Ethernet Switch- what's the point?

Or perhaps just shove off?

This is the Q&A I sent to Bluesound, answered by a ’Technical Analyst - Level 3" Scroll down to the end but it seems streaming audio is sent over TCP which I THINK means bit checked packets which if true, is CONTRARY to what I "learned" on this forum.

Question:

I have the Node 130 and mostly stream using Qobuz.

I’m reviewing my modem, router equipment and have a question about streaming protocols.

Does audio data transport to the Node via HTTPS/TCP (so bit checked packets) or a continuous stream using some other protocol?

Answer:

The ports used with the Bluesound Players are as follows;
Required TCP/IP:
· 80 (HTTP)
· 135 (SMB)
· 139 (SMB)
· 1025 (SMB)
· 445 (CIFS)
· 3400 (UPnP incoming events)
· 443 (Rhapsody, Napster, and SIRIUS Internet Radio)
· 4070 (Spotify incoming events)
· 3689 (DAAP for iTunes Sharing and AirPlay)
· 5353 (mDNS connection to mDNS responder)
Required UDP:
· 136-139 (NetBIOS)
· 2000 (BluOS® Proprietary)
· 1900 (UPnP advertisements / device discovery)
· 1901 (UPnP m-search responses)
· 2869 (UPnP connection to Windows Media Player 11 Network Sharing Service)
· 6969 (Getting Started process)
· 10243 (UPnP connection to Windows Media Player 11 Network Sharing Service)
· 10280-10284 (UPnP connection to Windows Media Player 11 Network Sharing Service)
· 11000 (BluOS® Proprietary)
· 11430 (BluOS® Proprietary)
· 5354 (mDNS connection to Bonjour)

Most times, in fact almost all the time, you won’t have to open or forward any ports for our products.

The only exception is enterprise installation, but Bluesound is strictly designed for commercial installs and most routers can handle our product’s required protocols.

The only issue that we see often are routers not supporting Multicast/Unicast which is how our app "locates" players, as without this... you can’t see or use the device.

Streaming on our players operates the same as when streaming from an app, as the stream is sent over TCP for our players to receive the stream.

@zavato

To answer your question, as you are going from your router directly to your single streamer, a high end ‘switch’ may not be necessary. I had the same question, and was advised to get 2 Media Converters, tethered with an optical connection : Router > 1st Media Converter > 2nd Converter tethered with optical > Streamer.

This helped to ‘strip’ unwanted noise from the router, and indeed sounds better. All in? About $100 via Amazon. I’m pleased with the SQ increase.

Interesting thread and have a question:

I have a Motorola Modem and Asus ZenWifi mesh routers. I have a switch near the router and I have hard wired the smart TV, Roku, NAS, etc, and one of the ports from this switch has a cat6 cable connected to the wall ether net port. The other end of this port has another ether net cable (~25 feet) all the way to my basement where my audio room is located. I am quite happy with the fact that I was able to get a CAT6 cable routed into the audio room before the drop-in ceiling was replaced with a regular ceiling.

What suggestions do you have to make sure that the noise from the network switch on the floor above is not transmitted into the audio server that makes use of this hard wire? It is not that I hear any noise, but based on previous experiences in cables, I believe that there could be room for improvements.

@bkeske - thank you for the directed nature of your comments. Yours is an interesting thought. Question though- do we know that converting to optical doesn’t also include converting “junk” as well?