network streaming tweaks

charlesphoto posted:

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

charlesphoto posted:

Simon I would say you are right about most things, but don’t knock the fiber media converters until you’ve actually tried them. I know I would certainly love to lose mine and their accompanying power supplies but whenever I remove them the noise (mostly as a harsher treble) is back and instrument separation not as good. It can sound a bit zingier, but more fatiguing. So please explain more how this is wrong? 

Plus, these things are dirt cheap in the scheme of things (for Naim, microRendu, and most only 10/100 is needed). And if you order from that big river site you can always return if they make things sound worse. 

Charles, I have used these at work - they are a necessary annoyance in some circumstances where you have very long runs between devices that don't support SFPs ... most converters i have seen are rather basic devices with little or no apparent attention to carrier clock accuracy and power supply regulation from what I can see... and as I say they are irrelevant from a functional point of view as Naim  don't currently Fibre SFPs... I am not denying you are changing the sonic profile - but I am sure you could achieve the same thing with experimenting with various cheap ethernet cables and some ferrite chokes whilst maintaining improved reliability ... and I suspect you may also be adding noise into the equation especially if you are using a quality switch... and reading the above posts of some of the issues some people are now having who are toying with unnecessary gadgets  really takes the biscuit. One should be enjoying your music - if you have spare funds - buy some music... from a streaming point of view number one rule is Keep It Simple ... and Naim have designed their interfaces to connect to a switch port either directly via wired ethernet or via wifi WLAN... this is important as there are internal timing and TCP optimisations based on the connection type.

Thing is, I’ve done all of those things already you mention. I can’t understand if the sound is better with the FMC’s (and I lived with the same setup a long time without) then what is detrimental that is being added? And I’m not just saying this to piss off the IT’s in the world. Hundreds, if not thousands at this point, have discovered this tweak for themselves. I think what works in a industrial commercial sense doesn’t always translate to consumer use and vice versa. Plus, network audio is a moving target at this point and it’s best to not discount anything until you’ve actually heard it yourself.

i agree with you. I have high quality lans cables, high quality switch ( advised by Simon) and tried 3 or 4 times, at different moments of a year, to hear with and without fmc:  for me, for you and a lot of members it works very positively. The network bridge opens the soundstage, gives more natural tones colors and all is more fluid, without any sacrifice of dynamics, voices are nicer and fuller too.   

Melco uses too network isolation in its nas/ servers.   

Once again thanks guys, nice to see difference of opinions, but also help and guidance.

Somewhat determined now and just ordered 2x TP-Link MC110CS and a Tripp Lite Duplex Fiber Patch Cable (SC/SC), 3.05 m.

Will look into Simon's suggestion to login to the switch and see what is going wrong.

Mr Rooster, Chrissu and Charlesphoto - firstly many thanks for your help, patience and guidance.

I received the MC110CS and fibre wire today, all plugged in all left as default, my switch picked it up quick, green lights all go : )

I had been listening allot more over the last few days and purposely circling back to 10 tracks on USB HiRes and Tidal HIFI, oh and best of all DSD64 Thriller.

All I can say instant recognisable improvement, the greater darkness, wider soundstage, detail resolution, floating backing vocals, even clearer placement of singer's, instruments, etc... but clearly another few layers of haze gone, just makes the music flow with such ease tenpted to crank up the volume but wanted a level playing field to compare - but most important serious boogie factor. Is one of those upgrades that makes you listen to your collection all over again for what you missed.

So I suppose as with all things there is some break in time for maybe a further improvement.

Oh The DSD Thriller and I have two others, which to me give you that air and floating soundtage, well it only gets better eerily with this addition.

Mr Rooster I will try the ifi power plugs, hoping to resist it to at least enjoy this upgrade. Oh just remembered need to use my spare C Stream.

Oh Total price of upgrade was £62 now that's a no brainer.

vtpcnk posted:

hey all, i just started using a unitiqute. so what are the things i can tweak for SQ?

1. nas. is a nas certain to be better for sq than a hard disk hooked up to a computer?

2. ethernet cables. i saw chord company has some of these. anybody tried that?

3. since i can control the music through the naim app, i dont need a computer with a screen. any benefit in using raspberry pi or intel nuc? lesser interference, traffic, jitter etc?

4. is there an audiophile router or rather a router more suited by its features for streaming music?

5. i am currently using asset upnp. is there anything better than this?

Anything else?

Appreciate the insights.

