A Melco S100 is a good switch, but...it's 2200 bucks.
An UpTone Audio EtherREGEN is a much better value at almost 1/4 the price: $640. And you don't need to pop for an external linear power supply for it, either.
An affordable solution is to use an Sonore OpticalModule upstream, which has the same exact high-quality clock as the EtherREGEN (designed by the same engineer) for only $289, and run optical fiber downstream to an optical transceiver in the SFP cage of the EtherREGEN in or near the main audio rack. That way, you'll get the benefit in terms of reduction of clock phase from "stacking clocks" and the optical will be unaffected by RFI, EMI, leakage current, and a lack of galvanic isolation.
All in for less than a grand, and LOT less than $4400 for two Melcos.
actually a few weeks back i new nothing about ethernet switches. it was you who pointed out how important they are and your input has put me into a journey.
in a pure streamer system, how important is the switch relative to the other units such as dac or pre? i came to the conclusion that it is just as important (without any real experiance, lol).
the correct analogy would be the powerdistributor. the signal from the web is full of noise, even to a greater degree than the powerside......all you hear is the power AND the signal.....so how much are you willing to pay for the switch that is said to be the bottleneck in a streamersystem where the dac and pre costs 10 or 20k....or lets say in my case the powerdistributor (everest) is 8k?
i cant give the answer. thinking about made the budget brainwise much bigger.
2 melcos with the pink faun clock and 4 farad3 is about 11k. add a alpha and a omega ethernet cable, add 4 delta nr and its around 20k then, and add a rack, footers you end up 25k.
something holds me back to become the guy with a 25k switch, then again i am thinking about a serious signal foundation before buying a top streamer-dac.
hopefully taiko kicks in with a top all in one solution!!!!
as for the moment, many have already compared melco, etherregen, sotm, ansuz etc. and while etheregen is a great improvement vs stock for a much better price, sonicwise it is far below the melco, some say it sounds unnatural compared.