Ansuz Powerswitch X-TC Audio Network Switch

REVIEW
Jason Kennedy
Aug 03, 2021

Radiohead’s ‘Decks Dark’ [A Moon Shaped Pool, XL] delivered lovely bass weight and superbly resolved backing vocals that soared above the instruments and lead, the Powerswitch making the reverb changes on this finely nuanced production much clearer than usual. Going back to the English Electric (at a quarter the price) is a rude awakening, the presentation being perceptibly louder, brighter and cruder with a drier balance. Making the change back to the Ansuz and using Qobuz rather than my local server to play Jeremy Cunningham’s The Weather Up There [Northern Spy], you can feel the sound open up and relax, the instruments sounding totally real, especially the drums on this drummer’s record, all of which means that the groove is placed front and centre just where one imagines it’s meant to be.

ANSUZ POWERSWITCH X-TC AUDIO NETWORK SWITCH

This switch brings a depth of sound; a roundness and body to voices and instruments that is obvious without comparison, Joni Mitchell’s ‘All I Want’ [Blue, A&M] is a bit of a thin recording but the Ansuz gives it a presence in the room that can only usually achieved with vinyl. All the quieter elements in ‘Natural Mystic’ [Bob Marley And The Wailers, Natural Mystic (The Legend Lives On), Island] are clear, the overdubbed guitar, the hi-hat and the fabulous, muscular bass line. They coalesce perfectly too.

I also compared the X-TC to an old but well-regarded Cisco Catalyst 2960, which sounded hard and flat after the Ansuz but did a good job with timing, it’s coarse but musical. The Ansuz managed to outgun it in every respect, delivering a genuinely three dimensional sound that was more involving and boogied even harder. You get all the energy without the noise that is the bane of digital systems. Playing the Grateful Dead’s ‘Cumberland Blues’ (Europe ’72, Warner Bros) you get the distortion from the guitars and the recording without the distortions of the network and this is not subtle, it’s thrilling.

The network switch really is as important as the server, streamer and DAC in a streaming audio system, it’s the fourth element and the Ansuz X-TC makes this abundantly clear. You really don’t know what streaming audio is capable of until you hear it with a network switch of this calibre.