Audiophiles routinely spend thousands of dollars on DACs, amplifiers, and streamers, but the home network feeding all that equipment usually gets much less attention.

It’s understandable. Ethernet has been used for decades to move digital information reliably, and a decent home router can stream lossless music without any obvious problems.

Still, some hi-fi manufacturers have gone to extraordinary lengths to redesign the networking equipment used in high-end systems.

One company experimented with more than ten stages of filtering before settling on a particular configuration. Its finished network switch now sells for $4,700 and includes several features intended to address potential sources of interference.

That raises the stakes considerably for anyone wondering whether their existing network equipment is good enough.

Researchers have tried to investigate these claims using independent measurements. Some experiments compared ordinary switches against expensive audiophile alternatives, while others examined what happens when the connection itself changes.

But interpreting the results isn’t straightforward. The equipment being tested matters, and measurements taken at different points don’t necessarily tell the same story.

There is even disagreement over a solution that seems especially convincing on paper.

With so many approaches being proposed, the bigger issue is figuring out which problems actually matter, which equipment is vulnerable, and what happens when engineers try to eliminate the suspected cause.

Full story: https://www.headphonesty.com/2026/10/router-affect-hifi-without-changing-single-bitrate/?utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=story

Why Vandersteen Believes Digital Loses
For Vandersteen, the problem with digital audio comes down to timing. Since the smallest timing and phase relationships between sounds are essential to making music feel real, he suspects digital conversion can disturb them.

Getting the frequency balance right isn’t enough, according to Vandersteen. The different parts of a sound must also arrive with their timing and phase relationships intact to preserve the recording’s spatial information.

And the problem, as he sees it, can begin long before music reaches the speakers.

During digital recording and playback, an analog signal is converted into digital data and later reconstructed as an analog waveform. Vandersteen suspects these processes can disturb subtle timing relationships, changing how listeners perceive the depth and placement of instruments.

In fact, even digital signal processing (DSP) has its limits in his view.

In an Audiophile Foundation interview, he acknowledged that DSP can correct timing and amplitude problems in loudspeakers. However, correcting those problems doesn’t necessarily restore information he considers compromised earlier in the digital signal path.

Still, Vandersteen acknowledges that he isn’t a digital engineer, and he hasn’t identified a specific DAC, filter, or measurable timing error responsible for the differences he describes.

1. Eddy Current Losses (Lenz’s Law)
​2. Ferromagnetic Effects (Permeability & Hysteresis)
​3. Proximity Effect and Impedance Shifts

Summary: Do Lifters Matter Here?
​Yes. In an environment with a solid metal floor (such as an industrial server room with raised access floor panels, a specialized laboratory, or a steel-framed platform), lifting cables off the metal surface is physically justified.
​Elevating the cables by even a few centimeters exponentially decreases the magnetic flux density reaching the conductive or magnetic plane, effectively eliminating eddy current losses and keeping the cable’s electrical impedance stable.

The idea of ‘cable lifters’ came about because of the dielectric effect in cables on synthetic material rugs or carpeting. As with most things in HIGH END AUDIO, those who don’t understand the underlying science, extrapolate the idea to absurd extremes.

NOT disagreeing w/the science. Just pointing out where the idea of lifters came from: A signal in a wire is NOT confined to the wire. An electromagnetic field is detectable outside of said wire. Which may or may not be affected by synthetic carpeting/rugs as a (semi)conductive material. Concrete, 100% wool, ceramics, most tile, etc., is non-conductive. This is where the ‘snake oil’ takes over.

I built my cable lifters as I was not going to pay the crazy price these companies want for theirs. My main reason for having cable lifters is I like how it looks. Cables lifted neatly off the floor looks great to me.
Now, something that can help your system that involves all of your cables is to keep your power cables away from your signal cables as best you can. If they must be near each other crossing them at right angles is the best solution.

Steve’s saying the truth. It’s just marketing. Correct Speaker placement is a direct improvement. Matching speakers to the right room is a direct improvement. Save your hard earned cash. But to each there own.

Well, if you’ve ever worked live sound and had to pull cables out of alcohol, mud and yes even puke I’d say it may have its place. Now I’d never use them because we have a saying… it’s all about the out and these would just take more time at the end of a long day.

I’m still not sure if they make a difference but I think they were intended for use on carpet floors. Supposedly, the carpet interacts with the cable and degrades the sound.

• Negligible Capacitance: The capacitive or inductive interaction between a standard speaker wire and a floor is mathematically minuscule—amounting to a fraction of a picofarad—and has zero impact on audio-band frequencies.
• Low Impedance: Speaker-level signals carry low-voltage/high-current power at low impedance, making them virtually immune to the types of ambient floor static or minor dielectric effects that proponents claim.
• Placebo Effect: Blind listening tests consistently show that listeners cannot reliably tell the difference between cables resting on a floor and cables elevated on expensive wooden or ceramic bridges.

There you go numb nuts