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Thanks @baconbrain, all good points! Smile

I listened last past Wednesday but I also seem to have developed a light cold this past week so that makes it hard to properly evaluate. But in my chain it’s easy to keep everything playing without the Devialet switched on so that’s what I did. The WBF topic I linked to discussed burn in after Austinpop also mentioned some burn-in effects. In fact he used the exact same description (closed-in) for the sound of the cable directly after installation. He found all was well after about 100 hours.

I’ll listen some more later and if there’s still doubt I can indeed install the Curious back again to verify.
The Sablon 2020 USB cable is in transit now, back to London. In no way am I discrediting the cable or the maker, it just did not work out in my system, to my ears.

I gave it a lot of play time but last Sunday I again concluded that I was missing something I did not want to miss. I then decided to reinstall the 20cm short Curious USB cable. Since I have to do this blind, trying to feel and find the way to the connectors because of the tight space I had postponed this a bit but because I was nearing the end of the 28 day trial period (though I initially though it was 30 days) it was now or never.

After reinstalling the Curious I played the same songs I played before reinstalling but already during the first song it felt like ‘coming home’. The addictive richness, powerful and immersive sound was back and thus my engagement. I actually did not feel I was missing anything either but rechecked this a day later. So the negatives clearly outweighed the positives.

The Sablon is among other things described as a natural and neutral cable so perhaps it lay bare some imbalance somewhere in my system or I just couldn’t accept the sound of some lean and anemic recordings which the Curious may have ‘unnaturally’ beefed up. It could also be that the very short length of the Curious attributes to the sound quality. The Sablon was 1.2 meters so a full meter longer. Or there’s simply some synergy effect in play with the TX-USBUltra and the Lush^2 USB cable. In the end it doesn’t matter as I like the sound I got and now again get, better.

I shared my findings with Mark of Sablon Audio and he did not make any problem of it and offered a refund after I’d send it back so all good! First time ever BTW I have sent something back during a trial period.

Now I may have a problem in the future when after some change in the system the short Curious really proves to be too short but I’ll deal with that when it happens. Wink
With the Sablon cable returned and refunded I looked at my next item on my virtual to do list and I bought a second hand Keces P3 off Ebay and a new Buffalo BS-GS2016 switch.

The Keces will power both my current FritzBox VDSL router and the Buffalo switch after I remove its internal 230V SMPS.

Why the Buffalo switch? Because its the basis of the Melco S100 switch. Buffalo is Melco’s mother company. Melco has just removed the internal PSU, maybe changed its internal clock (unclear ATM), added some capacitors and put it inside a nicer case. The Buffalo switch cost me €91,50. Big Grin I’ll DIY some of Melco’s changes to this Buffalo.

The Buffalo switch is my ‘upstream’ switch, before the Etherregen. It replaces a D-Link switch.

Credits to ‘seeteeyou’ active on AS for sharing the info about the Buffalo/Melco:

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic...nt=1027769
https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic...nt=1031007
https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic...nt=1025455

[attachment=3949]
Yesterday I finally performed some surgery on the Buffalo switch. I removed its internal switch mode PSU and soldered a DC cable to the board so I could now power it @12V from the Keces linear PSU. I also disconnected the LED PCB and configured the switch.

After that was done I also switched the power supply to my FritzBox VDSL router from an old, 1st model 12V SBooster BOTWS to the second Keces DC output. Both outputs are isolated from each other and floating.

Forgot to mention in my previous post that I had also ordered the popular Planet Tech single mode 1310nm 20km SFP’s. These were only 29 euro or so on Amazon so worth the experiment. Will replace my current Cisco multi-mode SFP’s with these later, need to establish a new ‘baseline’ first. Smile


The Buffalo switch is a L2/L3 switch so I will also create a separate VLAN to isolate the music server and endpoint from the rest of my network. Doesn’t cost anything and should work with the benefit it won’t see any broadcast traffic from the rest of my network.

While I had the Buffalo switch open I took some pictures and searched from some inside pictures of the Melco S100 switch (€2000,-) and seeteeyou was right; the PCB’s are the same..there may be some differences and there may not be. Hard to say without having a S100 here for close inspection. The S100 does have an additional board with some capacitors. I could add something like that later but with a good PSU this may not even be worth it.


My Buffalo before soldering the DC lead and with the SMPS still in but disconnected.
[attachment=3993]

Melco S100:
[attachment=3994]
I’ve now got all the supplies in house I need to fabricate 4 or 5 new DC leads. These will be JSSG360 shielded and based on Mundorf SGW (silver gold wire). Not the 1.5mm version but the 1.0mm version as it’s expensive stuff in the number and lengths I need. Smile Currently I’m mostly using Ghent Audio’s Gotham JSSG360 DC leads and some DIY and Paul Hynes leads.

Besides the Mundorf wire there’s also tinned copper braid for shielding, heatshrink sleeve, regular cable sleeving, teflon tape and cotton tubes. I’ll shuffle some of the connectors and resolder some to the new wire. The Ghent cables will move to my modem/router and switch. I’ll see where the new DC leads will go as I go but I’m starting with the Mutec MC-3+ USB and SoTM TX-USBUltra.

So lots of time consuming ‘work’ but since there’s a so called ‘intelligent lockdown’ in effect in the Netherlands a nice job to do right now!  Wink

Credits to ‘nenon’ of AudiophileStyle for the recipe. See here for more info and the recipe: https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic...nt=1021544


[attachment=4066]
Almost done! Smile Reterminated two Ghent Gotham DC cables and made four new using the Mundorf SGW wire. Lots of work (did this spread over several days) and even way more than I thought...

First listening test just now and I like what I hear..very much!  Heart


Layers inside to out:
Mundorf wire + cotton tube + 1st layer tinned copper litz + teflon tape + 2nd layer of tinned copper litz + cable sleeve.  And some heatshrink sleeve on both sides after connecting both layers of the tinned copper on the ends and soldering the connectors to the wire.

DC cables:
Connectors device side/PSU side (previous DC cable)
Server 2.5mm/4p neutrik (DIY) -> Mundorf SGW
Endpoint 2.5mm/4p neutrik (Ghent Gotham, 80cm) -> Mundorf SGW (double wire used)
Mutec MC-3+USB bare wire/4p neutrik (Paul Hynes) -> Mundorf SGW
Tx-usb ultra 2.1mm/4p neutrik (Ghent Gotham, 80cm) -> Mundorf SGW

Fritzbox DSL router 2.5mm/2.5mm (Keces standard) -> Gotham
Buffalo switch bare wire/2.5mm (DIY) -> Gotham

To do:
Etherregen Ghent Gotham, 2.1mm/4p neutrik 80cm

I think I’ll leave this one for now:
Anti-mode Ghent Gotham, 2.1mm/4p neutrik 30cm

Picture of one of the cables:
[attachment=4078]
Hats off to you Antoine - that's a very high level of dedication and a very professional-looking result!
(01-May-2020, 17:44)thumb5 Wrote: [ -> ]Hats off to you Antoine - that's a very high level of dedication and a very professional-looking result!

Thank you Ian! I have to say that while I don’t particularly envy the people who hand make cables for a living I do appreciate and respect them and their patience! Smile
Hi Antoine, I was wondering if you had anything new to report on the performance of the Buffalo switch, and if you have since had the chance to compare that with other “audiophile” switches. Thanks.
I love DIY guys as I too am one ... excellent work done with (my kinda ingredients  Blush ). 

Am sure you'll see some good rewards !