Gustard N18 Pro review and advice 

Impressions + comparisons + suggestions, all in a digestible runtime. Bravo on a great review. I got an N18 Pro hoping for a noise reduction tweak. Instead, I got a full on new component in the chain that has a major effect on the overall presentation. Potential buyers should think of it in such terms, I believe. The soundstage now sounds like it’s etched with a laser while the center image has a ghostly and eerily real quality to it. I’m getting oodles of detail and especially grunt that drives the music in an energetic, exciting, and toe-tapping way. I haven’t turned on my subwoofer since putting it in my system. You say lean and aggressive…I agree with the latter, but IMO I wouldn’t say lean, in my system anyway. It’s a very full sound to my ears. If anything, maybe it’s all too much. I’ve never made a change in the past that made me think my system is fatiguing, until now. I’m going to let it settle for a few weeks, and if I still feel the same way, I’ll try out one of Gustard’s replacement ceramic fuses which smoothed out my R26 when I installed one there. Thanks for your impressions and advice.

Thank you for this! I've been thinking about adding an audiophile switch after the same d-link you've discussed here. Or, simply replace with either a Gustard or the LHY. Extremely helpful to get your impressions on what each will impart. Even more helpful about the fuse changeout...loved your "in the void" addition. I've been an incurable void dweller for way too long. It shouldn't make a difference, but it does 🙏🙏

Thank you for your (really) great review. I use now four Linksys LGS 105s and each of them made a huge sonic improvement. (Not in a high end system: just an SMSL SU-9 dac.) The benefit I got when removing their metal housing was even bigger. Then I replaced the power supplies that came with them with LPSs which again resulted in an improvement. But the biggest improvement I got was from one ifi xPower. The quality of the 12 V cables and that of the ethernet cables matters as well. I also tried a Mercusys MS 105G - but I did not like its muffled sound. The Linkys provides tons of detail, but yhey are a bit lean. However with my new Gustard r26 I like what I hear. I wonder why adding cheap, standard switches may provide excellent sound (my experience is not unique), however most of the reviews of audio-grade switches speak about minor improvements.

If you can't afford a switch try the IFI ILAN on your streamer & IFI IpowerX or Power2 on your router. Good place to start before stepping up to the big leagues of more expensive power supply's, switches, and digital cables. I've stepped up to more expensive stuff and still use the ILAN on my streamer...TV too.

@iiWiReviews Hi Srboljub, first of all I’m so glad you started introducing yourself at the beginning of your videos at last. I remember your video explaining why you hadn’t done it before and, whilst I still don’t think I can pronounce your name properly I’m glad you started doing this 👍 I’m also glad you did another review on switches as it peaked my interest when I discovered that Gustard had made one, as they seem to be pretty good at the other products they’ve produced so far. Rather predictably however this resulted in the usual comments that network switches “can’t” make any difference from network engineers and sceptics alike. Having a healthy balance between scepticism and an open mind however is really important, and I trust you when you say that you can hear a difference. All too often the strongest opinions on this come from those who have never actually listened to know if they can hear something (or not), even if they can’t explain why any difference should exist or not. I’m sure you will have seen Hans Beekhuyzen’s channel where he does a very good job of explaining how the digital information is carried in an analogue square wave which can become contaminated, resulting in timing errors etc when processed by the DAC. Like you I also trust his opinion on what he hears, but that isn’t the same as hearing a difference yourself. However recently I discovered the guys at @Alpha Audio who have taken things a step further by not only attempting to measure what is going on electrically in switches (particularly with power supply noise and port isolation and loading) but also setting up quality, live audio recordings and doing blind tests (on his colleague Martijn) so that viewers can also attempt to hear with their own ears whether different switches sound different or not! Even with the limitations of RU-vid audio compression etc, with a decent set of headphones and ideally through a DAC you DEFINITELY CAN hear differences, which must be even more significant if you were sat in the actual room at the time. Even then I must confess that it is hard to make sense of what differences you are hearing to begin with, but if you can sit through the whole video you will definitely get it in the end. Interestingly, the most obvious and worst sounding switch was one that also had PoE and the sound is really, really weird (even when the PoE is disabled). Anyway, for anyone who’s interested you can find this video at ru-vid.com8HNMMksiD_Q?si=vLb4Uxhi7lm_u_VY - There are time stamps so you can skip back and forwards, but if you do that at least watch some of the parts where you hear Martijn’s listening comments (who listened ‘blind’) as well as some of the parts where Jaap shows what shows what measurements he could obtain. The object of the video was to see if Martijn’s listening experiences correlated to what Jaap had also observed, and to see whether the measurements correlated with what sounded good or really bad. The results are VERY interesting, including the fact that expensive did not always mean better - in fact I think a $40 Netgear switch was considered to be one of the best, even with it’s supplied SMPS. The LHY switch with it’s linear supply also sounded very good and “laid back” 😉 Keep up the excellent work 👍

Good review

Thank you.

THANKS SRBJ 🤗 FOR THE WARNING 😁💚💚💚

The sonic improvement incorporating an audiophile switch gets more noticeable the more resolving your system is. For my system the use of fiber optic i/o via an audiophile switch was a revelation - never would have believed it before actually trying it out myself lol. Taught me a valuable lesson not to prejudge anything in hifi without firsthand experience.

