Intro
Contents
There are some things you need to think about before you act. Such as listening to, or testing, a network switch of about 2550 euro. After all, that’s a lot of money for a box that transfers data from the source to, in our case, the streamer. And what’s it supposed to do? Handling data packets. 1’s and 0’s. That can’t do anything in terms of sound reproduction. Can it? … um… think again. We will discuss the JPlay M12 Switch Magic (made by telegärtner)
It’s been confusing. For although JPlay sells this M12 Switch Magic on its website, the product is made by the German Telegärtner (a specialist in connectors and products for data transmission).
However, we only see the product on the Japanese website and not on for example the German or English version. Maybe JPlay will carry the stuff for Europe. Who knows… Fact is: Jplay sells the stuff – with some margin – through his shop.
The kit
The kit consists of the switch and two cables. The cables are insanely beautifully made and equipped with the luxury – not entirely surprising – Telegärtner plugs. On the siwtch side is the M12 coupling. By the way, this coupling is 4-pole, so intended for two wire pairs. And that means the switch works at up to 100 mbit, since gigabit speed requires four wire pairs.
Now audio needs no bandwidth at all and 100 Mbit is more than enough to play even DSD 512. And 24 bit 384 kHz is also no problem with 100 Mbit. In short, fine. We also heard from several readers that 100 Mbit sounds better. We’re going to test that again.
Striking is how small this switch is. In a photograph he looks a lot bigger than he really is. We estimate it to be 15cm long and 5cm wide. If you want to screw it under something, you can; there are screw holes in it.
