With my shipment picked up in Hong Kong on a Saturday at 22:00, it arrived in the UK's East Midlands at 17:49 by Sunday with a quick layover in Brussels. Come Monday morning at 3:57, it was in Dublin scheduled for delivery at my Atlantic coast door the next day due to a bank holiday. All hail DHL. When Keith at LHY apologized for their shipping department having forgotten to include the requested fibre-optic cable, I promptly ordered the recommended $82 single-mode dual-fibre 2m kit from their website. A reviewer really ought to have his own.

Now some anecdotal data from Warsaw contributor Dawid who runs his very upscale Innuos streamer via the Innuos app on his smartphone. The streamer plays purely local files. Dawid's only need for a network connection is to access and navigate his local library with the smartphone remote. He pulls no music files off the cloud. Just so he reports sonic benefits when his router decouples from the Innuos with a noise-filtering network switch. In that apparantly marginal context, even the copper vs fibre variable still books him dividends. It's immaterial what we use a hardwired Internet connection for, actual music or just meta and command data. Regardless of what transmits across it, the LAN itself is the ingress point for noise. As soon as we open it, noise is. Already the ancient Taoists knew. Shit happens; constantly.

To interrupt its coppery flow, the stock AS6 Pro delivery included an upgraded 1m Etherlink link and, entirely unexpected, a fibre-optic cartridge for that. My elaborate LAN pipe now became generic router ⇒ CAT8a ⇒ optical cartridge/SPF port in ⇒ AS6 Pro 2nd SFP port out ⇒ fibre-optics to SFP input of SW6-SFP ⇒ short CAT8a out to desktop DAC, long 20m CAT8a out to the main system. Instead of one noise moat, I suddenly had multiples with doubled-up optical galvanic isolation for my desktop; and triple decoupling for the main system with its own copper⇒fibre⇒copper isolator.

The official name for the above plug-in gizmo whose very existence I'd solidly slept on until now is RJ45 copper SFP transceiver module, full duplex, 1'000Mbps. It's how we can exploit a single SFP port without any external optical cable. I'd just learnt something new. Never too late for that. Not only shit happens.

A road sign much beloved by rushing German motorists is Umleitung. Its default English translation is detour. It implies getting off course; a potential time killer so royal imposition. Yet translate Umleitung literally. That becomes guide-around. It neatly leads us past a hidden obstacle. Happy days? Minimalists already dismissed the above box chain. They know. Nothing good can come of signal-path detours. For analog they might even have a point. But bit-perfect digital would seem far more robust. Hardwired Ethernet travels many kilometres before hitting our router with zero data loss—though likely accumulation of stowaway UHF noise. AS6 Pro insertion and the twin noise moats this installed via fibre optics was surprisingly effective; yet nothing like expected. This was all about tone. It was fuller, more settled. Calm. Some previously baked-in treble agitation had dissolved. Subliminal sizzle like frying fat had turned off down the hall. The actual effect isn't all that plainly pinned. The sound wasn't really warmer. Neither tonality's centre had shifted down nor the treble. It wasn't about subjective illumination or chewier textures either. Primarily my presentation felt statelier; stripped of inner nervousness; peaceful; relaxed sans sleepiness. Written out it seems rather little. To the ears this guide around a sonic obstacle previously hidden from obviousness was more significant. It also was wholly desirable so a clear move up not sideways. In LAiV's propaganda for their new Crescendo Beat twin-rail linear power supply, we read of "twice regulated so two-stage linear regulation on each rail. Noise that survives the first stage does not survive the second". Like a multi-stage countertop water filtration system which sifts out consecutively tinier particles, electrical noise filters in series can do more than just one. It's audio's heroic serial killer of RF/EMI. From that perspective, multiple inline LAN switches begin to make sense; particularly once complete galvanic isolation via fibre-optics is in play.

The squeaky wallet obviously questions critical mass. What kind of noise-killing serial spree remains defensible? Where does it turn ludicrous as do the ever more unbelievable acts of Mads Mikkelsen's Hannibal in StudioCanal's 3-season prequel series which explores how television's most famous cannibal ended up incarcerated? Some listeners love WiFi. Others plug an aged laptop into their router and call it a day. They could view serialized network switches as a clear sign of psychosis: "a mental state where a person loses touch with reality. The main signs are hallucinations of seeing or hearing things that aren't there; and delusions based on strong false beliefs". To spin this line to a silly conclusion, does audio's path of psychosis lead to psychopaths so "personalities marked by lack of empathy and remorse with persistent antisocial behaviour"? Just kidding; even though audiophilia and antisocial behaviour aren't necessarily strangers. Meanwhile lack of empathy—for detractors claiming it all worthless bunk—plus zero remorse for blood-letting hardware expenditures can well become part of an advanced audiophile's healthy psychology. Ask reviewers who cover more contentious subjects. Growing some lack of empathy by way of thicker skin is useful. That said, how to answer the fair question of critical mass? I can only report that adding a 2nd LAN distributor to my desktop was unexpectedly obvious. Good thing that a 3rd or 4th won't fit. My work desk's shelf storage is maxed out; my squeaky wallet all clammed up. Alas, even my challenged math knows how 2+2=4. In my main system across the hallway of the office, I had two more LHY LAN boxes. Those now were preceded by the office workers with a 20m stretch of CAT8a. Would any of my desktop gains migrate downstream for a winning hand of four aces? Or was that a psychotic thought and with it, a Quixotic enterprise?