I have a question.. I use Panamax power conditioners with level 4 filtration. I run my either net into the conditioners and then to my streamers, that accomplishes the same thing right? I started using conditioners years ago when I tried one and was immediately amazed by the difference in sound quality. It made the sound more open and had better finer detail and tighter base, it was very noticeable even too my wife who isn’t an audio enthusiast. Thank you for your content and time 🍻

You are an honest and confident and very precise reviewer (compared to my own experience). Please note, I am a CS and EE major and can cut through all the non-tech nonsense in the audiophile world. Yes, I see a linear power supply to the switch affecting the sound of my system. Probably there are two or three reasons - one is electrical noise, another is inter-packet delay and possibly some retransmissions.These audiophile switches make sure every chip/subsystem is fed from the linear supply, whereas just adding a linear power supply will be again be routed to some internal switchers for different voltages (Thx to LHY founder/engineer for this info). Based on your feedback, I will probably get this.

Thanks!

In my system Netgear gs108e made change and takes bass to another level and it is cheap, so anyone can try and see for it self. Even better sound with LHY lps.

I’m enjoying your content, keep up the good work. 👌🏽 But… here it comes… I feel obligated to say that the way digital signals work make them kind of resistant to interference (almost). Either you have a clear enough signal that translates to a bit, or you don’t. There’s no good, better or best signal or bit, and no bad, worse or worst signal or bit. There’s either good enough or not good enough. 🙂 And if it’s not good enough, you will hear it very clearly as glitches. If it’s good enough you won’t hear the difference between the good enough signal and the best signal, because in the digital aspect there is no difference. A good enough signal that translates to a 0 or a 1, is just as good as the best signal that translates to a 0 or a 1. As long as you’re over the threshold, data integrity is upheld. 🙂 Also for a cabled signal to become not good enough you need a lot of interference, like really a lot. And if these signals get crushed, thus corrupting data, which is what digital signals carry, data, not sound or anything else, there are protocols to try and rescue that data, which will be successful as long as not too much data is corrupted. And if so, like I said, you will hear it very clearly as glitches. 🙂 Where you probably will hear a difference is in the different converters that convert the digital signal to an analogue signal, and from there, the different carriers of these analogue signals. 🙂

I power my Tradutto with a Small Green Computer LPS. There is a dramatic improvement in sound opposed to supplied switch mode. Swapping fuses sounds interesting. But getting your rig were all you want to do is listen is righteous. May never get there. Cool runnings

I’m going to stick with my TP-Link and included power supply.

Great review as always. I had been looking at this one recently. Not long ago I picked up a Topping P50 linear power supply and was using it to power my iFi Zen Stream but I found that while it did make a difference for sure that it seemed to impart a bit of a thinness and spotlighted the top end. So, I actually moved it to powering my cheap, off-the-shelf network switch and BAM it made a nice difference. Ha ha. I was pretty surprised but it did and that's where I have it now.

I've been using this n18 pro for about a month .the fuse I'm using is the gustard upgraded version ( 5 X 20 mm 630ma ) . I also use the lhy ock-2 clock input . Also using optical input .Super happy with this switch . Great vid !

Thank you for your great reviews. Something I have learned is to get decent streamed sound quality you have to treat all your network components as if they are hi fi components. So take just as much care as selecting these as your source components and cables it's absolutely not snake oil and levels the playing field with streamed vs music on local storage sound quality. Anybody that claims it is snake oil is simply serious about hi fi.

You should start selling IWII audiophile grade gold plated fuses. 50 dollars a piece.

so much I love your reviews. But that's not a good comparison with the LHY-SW8. The SW-6 should be opposite here. Both with SFP modules for galvanic isolation. I tested the N18/SW-6 Ock2 and Sw-10. The SW-10 is in a class of its own but a sound performance recommendation is the SW-6 with Ock2 Clock. Big improvements can then be clearly heard

Just so you know, iiWi Reviews is my numero uno Hi-Fi review channel, excellent work Srbo!

It is evident IN 2024 that they influence through the analog part and the jitter -> Alpha Audio tests. There is also a lot of jitter in the audio processing on the CPU (ALU registers), a problem that I have managed to minimize for YEARS (and I am not the only one).

I am curious in whether the internal power supply on the Gustard and/or the LHY network switches are linear designs? Or, are they switch mode?

Wonderful review! Can I ask you a question? I have a Topping U90 DDC connected to a Gustard R26 going to a headphone amplifier. Do you think that the N18 Pro will have a benefit compared to my DDC? Thanks

Great review however so many comments about the sounds physical quality, if we can feel and hear the difference, why is this difference not measurable .

The primary role of the two devices is lossless bridging of long distances. The N18 is connected to the router, then I use an optical cable to lead the signal to the N18Pro in another room or on another floor (theoretical distance 20km). The result: minimal sonic differences between the quality of streamed and locally stored music. Thanks to the filtering, power supply and clock signal in the devices.

