Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have one of these things connected between a Mac Mini and a Linux/Win10 box. While it is essentially functional for my purposes, I kind of hate it, and I have a difficult time recommending it to anyone. Here are my issues: -- The audio path is a joke. This KVM switch introduces so much noise into both channels that they are essentially unusable. Others have reported on this as well, so I don't think this is just a fault with my unit. I've since disconnected this switch from the audio paths of my computers and connected them to a separate two-way amplifier (this one here: Orb Audio Mini T V3 Amplifier (Black)). This amp doesn't automatically switch the audio between the two computers, you need to do it manually, but the noise is gone, and I don't mind selecting the channel by hand. -- The switch sometimes gets confused about which computer it's connected to, especially when I'm waking a computer from sleep. In this case, nothing goes to the display, and I need to press the selector button a couple of times to let the switch figure out what it needs to do. Annoying, but I can live with pressing the selector button a few times, as long as the switch actually starts working properly. -- Which, unfortunately, doesn't always happen. In my few weeks of using this switch, I've had one episode where the computer and the KVM lost USB contact altogether: upon waking my Mac, the switch gave me video signal, but wouldn't transmit any keyboard/mouse information. Regardless of whether or not I unplugged everything and plugged it back in, and switched between computers, it wouldn't work. I had to connect a different keyboard/mouse to reboot the Mac (yes, actually reboot it) for the two devices to become friends with each other again. I'd never experienced problems like this with my Mac on either of the two KVM switches it had been connected to in the past, so I'm blaming the switch for now, and hopefully the problem won't persist. -- The switch doesn't manage the display IDs between the two systems, so if you are using two computers with different resolutions, then you will find that the computers may resize their windows every time you switch between them. I don't have this issue, as my both of my computers use the same resolution, but I expect that this would be a deal-breaker for others. I've been using KVM switches for almost 20 years now -- upgrading every 3-5 years, following the technologies as they evolve -- and KVMs just seem to get less and less stable as time goes on (as technology gets "better and better"). Looking at the reviews of other DisplayPort KVM switches, it sounds like problems akin to these are epidemic, so I suspect that elegantly handling these digital signals is harder than it seems. Still, it makes me wonder why it appears that no one can do this job properly. Especially with audio. The clean switching of analog audio signals was something that was solved decades ago. If I can find another DisplayPort KVM that is guaranteed to behave competently as a KVM should, I'll buy it immediately, even at thrice the price. Until then, this KVM switch serves as an affordable stopgap, and I'll tolerate its issues for now, keeping in mind that it delivers most of its functions with enough reliability to be only occasionally frustrating.