Theres a whole forum of fools sucked in by the marketing BS.. Its worth a read just for the complete lack of understanding about how ethernet works and the mis-use of terminology..
https://community.naimaudio.com/t/english-electric-8switch/8345/
Someones making a lot of money from this!
Quote from the forum:
Very happy with my EE switch. It’s provided a blacker background so I can hear deeper into the music plus the tone and timing are just right. Ended up switching to Catsnake 6a floating ethernet cables and sold my Vodka and Cinnamon ethernet cables as they sounded lean compared to the Catsnakes. I also added a Paul Hynes SR4T LPS and it made a substantial improvement over the stock switching power supply. Very happy with this set up!
Was just reading through the thread and some of those people have got to be schills from the switch company. There's no way anyone is that brainwashed(I hope). Even after being presented with evidence of it being a $30 cheap Chinese switch there's a group of about five users trying to legitimize the markup and get others that are skeptical onboard. Those have to be plants.
The one upmanship on the audio forums isn't exclusive to those places, it happens everywhere, a friend of mine contests that anything with two wheels, a chain and pedals that cost under £1000 isn't a bicycle (he is, to be fair to him, half joking) but there are cycling forums where you will be laughed out of the forum if you don't have unicornium based carbon nano tech frame combined with wheels made from quantum foamed dark matter and that cost more than a small 3rd world country's entire education budget.
Same applies to ham radio, to test gear acquisition syndrome, fishing rods, cars, all sorts.
It makes me wonder just how empty their lives are that they have to invent such ludicrous hyperbole to justify their purchase of the latest, greatest BS tech or lose face.
I wonder just how many of the positive reviews are only positive because they don't want to be the one to reveal the emperor isn't wearing the most beautiful new suit and thus lose the favour of the community and manufacturers?
As for posting the info about it being a cheap mass market switch, yeah, they'll never admit they've been conned unless everyone else admits it at the same time because they're terrified of being deemed 'unworthy' of their place in the forums.
All it would take is one alpha member to tell them it's BS and then they'd fall like dominoes.