Do you find clean and analytical leaning sound to be the house sound of Gustard from their R26 dac to this network switch?

A question: I use Apple Music on a Minimac, and Singxer Su 6 DDC ( 650 dollar) to improve the signal. The su-6 gives an galvanic seperation, 4 ovenclocks, and a high end power system. Can a audio-switch improve my sound ???

I am very curios about your whole hi-fi setup.What equimpent your hifi system has at the moment?

I´m very critical but a simple Linksys switch with an iFi X made a difference, more detail and calmer sound. Not sure to invest further because I´m very happy with the sound now 😅

I’m triggered …gonna watch and like anyway tho

Waiting for your Gustard H26 amp/preamp review!!

If you have only one streamer and N18 you can use LAN1 for connecting the router and LAN2 to the streamer? Correct?

Hey Guys! I have been using two D-Link 5v Network switches, in series, in my system with either iFi Audio SMPS or Nirvana Audio SMPS, everything connected with Supra CAT 8 Cables, with very noticeable improvements for the last two years. I also use a 12v, LHY Audio, LPS on my Router with with good results. My recommendations are, be scientific, change only one variable at a time, don't do rapid A-B testing, and enjoy the learning process... either way it works out for you... Cheers!

I used a ifi network dongle and was shocked at the difference it made. Biggest bang for the buck upgrade for me.

5:10 Good point ..save your money and get a better streamer ..or isolation for your system …this is literally Gilding The Lily 🧐

Wonder how this compares to something like the EtherRegen.. anyone have experience?

OK…I am a fan…I have an LHY SW8…..goes to 👉🏼LHY LPS 50WA +Rivo Streamer….my system is where I want it….Question to Serbian Electrical Engineer 😅: Even with Audiophile-Grade network switch in place (I noticed that my NetGear Modem has a cheap 12volt switching power supply), so…would there be a perceived benefit to power the modem (from my cable provider) with an LPS? 😀

Still using the Gustard or did you switch back to the LHY?

I'm perfectly willing to accept that there are sonic improvements to be appreciated by using something like this, but for the life of me, I don't understand how it could be. I'd love someone to explain in non-pseudoscience, objective terms how the data integrity is improved. Genuinely curious.

My other half would beat me to death with one of these units..if I even suggested that I’d like to drill and cable your home to support our steamer 😆

You did not discuss the power supply used in the Gustard... You did not review the difference in audio quality between ethernet and optical input. I am sorry to remark that it felt a bit rushed today .

Just a little bit better...

In any way/case ...use fiber optic ;)

Gustard offers hifi fuses filled with quartz sand and copper powder, gold plated contacts. I am using two of these Gustard fuses, DAC and integrated amplifier, I noticed a subtle improvement, $25 U.S. dollars per fuse, pricey for a fuse understand a typical fuse was not designed for audio applications, the only purpose being a cheap electronics protection device.

Audiophile switches try to galvanic isolate ethernet connections... but We already have the most galvanic isolated connection in the world: Wi-Fi.

You warned us at the beginning of this review. But sorry, when you started to talk about gold plated fuses…….😂.

Why are you deleting my comments??

You should film a blind test for power supply and or switch. I’m sure you will ace it and it would bring a lot of new subscriber. (Not sarcasm) keep on your good work!

Doesn't make any sense to have a switch making a difference to the sound of your system. Digital signal will not affect how you persive sound it would clearly be corrupted. You think it does something but it doesn't, it can't

Network engineer here. Sorry to be a downer, but there are no audiophile grade of switch or router. They are data agnostic devices. They don't have a sound because they don't know what audio is. It's just data inside a frame or packet. If you could somehow improve them that would mean the basic operation or function of them is flawed. If their basic operation is flawed then things like the Internet simply wouldn't work. The amount of distance and data centers streamed audio goes through to get to you should mean an accumulated amount of errors from not being adequate would cause a failure at worst and terrible audio quality at best, but that doesn't happen. Before you say, "but wait data centers use data center grade or enterprise grade switches and routers." This is true, but they use off the shelf power supplies, they use bulk fiber or copper cabling, their power cables are off the shelf, they are stacked in racks right on top of each other from floor to top of the rack. They are in more challenging environments than your house. The reality is that DC and enterprise switches typically have more ports, more bandwidth, but you are primarily paying for an advanced feature set provided by the vendor's operating system and support of the device not fundamentally better implementations of digital signalling. If you don't believe me, you can simply buy cheap enterprise gear like Microtik or FS (which btw is often what you are buying, but re-badged/re-cased for audiophiles) and you spend less money for the same thing.

There goes the credibility of one of my favorite reviewers... Talking about sound differences in a switch and even a fuse within a switch.. I understand that it is a part of your channel to review stuff like this and also give credibility to a product and make the people that buy these products an excuse to feel good about themselves to have spent the money, but the negative side of this is that you loose credibility on all the rest of the gear that you review. Sorry to be so critical but wanted to point out that it does impact all reviews (not just this one) imho. If what you are saying is true then also video streams (from a local network streamed to my PC) should be better, and audio in those videos as well... You could show us the fidelity (or clarity) boost in picture quality in that case... I'll wait...