sticker on the top even the box is the same they put a sticker on the included power supply but they couldn't be ours to change it for like a cleaner power one like really you guys oh they put two stickers on it sorry excuse me please use the included power supply only this is for safety and audio file reasons you know what I love that I'm just going to explain everything I do as for audio file reasons oh and this is for audiophile reasons you simply wouldn't understand they really couldn't have been bothered to at least make a sticker this just seems to be glued to the Box you know if you're gonna snake oil at least snake oil well right no I'm not gonna be like that I'm gonna be open-minded we're gonna go to their product page and see what changes they made for the switch our many customers say this is the switch I agree so far if you think the unmodified D-Link switch might be a good choice it is not if you own a good Nas Source like a Melco I'm afraid to Google this I'm about to find find the dumbest audiophile crap aren't I look at all wow look at all these different colors of thread trusted by the best and Nike how much am I going to pay for an external two terabyte storage device it's over three thousand dollars for a two terabyte Nas this is for safety and audiophile reasons Nas server via AQ switch sounds far better as internal hard disk or external USB hard drive what is the logic there they say it sounds better if you have a server that runs through this switch versus if you just play the file locally on your computer pick a lane akbox first you say cables are bad we must be careful of the directionality so we do not distort the audio and then you want us to add literally up to you know a hundred meters of network cable just so we can have your special switches which one is it improving and amplifying the video and audio signal for longer Lan connection that is actually a function okay you can use it as a repeater if you need to go more than 100 meters so fair enough here's what they've actually modified internal ultra low noise voltage regulation Jitter reduction re-clocker signal shaper Emi Eliminator denoiser uh those are the same thing modified and optimized external power supply with two asterisks now hold on just a gosh darn minute here where's the one that can't put the D-Link switch because I pretty much promise you that this is either the same or Worse Shenzhen young hope Electronics technology company additional modification we ask for your understanding that we will not give any details here must be Trade Secrets the enclosures are Hollow sealed and all modifications are covered with a resin compound we may not actually be able to see what they did oh we'll see what they did the internal power supply circuits are now carefully optimized with additional Ultra fast capacitors if we were talking mosfets okay but fast capacitors capacitors don't go fast we have also been able to optimize the power supply even further I don't believe you this has not been opened you put a silver sticker here I'm quite certain that's all you did because this is still sealed wait they have an FAQ section debunking audiophile from other brands other switch manufacturers are claiming that switch is connected to each other in series with short cables are improving the sound quality In fairness to opbox that is mind-bendingly stupid this paragraph means absolutely nothing at once they debunk audiophile from someone else while also saying that it does something thereby embracing it serious I have an open mind with this okay no I'm trying to have an open mind that product page was great because it gives us a couple things we can actually test first streaming high quality audio over our local network from a Nas or network attached storage for this test we'll have two separate Nas systems posting the exact same music files over the SMB file protocol each on a different subnet both will be plugged into the same Nick on our client computer with one running over the 30 D-Link switch and the other over the 800 audiophile version of it our lovely subjects will then be asked to come in and compare between the two to see if they can tell a difference and if they do find a difference tell us which is the better listening experience then we will test an audiophile streaming service specifically Deezer as that's the highest quality option available in Canada as of the time of recording in this test we don't really have an easy way to switch between the switches so the subject will be asked to switch between two network cables that are marked with an LTT store cable type with a known color so we've got blue and purple all the content will be auditioned using the JDS Labs element 3 DAC and amp paired with the abyss ab1266 reference headphones and over six thousand dollar pair of cans designed to be the apex of the headphone world as per Abyss marketing Hello Alex hello put the headphones on you have two tracks in front of you take a listen to the tracks in the left and right window can you hear a difference between the two don't overthink it just answer honestly oh no I don't hear a difference at all I mean they sound basically the same no difference there is more of something in the right one it is more of something slightly more but there's more I would describe it as more I think I think just because I right at the beginning the one on the left sounded better I think I'm gonna stick with that just at the end there I thought maybe the voice on the first one I thought it sounded like a little bit more full maybe there seemed like more information there than on the on the right one it seemed like maybe there was a little bit less no I cannot tell a difference not at all I was listening for compression artifacts like if you're trying to see if I can tell the difference between MP3 and uncompressed and I couldn't hear any difference is there any difference no in really high quality recordings when a ride symbol stops and they move to something else it decays like forever and on crappy recordings that just turns into a mess once it starts getting pretty quiet and on this one you just keep on hearing it get really nice and low until it like on both of them I think these are functionally identical there's no difference for me talk to the camera oh sorry I can't tell yeah the first one feels a lot more open it feels like you're you're there with the music like they're performing live the second one it sounds like you're listening it through headphones it's really clear but it's not as I mean it doesn't sound like you're you're actually there I wouldn't I don't know which one is necessarily better because I feel like they both kind of have their pros and cons but I kind of like the first one just because I haven't had an experience like that these are identical straight up just identical I'm trying I'm trying to be a critical listener here there are two network cables plugged into the computer in front of you one is purple and the other is blue you're gonna audition whatever track you would like from Deezer and I want you to switch between the network cables As You Wish can you hear a difference between the two this has been really for some like like ethernet card that's like made for audio files it is isn't it there's not a huge difference because at the first time it sounded better to me the purple one but now that I switched again to the blue one the difference is just a little bit like if I'm being absolutely completely honest and I'm not trying to and like convince you that I'm an audio file I don't hear any difference yeah the song rules but uh the switch isn't doing I can't hear any difference is there supposed to be a really noticeable difference because maybe my ears aren't trained enough but I don't really hear that much of a difference between the two tracks no I cannot tell a difference you can't tell the difference it sounds the same the same it's the same Daniel actually says did something then they'll make his things up purple sounded worse if these are like this it supposed to sound the same I'm gonna be real mad