Advice on connecting NDX

Organise things so that you have a separate Ethernet switch for the hifi and nas. Make sure you have a separate mains radial with 10mm2 cable for the stereo, ideally from its own consumer unit. 

There are dozens of threads on this that you will find if you use the Forum search. 

I think the important thing is to set up your whole network so that it works independently of the ISP supplied router. Then you can configure it however you want, and if you change ISPs or they change your router, your LAN will carry on unaffected by this. I achieve this very simply by just turning off WiFi on the ISP router and connecting it to an Airport Extreme. Everything else runs off that, with a couple of switches where required. I haven't found separating audio and non-audio gear by putting them on different switches to make a significant difference to anything, but others may have different experiences here.

If you can cope with the ridicule you'll get from your sparky, now (first fix) is the time to get a dedicated mains supply installed, as HH says above. 

While you have the walls open ... run twice the amount of network (Cat6 probably) cable than you actually need.  The cost now is minimal compared with the disruption later.  Ideally run everything back to a central location.  You might even want to get a length of fibre run to your HiFi for future experiments.

For every LAN socket in every location that you can think of now, add at least another one as a backup.

Essentially - if you think you need 1 socket in a room, make it two, etc, etc.

Maybe you could run fiber along with cat 6....

Put in ducting so that you can change cabling easily in the future.

Keep it simple.

Niko08 posted:

Do you have advice how I should proceed, presumably Gigabit Switch/Hub, if so any advice on which make etc. Will there be any degradation of running NDX through the same hub? The Electrician likely not conversant with any specific needs of the NDX but want to ensure I specify it correctly before he commences in 3 weeks time. 

Good idea in HH post to have a separate switch for hifi only (KIS)  I have separate hifi & study switches running off my BT HH5,  for me its the least complicated way to do it,  but its all dependant on location & other variables.       

Switch make/model recommendations:  Gigabit rated is not actually required by any streamer as they work at 100Base-T,  but I have found SQ improvement swapping a 'fast' 10/100 switch with a 'gigabit' 10/100/1000 switch, it might have been the switch itself rather than the 'speed'  but whatever, the cost diff between 'fast' & 'gigabit' is peanuts.

Most popular switches on the forum seem to be the Netgear 'ProSafe' gigabit models GS105 & GS108,  other brands all seem to do the same job at that price level but (IMO) the 'ProSafe' Netgears are rock solid reliable.  There not much difference in SQ between gigabit switches although I've recently changed from Netgear to Cisco SG110D & it does perform differently, but its hard to say it sounds better.  A lot of posts on the top end Cisco's (try a forum search) although these are not gigabit, some forumites say they improve SQ, a few others have not. 

If your NAS/switch room is on a different power circuit to the NDX,  its best to avoid connecting them via ethernet screens.  It looks like you will be running Cat-6 & as this normally a UTP (not screened) it's all OK.  But if you do go with a higher end audio cable from switch to NDX it will invariably be Cat-7 which is always an STP (screened),  just keep it in mind.