 

I have tried the Chord Ethernet cables and found they make a notable sound quality difference ! I am using a Naim UnitCore with Naim NDS and 555DR. Speakers are Kef Blade twos. See if a dealer will let you try them out and decide on your own! 

Obsydian posted:

Mr Rooster, Chrissu and Charlesphoto - firstly many thanks for your help, patience and guidance.

I received the MC110CS and fibre wire today, all plugged in all left as default, my switch picked it up quick, green lights all go : )

I had been listening allot more over the last few days and purposely circling back to 10 tracks on USB HiRes and Tidal HIFI, oh and best of all DSD64 Thriller.

All I can say instant recognisable improvement, the greater darkness, wider soundstage, detail resolution, floating backing vocals, even clearer placement of singer's, instruments, etc... but clearly another few layers of haze gone, just makes the music flow with such ease tenpted to crank up the volume but wanted a level playing field to compare - but most important serious boogie factor. Is one of those upgrades that makes you listen to your collection all over again for what you missed.

So I suppose as with all things there is some break in time for maybe a further improvement.

Oh The DSD Thriller and I have two others, which to me give you that air and floating soundtage, well it only gets better eerily with this addition.

Mr Rooster I will try the ifi power plugs, hoping to resist it to at least enjoy this upgrade. Oh just remembered need to use my spare C Stream.

Oh Total price of upgrade was £62 now that's a no brainer.

i am very happy you enjoy this tweak which is finally more than a tweak.  For around 100 GBP you have a big improvement. Perhaps you will convince Simon in the suffolk, who knows?

For ifi power, they must be 5 v i think ( all is behind my rack so difficult to check now).  Yes, you will here still an improvement for about 2X 45 GBP, i guarantee it to you.

I you use a nas, perhaps in the future, you can also replace the stock smps by ifi power or linear ps( if possible to connect dc power).   

Obsydian posted:

Mr Rooster, Chrissu and Charlesphoto - firstly many thanks for your help, patience and guidance.

I received the MC110CS and fibre wire today, all plugged in all left as default, my switch picked it up quick, green lights all go : )

I had been listening allot more over the last few days and purposely circling back to 10 tracks on USB HiRes and Tidal HIFI, oh and best of all DSD64 Thriller.

All I can say instant recognisable improvement, the greater darkness, wider soundstage, detail resolution, floating backing vocals, even clearer placement of singer's, instruments, etc... but clearly another few layers of haze gone, just makes the music flow with such ease tenpted to crank up the volume but wanted a level playing field to compare - but most important serious boogie factor. Is one of those upgrades that makes you listen to your collection all over again for what you missed.

So I suppose as with all things there is some break in time for maybe a further improvement.

Oh The DSD Thriller and I have two others, which to me give you that air and floating soundtage, well it only gets better eerily with this addition.

Mr Rooster I will try the ifi power plugs, hoping to resist it to at least enjoy this upgrade. Oh just remembered need to use my spare C Stream.

Oh Total price of upgrade was £62 now that's a no brainer.

Glad to hear you got it working! Part of me wants to believe Simon’s assertion that this is a bad idea, but it’s hard to ignore the number of people who have reported positive results. 

You are welcome and so glad you got it all working. You can run the TP Link's at 5 or 9v. Most recommend 5v as sounding better and I concur (being powered by my HDPLEX LPS). I have the ones in my office powered by iFi's at 5v, and the one downstream in my main set up is a 9v iFi (that I had from powering the microRendu initially) but might switch that out with one of the 5's from the office. Linear power supplies sound a bit better depending on model, but maybe save that for a rainy day. The el cheapo Chinese ones work fine as well. A Nas or server will typically need something larger than an iFi. My microJukebox (vortexbox) requires 12v@5amp's so using a Chinese R-Core LPS that I picked up for just shy of $200 and it runs solid. No idea about sound quality though - I typically introduce something and leave it at that (unless it actually sounds worse). 

charlesphoto posted:

You are welcome and so glad you got it all working. You can run the TP Link's at 5 or 9v. Most recommend 5v as sounding better and I concur (being powered by my HDPLEX LPS). I have the ones in my office powered by iFi's at 5v, and the one downstream in my main set up is a 9v iFi (that I had from powering the microRendu initially) but might switch that out with one of the 5's from the office. Linear power supplies sound a bit better depending on model, but maybe save that for a rainy day. The el cheapo Chinese ones work fine as well. A Nas or server will typically need something larger than an iFi. My microJukebox (vortexbox) requires 12v@5amp's so using a Chinese R-Core LPS that I picked up for just shy of $200 and it runs solid. No idea about sound quality though - I typically introduce something and leave it at that (unless it actually sounds worse). 

