English Electric has launched the 16Switch network data switch, building on the award-winning 8Switch, the British company’s debut product launched in May 2020. The 16Switch is a two-zone, dual power supply, 16-port Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) device which has been optimised for music and video streaming. The 16Switch brings the proven benefits of the 8Switch to larger networks and features two independent rows of eight high-quality Gigabit Ethernet ports, which can be used as two independent eight-way switches or connected and used as a 16-way device.
The 16Switch has been designed to offer high noise-isolation and low electrical noise. It uses two highly accurate customised TCXOs (temperature compensation crystal oscillators) with an accuracy of 0.1ppm, allowing the 16Switch to generate higher-accuracy network signals, which in turn, help provide more stable data transmission.
The clock source is isolated for each network zone, allowing the TCXO modules to remove power-related noise from the switch circuit. Power is delivered by two independent isolated power supplies feeding each of the eight-port switch modules; the clean supply allows better network signal quality, ultimately driven by the highly accurate TCXO clock technology. When run as two independent power zones, it allows performance-critical audio/video equipment to be run independently from more noisy digital equipment also present on the network.
The 16Switch is available now priced at £1,000, it’s supplied with a free Chord Company C-Stream digital streaming cable (0.75m) worth £40.