AARDVARK - Ethernet Noise Isolator for purist LAN / WAN Hi-End Audio Streaming

Description

Extremely high quality Ethernet Noise Isolator for purist
LAN / WAN H
i-End Audio S
treaming
PRICE INCLUDES
Free continental US shipping
1 year full replacement warranty
The Problem
Noise is the fiercest enemy of the most enjoyable aspects of music reproduction.
Microdynamics, sense of space, detail, atmosphere...sheer delight.
Name those subtle features in music that open your own personal door to pleasure and they affected by noise.
From the dawn of its existence, noise has been an enemy of hi-fi.
Today in the Digital Era, noise has become “The” enemy.
It not only affects silences. Noise also corrupts the process of transporting and recovering data itself.
Noise has matured. It is no longer a “hum or hiss” in your speakers.
It has become something more complicated and is much more difficult to deal with.
Once noise invades the sacred ground plane of a digital system, it seems to be everywhere. And there goes the delight.
Noise is very difficult to eliminate as it is inherent to some components. Since all components are interconnected, if one component has noise, all connected components can be affected.
The only solution is to confine it wherever it lives.
Modern digital high-end audio means streaming, local (LAN) or remote (WAN), and in both cases that involves a router, or a switch, or both of them.
A switch is noisy and a router is even noisier.
But not only them, a local server with all its processes and clocks is noisy too.
Not to mention the local network itself.
Truth is, in all of its shapes, noise denies silence.
The Solution
This is where galvanic isolation comes into play.
Isolation is the vaccine.
Perfect isolation comes in the form of a transformer to protect the ground plane.
Two coils, inducting data to each other and presenting zero electrical conductivity between them.
As simple as that.
A passive device, no outboard power supply that potentially adds additional noise or inconvenience of its own.
All this has to be done properly to obtain the remarkable results that are possible.
As is so often the case, the simpler something is, the more critical are the elements involved. It’s a reasonable counterpart.
Every step counts, every step plays a role in this act.
First you need a very good Ethernet micro transformer with a specific impedance & desired bandwidth.
Then you need to hard wire it (no PCB involved, please) by silver soldering it to a highly shielded cable terminal whose natural shielding has been carefully implemented.
You do all this by hand, one by one.
Then you place the resulting device into its vibration damped container to ensure integrity and long term performance.
Then you develop a few dozen architectures that accomplish the exact same thing in subtly different ways.
And you listen their effects on the music that you love for hours. And months.
Then you smile when you find the one that works the best.
Only then have you a solution to the problem.