"Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation

[David A]

Wow, after reading the ASR review of the ER and the heated debate on the AS site, these discussions have really got me thinking about my personal perceptions when listening to audio gear ... 

Why has that got you thinking?

I read the review and my immediate thought was "pseudoscience".

I've got a tertiary qualification in occupational health and safety which required me, for one subject, to design and conduct my own research project. My undergraduate degree included a fair bit of philosophy including some philosophy of science and one thing which was common to both my OH&S and philosophy studies was the fact that you can't prove that something doesn't exist by trying to show that it can't be found or measured. You can't prove that unicorns don't exist, for example, by pointing out that no one has come up with a confirmed observation of a unicorn. For all we know unicorns could be lurking in some remote corner of the world where humans never go. Prior to the 1930's everyone claimed that the coelacanth was extinct, after all we did have fossil evidence of them but no one had ever reported seeing one. Then a fishing boat off Africa brought one up from a depth in a fishing net. More than a few have been caught since then. Coelacanths did exist despite the lack of evidence. It was just that no one had looked in the right place in the right way. As the scientific/philosophical saying goes, "an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".

The big problem I had with the review was the assumption that because there were no differences between the etherRegen and an ordinary switch on the measurements, then there is no difference. That reminds me of the view back in the '60s when I was first getting into audio that if you had 2 amps with identical THD performance and played them at the same level, the results would be identical. Of course they were using the basic total THD measurement which fails to show the distortion spectrum, the proportions of the different harmonic overtones in the distortion. As soon became apparent, 2 amps with identical total THD could have very different distortion spectrums and differences in distortion spectrum are audible. The people who claimed to be able to hear a difference were right and the people who relied on identical total THD measurements were wrong.

Measurements tell you a lot about what was measured but they tell you nothing about what wasn't measured. The review relied on a few different measurements but there's no guarantee that there isn't something which wasn't measured which would show a difference, a difference which correlates with the listening reports of those who claim to hear a difference.

I'm not saying that there is something which could be measured and which would show a difference. We can't know that until someone finds something to measure  which does show a difference. What I am saying is that no reputable scientist would say that there can't be any difference because a particular set of measurements doesn't show a difference. The most a reputable scientist would say is that on the basis of the tests conducted a difference can not be confirmed. That's a significantly different claim to the review's claim that there is no difference, period.  That's why I say "pseudoscience".

It's wise to be cautious when claims can't be backed by measurements but the fact that no one has shown a measurable difference so far does not guarantee that one won't be found. If you hear a difference then it doesn't mean that you are mistaken. It means that you MAY be mistaken but it is also possible that you are right. You have to make a decision, whether to go with what your ears are telling you or not. There's no way to tell which way is the right way and it doesn't matter whether you want to side with your ears or side with the measurements, some of the time you will get it right and some of the time you will get it wrong and we have no way of predicting in advance whether you will be right or wrong on a particular occasion.

I've got my order in for one and I'm eager to hear what it does. I've got no idea whether it will deliver what it claims or not but I do know that the review on ASR doesn't prove anything other than that a particular set of measurements don't show a difference, not that there is no difference. The reviewer needs to have a look at the history of claims such as his in the past when it comes to differences in audio because there's a lot of history of that sort of claim turning out to be wrong. It's not the sort of claim a wise man, or a reputable scientist, would make.