yes i think that ifi power 12v on a nas is perhaps not enough, the chinese r core lps seems a good alternative to expensive linear ps.  sbooster is also a good proposition for around 300 us dollars.

i use the uptone js2 for my unitserve and last tp link and hd plex for the first tp link. But i think that for Obsydian, who uses uniti nova, ifi power on tp link are enough. The chinese lps for a nas would be a good future choice. But i even don’t know if he uses a nas...

musicfan51 posted:

vtpcnk posted:

hey all, i just started using a unitiqute. so what are the things i can tweak for SQ?

1. nas. is a nas certain to be better for sq than a hard disk hooked up to a computer?

2. ethernet cables. i saw chord company has some of these. anybody tried that?

3. since i can control the music through the naim app, i dont need a computer with a screen. any benefit in using raspberry pi or intel nuc? lesser interference, traffic, jitter etc?

4. is there an audiophile router or rather a router more suited by its features for streaming music?

5. i am currently using asset upnp. is there anything better than this?

Anything else?

Appreciate the insights.

 

I have tried the Chord Ethernet cables and found they make a notable sound quality difference ! I am using a Naim UnitCore with Naim NDS and 555DR. Speakers are Kef Blade twos. See if a dealer will let you try them out and decide on your own! 

I tried 3 and ended up with the C stream, I was using two and then realised new setup required three, I had a spare but the RJ clips on both ends broke - but for now ok.

French Rooster posted:

Obsydian posted:

Mr Rooster, Chrissu and Charlesphoto - firstly many thanks for your help, patience and guidance.

I received the MC110CS and fibre wire today, all plugged in all left as default, my switch picked it up quick, green lights all go : )

I had been listening allot more over the last few days and purposely circling back to 10 tracks on USB HiRes and Tidal HIFI, oh and best of all DSD64 Thriller.

All I can say instant recognisable improvement, the greater darkness, wider soundstage, detail resolution, floating backing vocals, even clearer placement of singer's, instruments, etc... but clearly another few layers of haze gone, just makes the music flow with such ease tenpted to crank up the volume but wanted a level playing field to compare - but most important serious boogie factor. Is one of those upgrades that makes you listen to your collection all over again for what you missed.

So I suppose as with all things there is some break in time for maybe a further improvement.

Oh The DSD Thriller and I have two others, which to me give you that air and floating soundtage, well it only gets better eerily with this addition.

Mr Rooster I will try the ifi power plugs, hoping to resist it to at least enjoy this upgrade. Oh just remembered need to use my spare C Stream.

Oh Total price of upgrade was £62 now that's a no brainer.

i am very happy you enjoy this tweak which is finally more than a tweak.  For around 100 GBP you have a big improvement. Perhaps you will convince Simon in the suffolk, who knows?

For ifi power, they must be 5 v i think ( all is behind my rack so difficult to check now).  Yes, you will here still an improvement for about 2X 45 GBP, i guarantee it to you.

I you use a nas, perhaps in the future, you can also replace the stock smps by ifi power or linear ps( if possible to connect dc power).   

Simon says we are all bonkers : )

Yes wasn' sure what voltage to order for the ifi as I thin 4 possible.

No NAS for me just Tidal and albums I really like I buy HiRes downloads.

ChrisSU posted:

Obsydian posted:

Mr Rooster, Chrissu and Charlesphoto - firstly many thanks for your help, patience and guidance.

I received the MC110CS and fibre wire today, all plugged in all left as default, my switch picked it up quick, green lights all go : )

I had been listening allot more over the last few days and purposely circling back to 10 tracks on USB HiRes and Tidal HIFI, oh and best of all DSD64 Thriller.

All I can say instant recognisable improvement, the greater darkness, wider soundstage, detail resolution, floating backing vocals, even clearer placement of singer's, instruments, etc... but clearly another few layers of haze gone, just makes the music flow with such ease tenpted to crank up the volume but wanted a level playing field to compare - but most important serious boogie factor. Is one of those upgrades that makes you listen to your collection all over again for what you missed.

So I suppose as with all things there is some break in time for maybe a further improvement.

Oh The DSD Thriller and I have two others, which to me give you that air and floating soundtage, well it only gets better eerily with this addition.

