Yeah, that’s the ticket … Ethernet

[AnotherJohnson]

My workmen were here today and, in addition to replacing 40 year old copper plumbing with PEX, they ran my cat 6 Ethernet cable (to get rid of the WiFi bridge/extender).

Is it my imagination? Or is the bass really tighter? Is that snap for real? Who added the zither? Why didn’t that third oboist work a bit harder on her reed? Who told Hawk to step forward for the sax solo?

Ethernet cat 6 between the gateway/router and a switch at the location of the system, about 60’ away. The switch feeds short runs of cat 6 Ethernet to the Nucleus, the Rossini, and cat 5 to the Node. The cat 5 cable came with the Node, so it was handy.

Is the difference as dramatic as all that? Probably not.

But it is quite good. Of course both the Rossini and Roon had updates, so maybe that’s why it’s sounding so good.

[admin]

Well, any improvement even if marginal is good. Also, the internet will just be much more reliable with an ethernet connection than wifi.

[AnotherJohnson]

This week a lot of cabling has gotten neatened up.

If I were still using AQ McKenzies and stock power cords and home brew speaker cables, I’d probably rebuy whatever was needed to make it super neat, front and back. But with the present $40k+ wiring here, it is going to stay as it is unless I replace a few Hurricanes with more flexible and lighter Transparents or Nordost.

Even today, the guys who ran the wire adamantly held the view that Ethernet beats WiFi in their simple systems at home. And they’re definitely not audiophiles.

The cold, hard data show there’s no need for anything more than run of the mill WiFi. But like everything else in this hobby, there seems to be unmeasurable unknowns that affect the audio.

Whatever is going on here, the lyrics are telling stronger stories.

YMMV

[Joe Appierto]

Good for you.

Happy to know that you hear the difference which some would say is small but all these differences add-up. With a system like you have then it's immediately more apparent. Small things (although not always all that small) just add to the enjoyment of listening. The this and that kind of fade into the background and you feel closer to the music.

[AnotherJohnson]

I am sure that 30% or more of my listening is subconscious.

And then something jolts me back to intent focus.

At this level of streaming, it takes discipline to change the source to hard media, even if you know it will be rewarded. Laziness takes over, at least for me. Do I want to go to the stacks, find and possibly clean a record, put it on, and flip it after side 1? Well, yes I do want to. But will I? I mean right here in my hand I’ve got the music equivalent of the great library at Alexandria. The record may be even better, but satisficing tells us “Enough is as good as a feast.”

[tonye]

Back in '00 we rebuilt our house from the ground up.

So, I installed 1600 linear feet of Cat5e (*) with three managed backbone switches. Every room then has a drop and most rooms then have a non managed switch.... so, my main stereo has one such drop.

The file servers are all in closet next to one of the backbone switches.

For wireless I have grown over the years from a single 801.11b back in '00 to a pair of 802.11ag access points working as a home designed mesh. The only things that run wireless are the smart phones and the tablets.. everything else, including the PCs, smart TVs, Rokus, Tablos, etc.. are wired.

As designed by the installation of the access points the wireless connection distances to hosts are short ( 20 feet at max ) and with no more than two walls in between. This ensures very high connection rates...

That means that my wireless and wired networks are hugely underscribed.

So, in my main stereo, I use an Android tablet working over 802.11ag ( drives a DAC) and a microformfactor PC directly wired over ethernet (driving an AD/DAC). The PC can also connect wirelessly so I can play around.

To be honest, I do not hear the difference between wired and wireless.

To top it off, the backbone network, main stereo and home theater are all on their dedicated power lines. Indeed, I segregate analog and digital to different AC homeruns.

IMHO, what you are hearing now is a lightly loaded network. I assume you're running gigE and your previous wireless connection was oversubscribed.

And honestly, unless your wireless network is terribly overloaded and/or you're far from the access point so your connection is low bit rate,I don't understand how you can even hear the difference.

(*) Cat6 and 7, etc... have no real advantage on short runs as in a residence. My backbone between the three switches uses link aggregation so that runs 2GB.... and also uses spanning tree to avoid loops.

[AnotherJohnson]

There are a couple of threads on this. I guess you’ve missed them. That’s ok.

Will not be going back to reevaluate all this stuff based on this “enlightening” new data.

Not new to the rodeo … yada yada yada … not surprised you can’t tell difference. YMMV. Your ears, your system.

[tonye]

Hmm... no, you don't get away with that so easy.

My system is quite good nowadays... I can hear very subtle differences, both in analog and digital.

That old "your ears, your system" won't work on me because I am an audiophile and I got a very good set up... and what I notice is based on what I HEAR, not what I measure.

The "enlightening" data is my ears, you see... and the fact that my home network is actually very advanced. It may be that for people with crappy, slow, wireless networks, they run into some issues... but my network is actually quite advanced. You see, I've been doing internetworking since 1990. So, my set up has NO latency issues of any kind.

Latency, you see, can be introduced when network speeds are slow and/or when network traffic exceeds the capacity... so, going from a wireless connection that is shared by many devices ( hub ) to a switched ethernet connection (switch) that provides dedicated high(er) speeds to EACH device can be a huge difference in traffic. That MIGHT make a difference depending on how your device is configured.... Ie: do you have a large RX buffer?

As I wrote, my RME is hooked up via a PC on a switched wired connection, my Burson (V6 Classic op amps) is hooked up to the Android Tablet via 802.11ag, with a very good connection, very few devices and a well sized rx buffer.

And latency, if you would read what I posted, is likely the problem, instead of doing an off hand dismissal... you know, THAT gets tiring...

You know what.. here's my system.

Linn LP12, Karousel, Ittok LV-II, Trampolin, Lingo, Grado Master 2 (1mv).
DIY Pearl 2 phonostage.. with upgraded parts, customized panels and power supply
Conrad Johnson PV9 with teflon cap and Svetlana tubes.
RME ADI2 Pro RS AD/DAC - with a PC, hooked up to the files systems ( about 110TB NAS ).
Burson Swing with V6 Classic OP amps - with an Android Tablet playing Tidal
DIY First Watt F4 hooked up to Audio Note AN-K/LX
DIY Aleph 2 hooked up to Maggies 1.7
Entec SW-5 woofers

I also have the ARC D70-II, Aleph 5 monoblocs, FW F5, Acoustic Energy AE1s, Elacs Unifi2 RB52 ( a toy) , etc, etc... those are sitting around the main system.

My system is not a show off system, you see... it's actually a very good sounding system, with a very realistic presentation, and accurate, because, you see, we have good seats at the symphony and I used to do PA and recording when I was younger... plus my son had that rock band in the garage for eons...

Oh, next week, UPS should be delivering the Tonkin SiT amps... based on the First Watt SIT3. No degeneration, no feedback... voltage amplification via an autoformer...

So there....

LATENCY...

So, there.