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It's your streamer, not your modem

So many discussions I've seen lately have been about upgrading Internet devices, especially the modems and routers to get the best possible audio.  Audiogoners are talking about installing 10 GigE (10 Gigabits per second) cable for signals that barely need 10 megabits per second.  Three full orders of magnitude more bandwidth than required by hi resolution audio.  (192 k/24 bit)

I've also seen discussions about home Internet getting a little higher latency and jitter.

None of this should matter with a decent streamer.  Let me give you an example.  Because my work requires me to be online with high reliability I have two different Internet providers and a switch that detects failure in one and switches me to another.

It takes the switch approximately 40 seconds to detect the Internet is down and fail over to the other.  40 seconds.  40,000 milliseconds. For this testing I shut the modem off.  In that moment, for the next 40 seconds, I had no working Internet.  Then my back-up 5G Internet took over.  About 3 minutes after that my primary Internet's modem has rebooted and my router has recognized it as available and switched back over.

During the testing I coincidentally had Roon playing a random Jazz selection.

Not once did my audio stop.  Not even a hiccup.

Why?  Buffering.  Roon had gotten the entire song and doled it out to my end point a little at a time. 

Point is, modem quality, router quality, switches, and Ethernet cables don't matter that much.  What does is the size of the buffer and the effectiveness of the anti-jitter circuitry in the DAC.

I do by the way recommend shielded cables, Ethernet isolators and gas discharge surge protectors, but sweat a modem or router?  Not me.

erik_squires
riccitone
229 posts
 

This all gets a bit circular, but have to agree the best place to start is with a highly capable streamer. But after getting that into place, even a decent $30 switch can make a considerable difference. I couldn’t ignore the findings and suggestions from Alpha Audio and Hans Beekhausen - much as I tried! I just have to tweak to see what cheap fixes actually prevail. But seriously, was a more than palatable improvement in sound quality, tonal balance and realism with an upgraded Ethernet cable and a d-link switch before a Pi2design Mercury streamer - which is in no way a slouch of a streamer/transport to begin with. This was even after using a quality filter in that chain. Of course an Ifi wall wart for the switch and a decent linear power supply for the Mercury helped as well.

Certainly imagine that something considerably higher grade like a Grimm audio or upper echelon Aurender might not as much need it. But until then, very very happy with the results.

wsrrsw's avatar
wsrrsw
1,073 posts
 

@erik_squires One time I unplugged the Ethernet cable in the back of the streamer and the band played on.

nyev
1,031 posts
 

I agree the streamer is more important than the things that come before it. But the HiFi network switches also help. My PhoenixNET makes a positive difference I can’t live without (although I’ll be trying a Tempus soon to see how it compares).

The real question is, dollar for dollar, if you were to invest in upgrading my streamer vs using those same number of dollars for a HiFi network switch, which will get you further? In my particular case and with my circumstances at the time, the winner was the network switch. I know because I tried a series of more expensive streamers and to be honest the network switch made as much or more of a positive benefit than the streamer upgrades I tried (Innuos Zenith mk3 + PhoenixUSB Reclocker -> Grimm MU1, Aurender N20.

 

 

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bruce19
273 posts
 

Erik/Nigel, I don’t think most of the respondents got your point, or perhaps, they don’t agree with it. Increased buffering capacity is not an expensive, exotic feature on a streamer, yet the respondents above are mentioning some of the most expensive streamers on the market. Most seem to be clean to their gadgets as well. or, perhaps, I am misreading it.

erik_squires OP
16,346 posts
 

@bruce19 I see your point.

To be clear, I'm not advocating for a more expensive streamer, just streamers with better buffers, and honestly I have no idea who they are.  It's not a specification I often see published or mentioned in reviews.

Dollar for dollar, room treatment is much more important than an Ethernet switch. 

Is streamer A for $4,000 better than streamer B at $1,000 for managing Internet weather?  I have no idea. In many other areas I've seen exorbitant prices without any guarantee of better performance.  One example is galvanic isolation of USB ports.  It should be standard today but it isn't, even on expensive streamers. Sometimes they have it and sometimes they don't.

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