Mr Rooster I will try the ifi power plugs, hoping to resist it to at least enjoy this upgrade. Oh just remembered need to use my spare C Stream.

Oh Total price of upgrade was £62 now that's a no brainer.

Glad to hear you got it working! Part of me wants to believe Simon’s assertion that this is a bad idea, but it’s hard to ignore the number of people who have reported positive results. 

As Mr Rooster said order with prime and return if worse, sums it up, try if it works great if not return it.

Ok, if streaming only then you may want to try one on your router/modem. 

charlesphoto posted:

You are welcome and so glad you got it all working. You can run the TP Link's at 5 or 9v. Most recommend 5v as sounding better and I concur (being powered by my HDPLEX LPS). I have the ones in my office powered by iFi's at 5v, and the one downstream in my main set up is a 9v iFi (that I had from powering the microRendu initially) but might switch that out with one of the 5's from the office. Linear power supplies sound a bit better depending on model, but maybe save that for a rainy day. The el cheapo Chinese ones work fine as well. A Nas or server will typically need something larger than an iFi. My microJukebox (vortexbox) requires 12v@5amp's so using a Chinese R-Core LPS that I picked up for just shy of $200 and it runs solid. No idea about sound quality though - I typically introduce something and leave it at that (unless it actually sounds worse). 

Thanks Charles i did read maybe it was you before saying 5 was better than 9V.

Might order 2x ifi 5v and clear the house Saturday for a nice long listening session : )

Obsydian posted:

French Rooster posted:

Obsydian posted:

Mr Rooster, Chrissu and Charlesphoto - firstly many thanks for your help, patience and guidance.

I received the MC110CS and fibre wire today, all plugged in all left as default, my switch picked it up quick, green lights all go : )

I had been listening allot more over the last few days and purposely circling back to 10 tracks on USB HiRes and Tidal HIFI, oh and best of all DSD64 Thriller.

All I can say instant recognisable improvement, the greater darkness, wider soundstage, detail resolution, floating backing vocals, even clearer placement of singer's, instruments, etc... but clearly another few layers of haze gone, just makes the music flow with such ease tenpted to crank up the volume but wanted a level playing field to compare - but most important serious boogie factor. Is one of those upgrades that makes you listen to your collection all over again for what you missed.

So I suppose as with all things there is some break in time for maybe a further improvement.

Oh The DSD Thriller and I have two others, which to me give you that air and floating soundtage, well it only gets better eerily with this addition.

Mr Rooster I will try the ifi power plugs, hoping to resist it to at least enjoy this upgrade. Oh just remembered need to use my spare C Stream.

Oh Total price of upgrade was £62 now that's a no brainer.

i am very happy you enjoy this tweak which is finally more than a tweak.  For around 100 GBP you have a big improvement. Perhaps you will convince Simon in the suffolk, who knows?

For ifi power, they must be 5 v i think ( all is behind my rack so difficult to check now).  Yes, you will here still an improvement for about 2X 45 GBP, i guarantee it to you.

I you use a nas, perhaps in the future, you can also replace the stock smps by ifi power or linear ps( if possible to connect dc power).   

Simon says we are all bonkers : )

Yes wasn' sure what voltage to order for the ifi as I thin 4 possible.

No NAS for me just Tidal and albums I really like I buy HiRes downloads.

5 v ifi power for tp link mc 110 cs, i just checked.

You say you buy hirez downloads, but where are they stocked?    and your ripped cds?    I don’t want specially that you invest in more components, so sorry to ask. But if you stream from your pc or mac, you can do better in the future, for not so much money.   A pc or mac as server/ nas is a noisy environment.  The majority of us use nas or unitserve or uniticore or mac mini with linear ps.  But perhaps you don’t use your pc.....

hi guys, i have been watching the posts and frankly much of it went over my head.

can i know where in the chain : router -> switch -> unitiqute - the TP-Link MC110CS and the TrippLite fibre optic cables are supposed to fit in?

a 100 dollar tweak is definitely my kinda tweak :-)

appreciate the clarification.

Modem or router; switch; TP Link's; UQ. Server (if you have one) goes into switch. 

French Rooster posted:

Obsydian posted:

French Rooster posted:

Obsydian posted:

Mr Rooster, Chrissu and Charlesphoto - firstly many thanks for your help, patience and guidance.

I received the MC110CS and fibre wire today, all plugged in all left as default, my switch picked it up quick, green lights all go : )

I had been listening allot more over the last few days and purposely circling back to 10 tracks on USB HiRes and Tidal HIFI, oh and best of all DSD64 Thriller.

