Comments on Profile Post by MLegend

Unless it's just my pc, I don't recommend using this https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BG685PKM?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

I wonder how much of a snake oil is this but worth trying if you absolutely need to have a pci-e network card: https://jcat.eu/product/net-isolator-gigabit-network-isolator/

Worth trying out this as well, but yeah ridiculously overpriced: https://jcat.eu/product/net-card-femto-audiophile-network-adapter/

What's absolutely stupid about it is that the card was only being used for internet duty, not audio. Simply installing it in my pc for internet usage caused ridiculous treble glare/sharpness unlike anything I've ever heard. All of my audio is going through USB.

Thanks for those links, I appreciate it. Those are a little too expensive for what I'm looking for, but I'll keep them in mind for later down the road, maybe. I think I'll just try to solder a new ethernet port on my motherboard instead.

Does it do those nasties even without a cable attached? If so then added isolation is irrelevant. Mostly I think it is snake oil anyway.

I'm thinking that you *might* have some sort of interrupt problem. But it is too many years since I have had to deal with PC audio problems. Have you tried putting it in a different slot?

How much speed do you really need for your internet? Do you even have a gigabyte broadband service? Most PCs these days seem to have gigabyte ports?

@Thad E Ginathom The ethernet port on my motherboard was fried from a power surge, so I've been using a USB to ethernet adapter for quite a little while now. However, that adapter also made the audio quality worse, but it's still listenable compared to that dedicated card. PC/USB audio is so finicky and dumb, I hate it. I'll probably look into a Dante solution after I solder the new port on the MB.

You might try placing the card as far away from the cables to your USB ports as possible. This might be induction (electrical noise) produced by high frequency signal switching in the card, that would then travel down the USB cable into your DAC and harm D/A conversion there.

"The ethernet port on my motherboard was fried from a power surge"

Ouch! You are so lucky not to have lost much much more than the port.

"PC/USB audio is so finicky and dumb, I hate it." Can be. Early windows absolutely was: I thought it had improved, but I left windows behind over ten years ago.

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So maybe you could upgrade to Linux ;)

But the underlying hardware is still going to be a time-slicing system and that can be unkind to sound.