at myself I would say with confidence particularly with these two songs blue is better for some reason what a surprise our test subjects were not able to discern a difference or even regularly select the aquavox compared to the 30 D-Link switch as a better listening experience why we'll explain that in a moment but first we're gonna open them both up and have a look at at least the changes OC Fox thinks they to the original well they put these screws on really tight crud what the hell they glued them they glued the damn screws half they really loaded this thing up with glue they do not want you opening this it's a glued boy and this gives us a closer look at the switch board itself there's our processor here's the new version of the dgs-108 here's the awk Vox based on the older versions you've got one of these for every two ports and then basically Jake come here for a second there is an oscillator here did they put like a jewel on top of it oh my God thinking that anyone who opens this would be stupid enough to think that that makes it a crystal oscillator what other purpose could there be we have a we have an electronics engineer sort of here yeah hey timing it appears that over the clock gen which I believe that is is that correct probably put a jewel which I guess makes it a crystal oscillator I get I get I've never seen anything like this they also had to machine Away part of the heatsink to do it in order to do that and they put some hot glue on there I mean that's actually not that unreasonable if they don't want stuff moving around but now what I'd like to know next we're going to go ahead and take off the board here oh my God these are glued too are you serious right now they glued the board into the chassis I want to see if they actually so all these components that they've just dunked goo over I want to see if they actually desoldered and re-soldered them because I should be able to tell the difference between a factory solder job and a hand solder job is that just like an Illuminati sticker shot up kind of looks like that might have been glass at least oh it has the same like Illuminati symbol on it it has that yeah I can't get this shmoo off well whatever well no I want to know if they've even bothered to replace the actual oscillator under there oh I see yeah I can't see the markings on it how convenient to just hide under the guise of Trade Secrets but actually you just didn't do anything oh my God what the same one no no no it's worse than that they scratched it off I'm pretty sure it's scuffed up it's hard to tell the difference between my scuffs and and their scuffs but the way that the original one is marked this looks like new scoffs Jake that looks like sandpaper yeah yeah Jake I kind of want to go for gold with these screws to be clear I'm not blaming you if you bought into something like this like you got taken for a ride but that's not your fault people shouldn't be allowed to Market this kind of stuff because the reality of it is not everybody has time to look into every thing that they buy right you have to try to you know you have to trust people and there's so many great reviews oh my God Jake what guess what what inside more Illuminati triangle Crystal things what is going on what is the point of putting these in here where they are glued and screwed and glued and screwed again I mean I think we made it deep enough to know that at most they've swapped out a couple caps as much as we've mocked this product I want to make it clear that if you bought one you are not the problem the problem is their marketing because it sounds like the kind of thing that could make a difference so why didn't it well there are a number of reasons first and foremost the signals that are passed over a network connection like this fancy switch are digital meaning that while there are indeed electrical pulses flying down the cable they represent ones and zeros that make up a digital signal the digital nature of the signal is important for a number of reasons first and foremost unlike in an analog signal where interference can skew the information being transmitted like the scratchiness that you might hear when listening to a radio with poor reception in a digital signal where the electrical pulses in the cable are converted into ones and zeros if those ones and zeros are received incorrectly or out of order it would result in corrupted data and that can and happen it's even common when transmitting data over an Ethernet or other cable these signaling protocols though usually have some form of error correction so when you're using a remote streaming service over https like Spotify or Deezer or a local stream over SMB like with a Nas they transmit traffic over the TCP Internet Protocol which has a number of error detecting and correcting features that make it effectively errorless what that means is that regardless of the network switch in between you will be receiving exactly the same ones and zeros that make up your audio stream or file in exactly the same order and if you weren't the file wouldn't even play without fixing the corruption if there even is a way to do that but wait there's more simple layer 2 Network switches like this one aren't even aware of the TCP connection that is happening over them they simply receive packets that is the pieces of data that make up an ethernet connection with a destination Mac address and they forward them to the interface with the Mac matching Mac address they don't even know what kind of traffic they're carrying let alone have the capacity to optimize it to add insult to injury streaming services typically deliver their content over an https connection which is encrypted and will even run their own secondary encryption to protect the content from pirating local file sharing can also be encrypted in some situations which means even if a network switch wanted to know what was being transferred to try to optimize it it wouldn't be able to read the data of course that says nothing about the amount of processing that would be required to analyze all of that data and optimize it this 3 watt 30 switch is not even going to begin to be able to do that which raises the question what did they actually change oh I see we've done this slightly out of order I already opened it spoiler they didn't change much of anything so where are the positive reviews coming from well there are a number of possibilities one is the placebo effect nobody likes feeling like they got taken for a ride and if you bought something you would want to think that it's making a difference this probably accounts for at least some of it it's also possible that this switch could have been part of a larger upgrade for someone all of which would have been done at the same time and predictably would sound a lot better than whatever their old equipment was as for why a system integrator or a VAR a value-added reseller would include something like this in their quote well that's where things get really skeezy because oftentimes those types of companies know full well that the cables and optimizers that they're installing are pure snake oil so they make more money by patting out the invoice with nonsense they know doesn't do anything for customers who might not necessarily have the time or inclination to look it up because they think they're trusting an expert and that's really challenging because even if they did look this up even if they did do their research all they would have found was rave reviews from people talking about how great it is which is validated by their own experience with how much better their music sounds so the situation sucks what doesn't suck is the segue to our sponsor grammarly thanks to grammarly for sponsoring this video when it comes to work communication is key even if you don't have a writing job miscommunication can cause confusion and misalignment with your team leading to projects being delayed and that's why we recommend checking out grammarly premium's Advanced tone suggestions it can help reframe your 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2022-11-04 18:51
