Sound quality - Roon RAAT vs Roon Air

[David A]

Nice to know the ETGERRegen fixed the problem; however it's pretty pricy at $650 (USD). I wonder if a cheap 100M switch per Devialet and Roon's recommendation will do the same?

I think you're looking at my post in the wrong way.

First, the ETHERRegen hasn't fixed the problem. The problem is a problem with Devialet's handling of ethernet input. The problem still exists today. The last firmware update, now nearly a year old now, improved things somewhat but still didn't fix the whole of the problem. Some people are still reporting the issue after that last update.

Using a switch to connect to the Devialet at 100 mbps doesn't fix the problem, it's an effective work around that manages to avoid the problem, just as using wifi with RAAT instead of ethernet also avoids the problem. Work arounds are great but they don't fix the problem, they just let you avoid triggering the problem and that's a great thing to do if there isn't a fix for the problem. 

If you want to use an ethernet connection, you just want an ethernet related workaround for this problem and you aren't interested in chasing an improvement in sound quality by going down the rabbit hole of audiophile switches, then definitely by a standard100 mbps switch. It should let you avoid the problem entirely, just as the ETHERRegen does, but normal 100 mbps switches and audiophile 100 mbps switches like the ETHERRegen don't solve the problem, they just avoid the problem. Solving the problem requires a firmware fix from Devialet and they don't seem to be in a hurry to fix the bug they introduced or even to roll out the last couple of features they originally promised for the CI board which were still listed as outstanding in the info sheet with the last firmware update a year of so ago. The problem lies in Devialet's handling of the incoming ethernet stream. Using a lower speed ethernet stream doesn't fix the problem, it just avoids triggering the problem which gives us a result we want but it's definitely not the ideal solution.

I didn't buy the ETHERRegen to avoid this problem. I was getting by quite fine prior to getting the ETHERRegen simply by not streaming any 24/192 resolution music to my Devialet because I didn't get the problem at lower resolutions but others were not so fortunate. If I had wanted to swap to a 100mbps switch in order to avoid this problem occurring then I would have bought a normal and much cheaper 100 mbps switch and I would have done so much earlier than I bought the ETHERRegen. Getting the workaround of a 100 mbps connection to the Devialet from the ETHERRegen was a free bonus for me, nice to have but not essential since I wasn't running into the problem as long as I avoided 24/192 streams.