Double trouble. Attentive readers noted Joël's triple cascade of the opening paragraph. I'd first come across the concept with SOtM. They propose that we daisy-chain their switches in triplicate to mirror what they run in their reference system and at shows. From LHY to why in a single sentence? As it turns out, Beatechnik are no stranger to it, either. When their Weng Fai Hoh and I discussed review specifics, he proposed to dispatch two SW-10, one OCK-2, a fiber-optic cable with Finisar 1318 SPF modules plus 2 x clock cables to sync his switches to one shared clock. Now I could play digital legos and rig up a variety of user scenarios from basic to more complex to fully loaded.

Granted, the cascade concept bothers me just as did external USB decrapifiers before. "Why couldn't they just build the necessary stages into a single component and save us from more cables, cords and chassis?" Bowing to reality not idealism, my eventual use of USB bridges for all three of my systems shows how I bit that bullet. I couldn't in good conscience treat potential LAN luv with any less consideration. So I accepted Weng's proposal to indulge in digital group sex. Audiophiles and their jollies. To be sure, all this chicanery would occur prior to D/A conversion. Think signal conditioning in the digital domain. If efficacious, I'd be incapable to explain why. For such answers get with digital engineers from Antipodes to Lumin, Innuous to Wadax. For more swinger gymnastics, Weng suggested that I place the first SW-10 close to our router/modem then run a 20m optical cable to the second SW-10 next to my iMac. "Fiber optics are a perfect replacement for long CAT8a cables." Of course now the second clock cable would have to grow to 20m as well. Was this allowed?

Weng felt that I should try both scenarios. Here's fully loaded N°1. For N°2, move the first SW-10 to within a meter of the modem, replace my 20m CAT8a with his 20m fiber optics.