Vortexbox and SuperUniti

Posted by: Member on 15 May 2012

I currently have a Vortexbox appliance streaming FLAC files to my SU via WiFi. The VBA is hard wired to a Cisco router in a another room. Everything works and sounds wonderful.

I know Naim recommends hardwiring over WiFi for its network players, but I'm unable to run an Ethernet cable from the router to my SU right now. So my question is, can I connect the VBA directly to the SU via cat5 cable? Will they communicate with each other or there has to be a router in between them? Thanks.

Posted on: 15 May 2012 by MangoMonkey

You could get a airport express and hardwire that to the superuniti. The airport express can communicate wirelessly with the router.

Posted on: 15 May 2012 by osprey

If I have understood correctly you cannot make a direct connection. You can try what MM suggest to see if that improves sound quality (I am planning to try that myself at some time in the future since I am at the moment wireless only too, but with NU). However, if your current set up works well you might also leave it as it is.

Posted on: 15 May 2012 by Member

Hi MangoMonkey, thanks for your suggestion. I do have a spare Airport Express so I'll give it a try. But hypothetically wouldn't such setup defeat the whole purpose of hardwiring (VBA - cat5 - router - cat5 - SU)?

Posted on: 15 May 2012 by engjoo

Yes you need a router for this. The reason for hardwiring over wireless connectivity robustness.

Posted on: 15 May 2012 by garyi

If it all works perfectly, don't mess with it.

Posted on: 15 May 2012 by Phil Harris

You could technically connect the two directly with an Ethernet cable *IF* you were able to set both units to appropriate static IP addresses / subnet masks manually ... however as this is something that really requires you to be au-fait with the fundamentals of Ethernet networking then it's not really something that I would suggest that you attempt unless you really do understand what you are doing - and in that case then you'd know that it could be done and how to do it.

If you did do this though then your Super Uniti would have no connection to the Internet for Internet radio.

I'm not sure quite why MangoMonkey suggests using an airport express to connect the SuperUniti to the network as the SuperUniti has wireless networking built in (as you are already using).

Ideally (and normally) you would connect all the units in your network to a router - the router then acts as a central point for the issuing of IP addresses for your network (so that everything can talk to everything else) and also as a gateway so that everything that needs to can access the Internet.

We always advocate a wired network connection as wireless networking (and Ethernet over mains) are simply not reliable.

Cheers

Phil

Posted on: 15 May 2012 by Member

Thanks Phil. You answered my question.

Posted on: 15 May 2012 by Phil Harris

Originally Posted by Member:

Thanks Phil. You answered my question.

That's unusual for me!

Have a good one...

Phil

Posted on: 15 May 2012 by osprey

Originally Posted by Phil Harris:

I'm not sure quite why MangoMonkey suggests using an airport express to connect the SuperUniti to the network as the SuperUniti has wireless networking built in (as you are already using).

Phil, I do not know where MM got the idea but I remember reading some previous posts where it was suggested that this variation would give a better result i.e. to use external WiFi receiver instead of built in one (connection being NAS - cat5 - router - WiFi - AE - cat5 - NU/SU). This however, based on your comment, might be some kind of myth so I might not bother to try atfer all then.

Thanks for your input, saves me some time to be spent listening to music instead .

Posted on: 16 May 2012 by MangoMonkey

Two reasons to use an airport express:

a) FUD reason: Isolate the entire home's network from the streamer. Its an electrical connection after all. And all the cables act as a nice antenna picking up who knows what...

b) Take the wireless networking load off of the streamer.

If you have a ae lying around, no harm in trying and reporting back what you think.

Posted on: 16 May 2012 by Guido Fawkes

Setting a static IP address on a Vortexbox is trivial; just select Static IP in the Network setup menu .. Do the same on the SuperUniti and plug in an Ethernet Crossover cable .. It should work without a problem, but how do you plan to control it? ... Alternatively plug both boxes in to an Apple airport extreme and bridge this to your main network; it is easier done than said .. Really easy and being Apple it'll just work.

Posted on: 17 May 2012 by Tog

If the VB and SU are getting along fine using wifi why change? If you want to hardwire - is it really impossible to run some cat6 and buy a switch? Tog