Chord Company brand English Electric officially launches its first-ever product: the 8Switch
13th May 2020, Wiltshire, Great Britain: English Electric (a Chord Company brand) has officially launched its first-ever product, the 8Switch data switch. The announcement follows English Electric’s international debut at the UK’s biggest audio event, The Bristol Hi-Fi Show 2020, in February. With 8Switch stock now in dealerships nationwide, full details of the new device (£450) have now been released, along with a dedicated English Electric website: englishelectric.uk.
About the 8Switch
The 8Switch is a high-quality eight-port GbE Ethernet switch designed to deliver high-quality sound from music streamed over a network. Cosseted by a high-quality machined aluminium enclosure, which offers excellent protection from both acoustic and electrical noise, the 8Switch comprises eight audio-grade 100/1000 Base-T gigabit Ethernet ports, with high and low electrical noise isolation, reducing troublesome data issues when streaming music over a network.
A discreet LED display on the front panel includes power, alarm and the link status/speed for each of the eight ports. Resonance-damping feet are also featured to help decouple the 8Switch from unwanted mechanical vibration. Each 8Switch is also supplied with a Chord Company C-Stream digital streaming cable (0.75m) worth £40.
With data switches requiring high-speed power supplies, negating the use of linear power devices due to their speed limitations, English Electric’s engineers set about improving the power signal by using an extremely high-quality wall supply. The advanced medical-grade power adaptor permits an optimum-quality network signal, driven by high-accuracy clock technology and has been designed to reduce electrical noise from AC sources, and prevent mains quality issues from affecting network signals. The 8Switch also boasts high power efficiency, a no-load power consumption of < 0.075 W, plus protection from short circuit, overload and over-voltage.
8Switch core technologies
The 8Switch is driven by a customised TCXO (Temperature Compensation Crystal Oscillator) with accuracy rated at 0.1ppm: far higher than normal crystals and higher than a normal TCXO, allowing the 8Switch to generate higher-accuracy network signals, which in turn, help provide more stable music-data transmission.
The power supply and clock-generation circuits each have two electrical noise-isolation circuits which ensure stable network signals; an EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) absorber helps to reduce noise further from the digital circuit. Compared to a standard IT network switch, music lovers can expect increased performance and a lower jitter measurement, up to 90 per cent less!
Price and availability
The English Electric 8Switch is available now priced at £450 (includes a Chord Company C-Stream digital streaming cable (0.75m) worth £40.)
UK stockists
UK dealers now have stock and can fulfil online and telephone orders via post, with rest of world following shortly.
UK dealers: A Fanthorpe; Analogue Seduction; Audience; Audio Affair; Audio T (Oxford); Audio Venue; Brian & Trevors; Canterbury Hi-Fi; Ceritech Audio; Cymbiosis; Deutsch & Deutsch; Future Shop; Hi Fi Lounge; Hi-Fi Corner (Falkirk); Hi-Fi Stereo; Ian Hammond/Martins Hi-Fi; Igloo Audio; In Phase International (Nottingham Hi-Fi); KJ West One; Martins Hi-Fi; Nintronics; Oxford Audio; Rayleigh Hi-Fi (Rayleigh);Sevenoaks Sound & Vision(Reading); Sonority Design; Soundcraft; The Audio Room/Ultimate Home Ent. Ltd and Tom Tom Audio.
About English Electric
Synonymous with world-renowned British engineering, the reborn English Electric brings a new range of exceptional value hi-fi equipment for the discerning music lover.
Building upon a noble heritage of aviation and locomotive design, myriad large-scale electro-mechanical equipment and power generation, this classic British brand is once again continuing its path of design innovation, this time in the audio sector, with an exciting range of high-performance electronics and accessories.
The reborn English Electric (a Chord Company brand) is backed by a large engineering team which has been designing, building and engineering high-quality audio devices in Great Britain since 1986.
The English Electric Company further information
From north British (Preston) industrial roots in 1897, The English Electric Company – as it became known in 1918 – grew into a multi-faceted manufacturer of electrical equipment and machinery, specialising in motors, transformers, railway locomotives and traction equipment, expanding many years later into consumer electronics, nuclear reactors, computers and aviation.
The re-ignition of a historic brand with such a rich and diverse heritage is not to be tackled lightly; the ‘EE’ marque evokes what many consider to be a bygone era of world-leading great British engineering and many of its products (such as the Vampire and Lightning jet aircraft and Deltic railway locomotives) attract an enthusiastic and emotionally engaged following, transcending their primary function.
As a fellow great British manufacturer, Chord Company is respected globally for its award-winning A/V cables and is perfectly placed to apply its successful blend of innovative proprietary technologies, design expertise and exemplary customer service to the rejuvenation of this classic British name, whilst preserving its noble lineage.
I cannot believe you are not even ashamed to write this cr*p to sell a £450 switch.
Believe it!
all the network switches are amazing. i tryed one with in 1
min. i noticed the detail Then
i backed it up with another the
Duel Goat i call it. it is amazing like i said Don’t forget to use a nice cable
Hi,
I´m so tired of this digital “experts”. Why don´t you wash your ears, buy a good hifi-set up and LISTEN.
This great switch has even reached Sweden and I`am testing it in my stereo. Itś really great!! And worth 5600SEK…!
Good work Jay, and thank you!!
