Using "HomePlugs"

Don't use them. Apart from putting crap onto the mains they radiate RF well outside of their location like a bast@rd... Awful things - how they ever got approved for domestic use is beyond me. 

James

Agreed, I would never have them. It's never impossible to run some cat5/6 through the house, but sometimes needs a bit of creativity... 

Avoid like the plague as the others have said. if you need Cat5e or higher, you can get flat cable now that you can layer under  the carpet or skirting board. I use some of that here, works well, and saves having to route cable in walls and trunking.

I use ethernet over the mains supply and it works fine. Currently my set-up uses a combination of Develo dLAN 200 AV plugs for streaming audio and video between devices in different rooms.

I used them and they worked fairly well for normal low res files but struggled for bandwidth on some hi res files. I think results will vary depending on a numer of factors.

i've since upgraded my wi fi to apple airport extreme and connect my qute to an airport express. Its now a rock solid connection which works with all files. To be fair the built in wifi of the qute also works fine but I like to be able to use airplay now and then.

Dave4jazz, they work upto a point, but they are single collision domain devices and so not ideal for many modern LANs and multicast etc 

The big issue is that for most real world houses (that dont use screened mains wiring and screened appliances) is the absolutely appalling levels of RFI pollution they cause in the mains and radiated through the air. If nothing else I really think its questionable whether there is a health issue there for people sleeping in that field strength.

I have had issues in the past where home plugs upto a quarter a mile away were causing me radio interference and affecting my ADSLbroadband sync speed. I had to resort to Ofcom to have them removed.. This shouldn't be necessary. It was a waste of time of mine, and Ofcom and not a great expierience for those who had a knock on their door from Ofcom as they were using these devices in good faith.

Simon

EDIT mike sarcasm duly noted ..

Add cheap solar powered inverters and solar panel cell wiring to the list.

put them in a pile and burn them...

I use one (a Netgear 1004 4 port av one) to connect my tv/bluray player/apple tv/ps3 to the internet - works very well. There are no real problems with single collision domains or multicast as long as you ensure your network is designed with these limitations in mind.

The RFI can be an issue but the only problem I get seems to be with the B+O DEC phone base station which sits next to the TV.

Thanks for your replies; from what you're saying, it seems to me that homeplugs should only be used when there is no other solution.

Frenchnaim, a good summary I think.

Scillyisles, its not so much the 'design' of a network with a single duplex segment - its the applications that need to work over it. File transfers from a single source destination using TCP should be fine. Any traffic where there are many source to destinations over the segment will either have increased collisions or have dropped frames. Therefore in the real world efficiency can fall off quickly the more applications you have using that segment. Multicast is an issue as it uses datagrams - therefore there is very limited scope of resending frames where buffer over runs or collisions occur. In uPNP as used by NDX multicast is used for discovery and therefore lost discovery packets could make devices disappear etc

This is the same as for any half duplex connection. Of course these days the vast majority of LAN (excluding wifi)  is full duplex where these issues are completely avoided. With wifi this is why I recommend having a separate SSID on ideally a non overlapping frequency for streaming and home media.

Simon

Simon, Thanks for your response. I think we have a case of trying to " teach your grandma how to suck eggs here". :-). 

As I stated the design of the network is important in that you need to take account of how the network will be used and the applications used on the network. In my particular case, the TV/Bluray/PS3 and Apple TV are an endpoint on the network and by their very nature can only really be used singly and if they are doing file transfers would be doing single file transfer from the internet or possibly from one of my NAS. Neither is going to be an issue. Multicast is not an issue to this endpoint either as none of the devices need to use this nor do they interact with other devices that might such as my NDX. It was designed to be like this..

Your comments are really much more applicable to Wifi which is almost always subject to these issues.

Really sorry to hop on the bandwagon...There are 1000's of Cat 5e cables out there, please can anyone recommend a good shielded cable, as I am going to move my NAS drive upstairs, away from my system. 