All I can say instant recognisable improvement, the greater darkness, wider soundstage, detail resolution, floating backing vocals, even clearer placement of singer's, instruments, etc... but clearly another few layers of haze gone, just makes the music flow with such ease tenpted to crank up the volume but wanted a level playing field to compare - but most important serious boogie factor. Is one of those upgrades that makes you listen to your collection all over again for what you missed.

So I suppose as with all things there is some break in time for maybe a further improvement.

Oh The DSD Thriller and I have two others, which to me give you that air and floating soundtage, well it only gets better eerily with this addition.

Mr Rooster I will try the ifi power plugs, hoping to resist it to at least enjoy this upgrade. Oh just remembered need to use my spare C Stream.

Oh Total price of upgrade was £62 now that's a no brainer.

i am very happy you enjoy this tweak which is finally more than a tweak.  For around 100 GBP you have a big improvement. Perhaps you will convince Simon in the suffolk, who knows?

For ifi power, they must be 5 v i think ( all is behind my rack so difficult to check now).  Yes, you will here still an improvement for about 2X 45 GBP, i guarantee it to you.

I you use a nas, perhaps in the future, you can also replace the stock smps by ifi power or linear ps( if possible to connect dc power).   

Simon says we are all bonkers : )

Yes wasn' sure what voltage to order for the ifi as I thin 4 possible.

No NAS for me just Tidal and albums I really like I buy HiRes downloads.

5 v ifi power for tp link mc 110 cs, i just checked.

You say you buy hirez downloads, but where are they stocked?    and your ripped cds?    I don’t want specially that you invest in more components, so sorry to ask. But if you stream from your pc or mac, you can do better in the future, for not so much money.   A pc or mac as server/ nas is a noisy environment.  The majority of us use nas or unitserve or uniticore or mac mini with linear ps.  But perhaps you don’t use your pc.....

Thanks for checking ordering 5v.

USB dongle into the Nova.

Concede it's better but for me Tidal is just convenient so a reasonable compromise, plus the USB HiRes allows me to assess how much I am missing or not. Plus I use Tidal in my phone and car so at home makes it seamless.

vtpcnk posted:

hi guys, i have been watching the posts and frankly much of it went over my head.

can i know where in the chain : router -> switch -> unitiqute - the TP-Link MC110CS and the TrippLite fibre optic cables are supposed to fit in?

a 100 dollar tweak is definitely my kinda tweak :-)

appreciate the clarification.

The guys corrected me it needs to be between switch and unitiqute.

If I can wire it up sure you can ; )

It was all plug and listen (enjoy).

You would go Router (lan cable) to Switch (lan cable) to MC100CS (fibre) to MC100CS and finally to Unitiqute (lan cable).

>You would go Router (lan cable) to Switch (lan cable) to MC100CS (fibre) to MC100CS and finally to >Unitiqute (lan cable)

you need two mc100cs ? and it looks like the mc100cs comes in the single and multi mode? which one to use?

and the nas is still to be connected to the switch right?

appreciate the clarification.

and btw isn't the 'audiophile' lan cable enough for the last leg? ie between the qute and the previous link in the chain?

It's MC110CS which is single mode. And yes, last leg is most important with quality of the ethernet cable. 

 so is the point of two TP-Link MC110CS in the chain just to put the sound/bits/bytes through a Fiber cable? 

with mc110cs there are multiple models on amazon :

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link...ords=tp-link+mc110cs

https://www.amazon.com/2KA4939...ords=tp-link+mc110cs

https://www.amazon.com/Tp-Link...ords=tp-link+mc110cs

not sure if they are the same as prices differ. which is the right one?

This is what I used TP-Link MC110CS 10/100Mbps Single-Mode Media Converter

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0...cp_apa_p1tvAbCMGC1F4

vtpcnk posted:

hi guys, i have been watching the posts and frankly much of it went over my head.

can i know where in the chain : router -> switch -> unitiqute - the TP-Link MC110CS and the TrippLite fibre optic cables are supposed to fit in?

a 100 dollar tweak is definitely my kinda tweak :-)

appreciate the clarification.

router-switch-tp link mc110cs then optical fiber tp mc110cs then lan to uniqute.  the tp links are the bridge between the first switch and the uniqute. ( so 3 lan cables needed).  if you have a nas, the nas is connected to the first switch.