I´m leaving this sight now but won´t go back since I guess it will affect my bloodpressure…
Hälsningar
Leif
This is such crap – it’s a switch, that’s all. There’s literally NO SUCH THING as an “audio grade” ethernet switch, its ethernet, its digital, and it can carry any bitrate lossless you put through it. The gold on it is just tomdupe idiots into buying it, just like hdmi monster cables. This is deplorable.
did you try one ? no, Ok then you know what you’re talking about
Lol what a scam
I’m afraid I missed everything after “high speed power supply” as I was laughing too hard.
Okay now this is ridiculous. The ethernet signals are digital, thus they’re pretty much immune to interference. It’s either working or not. If you get the signal through with near-gigabit speeds, its fine.
It makes no semse from the jitter side either. The packets sent through there are buffered in the auduo source, this is not.a toshlink cable that streams digital audio in real-time.
I’m an audiophile, I’m not shaming at all, but damn some audiophiliacs really.need to wake up. Also, if you have good internet subscription pretty much any track will go through the network in seconds, no matter what equipment you use, as long as it’s a gigabit one.
What’s next? Audiophile internet providers with dedicated vpn-s to tidal and qobuz? How about audiophile washing machines that are stated to cause less interference. Or maybe we could invent audiophile clothing that doesn’t build up any static charge. 450 bucks for a home switch is completely bullshit, it’s near the price of industrial ones.
Excuse my typos
It is a normal switch with a normal wall wart, encased in some shitty Al case. Big deak.
The only creative, inventive part is the bullshit used by the thieves who made up this nonsense, and ably perpetrated by the aufio bacon scammer who wrote this crap unashamed ly to boost readership for personal gain.
More audiophool bullshit.
You confuse “worth” with “priced”. P.T. Barnum’s dictum, there’s a sucker born every minute, is proved yet again.
PSA for non-network engineers: this is over priced and unnecessary. the components in the switch may do what they claim, but it is completely unnecessary. when audio is streamed over a network, it is typically buffered on the device playing the audio.
this happens via a TCP stream of data. TCP is a protocol for transmitting data. each bit of data is verified as received. if data is not received, or corrupted in transit, it is resent by the source. having a $500 switch to increase your DIGITAL audio quality does not increase your audio quality. a $50 switch will work exactly the same.
the switch is merely what allows the devices to communicate on a network. the TCP transmission is negotiated by the server and client and pass through the switch.
be skeptical about anything that claims to give you better digital audio.
i could keep explaining this, but please, do some research and look elsewhere.
This is a joke right? IP networks are digital and if you seriously think the “quality” of the ip packets effect your audio signal, you must have the most awful dac implementation on the planet.
This is just an excuse to slap some cheapish components together and sell them to people who don’t know any better at a ridiculous markup.
And if the engineers that worked on this thing actually believe what they claim, they need their heads examined.
Bullshit ripoff. Any functional switch will provide the same “audio quality”. It’s not audio until it hits a DAC. Until then, it is a digital file, just like a jpeg or an email and every digital network handles them all the same.
I just bought for €10 in a flea market a used 24-port Cisco 2950, that is at least 100 times better than the $5 chinese switch encased in that EE box.
I purchased the uptone etherREGEN switch to try – 30 day return so no harm. It has made a positive difference to my system and it will definately be staying. Be interesting to see what the feedback is of listeners trying this in their systems. Audiophile switches have been getting lots of attention on forums . I first tried a cisco 2960 and was genuinely shocked at the improvement that brought to streaming. £60 on the popular second hand site.
I’ll have to get a hold of a 2960!
Isolating a digital device from vibration is bullshit. There are no analogue audio components in this box. And the stuff about the wall wart is priceless.
Wow! Look at all those hate. LOLz. Good for them, they get to save money instead of burning cash on hifi.
I always enjoy reading your reviews, keep up the good work. No science can explain the stuff we hear in tweaks and cables etc, but at least we are not angry.
amazing how angry people get over audiophile switches. I assume you everyone here has done the due diligence, by listening to a selection of switches in a suitably resolving system, before commenting. If you havent done the listening and you’re just commenting based on what you “know” might i humbly suggest you start with something like the Uptone Audio EtherRegen, its made a big difference to the performance of my headfi set up. They have a 30 day no quibble returns policy.
not getting angry over ;audiophile switches’, which incidentally do not exist
getting angry over thieves and tricksters selling EtherRegen and other nonsense like these switches
… all I want to buy is the EEthernet cable, not for 40 φυσικά, of course, but for much less! I have a dac Chord, it performs wonderfully, but I would never buy this product !!
I just installed one in my system along with AQ Diamond Ethernet cables I was shocked but there is a noticeable improvement lacquer background imaging is improved as well as Sound staging! I’m very happy with my purchase thanks for the good review
Modern Ethernet, USB cables and switches are all based on Schrödinger’s cat cable
The audio is both improved and not improved at the same time
If listened to by an audiophiles with ‘special’ hearing, or a cable manufacturer, or a ‘reviewer’ on a backhander, then it will immediately resolve to ‘improved’
If anybody else listens or indeed fact, physics, measurements, or reality are used, then it will resolve to ‘not improved’
In this particular nonsense, English Electric are very careful not to suggest that it can improve sound quality as that would, under British legislation, be illegal, they will leave that to Audio Bacon and other shills