Kind regards

Scillyisles, you appear to know your onions and can navigate around compromise solutions such as PLA /  Homeplugs and are perhaps quite at ease with the RFI and field strength they produce within a typical small/medium UK house . But others on here struggle with the basics when it comes to home networks. Multicast discovery is used by Apple Airplay and upnp and require duplex coms for optimum transfer with no or minimal flow interruption.many confuse issues here with needing static IP addresses etc. Powerline adapters can't offer  duplex comms   unless bandwidth is very much reduced and spectrum bandwidth is divided between send and receive. Reading these forums many people struggle when things on 'networks' don't work as expected and blame Naim or streaming generally. Clear they may have a point, but reducing network fudges like powerline adapters is good first start when trying to iron out issues.

BTW I have been involved with PLAs both privately and professionally for a few years now, and more familiar than I would prefer with the side effects and other issues they cause. As others have said, best thing to do is burn them.. Assuming they don't combust themselves.... sorry slightly emotional response, but hey we are all human..

Simon

Meerkat, you really don't near shielded cable for runs away from sensitive audio and radio equipment. Regular Cat 5e will be fine for upto 100metres. The cable uses twisted pairs to reduce noise radiation and susceptibility.

Simon

I know it goes against the majority of replies to your post but I would go the Homeplug route first. It will be much simpler to install, a lot more flexible if you decide to move equipment around and probably cheaper. I would agree there have been issues using this technology but it is definitely the way things are going. If you are interested go to the HomePlug Alliance website https://www.homeplug.org/home/.

Simon,

Thanks for your comments. My home network is actually quite large (currently using over half the 255 ip addresses available) and my house is  large too. I run 4 Netgear switches alone from a GS724TP (POE) version right down to a Netgear GS105 5 port switch. All cabling is Cat5E/Cat 6 at 1GB.

I disagree that PLAs are the source of most of the network problems that I read about on this forum.  In general, PLAs work and are simple devices which are relatively foolproof. Obviously some PLAs are better than others. Netgear and Develo seem to be good particularly the AV rated models. They operate in full duplex mode with an achievable tested speed on my network of around 80Mbs which is more than adequate for my use.

The problems you mention with Apple Airplay (Bonjour) and UPNP is that both are different implementations of zero configuration networking which can conflict with network configuration as implemented by other devices on the network e.g. DHCP/DNS typically on the broadband router in most domestic situations.  Full duplex or half duplex network transmission is not the root cause of these problems.  Both Airplay and UPNP use UDP and if the network is unreliable or does not fully support things such as IP Multicast  (and IGMP for the routers/switches) then you will get problems.  A lot of the problems we see on this forum are in this area.

Hi, we seem to disagree,.. If you were local to me we could review Wireshark traces that show what I refer to, and professionally what i have had many issues and headaches with where multicast and UDP packet lost at the layer 2 level due to single duplex (because of bad auto duplex detection) and layer 2 buffer over flow  (ie layer 3 and higher functions IGMP- remember most consumer switches broadcast anything with a multicast address, DNS, DHCP etc are irrelevant). Also i have involved myself with earlier Naim beta programmes where i had identified issues with streaming products such as the NDX specifically to do with the firmware update process due to partially lost UDP in the multicast discovery.  I could play also RFI modulation patterns i had recorded from PLA some distance from me that had radiated through the air and had resonated in overland power and telephone cables ( part of my project i had when I involved Ofcom) but  as we are not local best agree to disagree and leave it at that.. 

Simon

Thanks for your tip Simon.

David

tried them and utter waste of time

Had a pair of homeplugs connecting my BTVision box to the Homehub. Created issues with a wirelessly connected Qute with dropouts. Swapped them for a CAT 5 cable round the skirting board and problem solved. Also no more bouts of buzzing on the Qute and Uniti. Seems clear enough to me that the homeplugs can cause issues in a normal house. I won't be using them again.

Andy

For what it's worth just to say I don't use any Naim audio streaming components in my system, only amplification (DAC-V1/NAP100). User experiences on this forum doesn't encourage me to want to buy any either, not if I want to carry-on using my Homeplug network anyway.

Avoid like the plague - get yourself a switch and some Cat 6 cable.

Tog

If it were only that easy given the plan of my house and location of equipment.