Using ethernet home/power-plugs for streaming
Posted by: caftan on 01 September 2011
I am current using the above with one end connected to my router and the other end connected to a gigabit switch. The switch is connected to 2 devices, mainly the NDX and a mediabox stream/ player.
Questions: 1) Do you think by using the Ethernet home plug in the house will affect the sound quality of my gear even though they are not running on the same wall socket.
2) Is such network setup good enough for NDX?
Thanks.
I'm using a similar set-up: 200 AV homeplugs, router, NDX, and a switch which is connected to 2 PCs & 2 printers,
I use a digital connection from the NDX to an amplifier feeding a pair of Quad 989 electostatic speakers. Since installing the NDX, I'm enjoying the finest sound I've had in tihs room for 25+ years. This has led me to improve the room acoustics, to further benefit.
I do not intend to tarnish my bliss now by over-analytic listening in some endless exercise of lily-gillding. Quite content to listen to the music.
Suggest you relax and do the same.
Enjoy.
David
It would be my third resort but I would consider it. A friend has recently bought an HDX and gone this route, migrating from a CDX2/555PS. "The best sound in the room for 25 years" also covers his results.
It would be my third resort but I would consider it. A friend has recently bought an HDX and gone this route, migrating from a CDX2/555PS. "The best sound in the room for 25 years" also covers his results.
What would be your second choice 
I assume that Cat x cable is your first.
Any experience with AV200 vs AV500 performance?
This is why I love this board -- lots of learning for me at my neophyte stage
Cat is my second. First choice for my domestic arrangements (and happily it worked) is a network bridge in the vicinity of the stack into which I can hard wire the HDX and NAS. I won't be losing anything compared to Cat from the hub because the network is only carrying the internet connection wirelessly for Internet Radio and DB look up when ripping.
If for some weird and unexplained reason this was buggy I could rip up a lot of floor boards, drill some holes and run Cat from router to a wired point in the lounge. This would take me a day and is technically easy. If I was to discount this on the grounds of being just too messy and inconvenient I would certainly try Ethernet over mains. I don't know how good it would sound but I know of a few actual installations first and second hand (friends and dealer chat) that have worked fine. I hear horror stories but I don't personally know of any that have gone badly.
Finally power lines are susceptible to SMPS and legal low power RF transmission, the latter can disable them and require you to power cycle the adapters. apparently transmissions around 3.7MHz are known to knock them out quite easily. So if you have an licenced radio amateur within 400 yards or so from you you might find the PLA stop working from time to time.
Simon
My HomePlug ethernet adapters work fine. They are Devolo 85Mbit/s, bought s/h from the 'Bay.
I started out with wireless, but got fed up with dropouts, especially when my son was on YouTube, even though it was N standard.
Then I went to powerline adapters, which worked fine. But, although I didn't do any proper testing, subjectively I would say the sound was actually slightly less good than wireless - but it was marginal, and at least there were no more drop-outs.
But then I saw quite a lot of comments on this forum and other places that were not encouraging - the gist of these were that the the PLAs end up creating more noise on the power supplies to the system and this is not a good thing. It might be worth searching the forum and seeing what was said in the past.
So I ended up setting up a switch and NAS in the same room as the hifi, connected by Cat6 cabling to each other and the hifi, and also to the router in another room where the PC also lives. Again, not scientifically and purely subjectively - this seems to me to sound better and it is reliable too.
All that said, the only piece of advice I would offer is - if you are happy with how it works and sounds DO NOT read this forum!
Great post, and I think you chose the best method of networking those components, at least you can be confident it will reliably work with what ever comes along in the forseeable future with no side affects.
Simon
Why not buy a terminated length of CAT5 - only a few quid from somewhere like Maplins - and just run it over the floor as an experiment. Either it'll be better than what you've got or it won't. Then you'll know what you need to do.
IME wired ethernet works best with my NDX. I read somewhere that when the NDX (or any of the Naim streamers are wired), the wireless circuitry shuts down and this probably explains why the SQ is better. It also runs much cooler!
I've had good results with power plugs for the link between my HDX and NAS, although as Simon mentions I do have issues with HiRes files above 98. My aim is to install a proper ethernet cable, but until then the power plugs get the job done.
If you can run them under the carpet, then you could use flat ethernet cables (have a look on Amazon).
Interested to read Harry's first choice. I have Gigabit router and had 10m length of Cat5 going into Uniti. Since I power the Uniti off regularly, I found it had great difficulty finding the upnp NAS drive after restarting. Due to house layout I needed to get a better wireless signal so i brought a network bridge and at the same time connected the 10m cable into a small 5-port gigabit switch (all Netgear). The bridge and Uniti are then short 1m cat5 connections from the switch. Result, perfect wirelsss signal and Uniti always finds the upnp NAS first time !
I have found with Powerline adaptors you need to buy well beyond your aspirational speed.
Last year we added 50 meg broadband and due to the location of the cable modem I needed to 'move' the connection to the router which is located elsewhere in the house where it connects to the ethernet network and ADSL connection (we use 2 for failover, running a business at home).
I had some unused 85 Mbit homeplugs so tried those, I could barely get a 25 Mbit thoughput with these, compared to the 50 I was getting with a cable.
The solution was to purchase some 200 Mbit Devolo adaptors. I can now get the same speed as direct cable. Not cheap but they have been fitted for 12 months with no issues and I don't believe they interfere with the Hifi.
Richard
PLAs can reduce ADSL sync speeds especially if your SNR is already quite low, I experienced this with a house 300 yards from mine affecting my ADSl, and I had to get OFCOM involved- what a todo. The higher speed PLA can increase noise on a quality FM receiver or supress DAB from working, especially where radio signals are weak. Also the noise across sensitive phono cartridges is increased, as well as noise out of phono preamps.
Essentially PLA turns your house mains into a wideband low powered radio transmitter / receiver. If you want to hear what is happening get a SW radio, turn it on your house or garden or even neighbours house you might be shocked.... This wideband RF energy does affect sensitive electronics including precision hifi and it's via radio waves as well as the mains.
But having said all this if you can't hear it or impacted by it and are not causing interference to your neighbours then it's fine, but yes the point of up speccing to get the throughput makes sense. Also remember the connection on PLA is simplex, ie theoretically at best it's half the capacity of the equivalent wired duplex Ethernet connection for a given speed but unlike switched Ethernet it's performance will fall off significantly under load with multiple devices sharing the link.
Simon
Is it a feature or a defect of your hifi that is sensitive to RF energy on the mains?
Many decades ago my NAC12 picked up Radio Moscow and a good selection of local taxis. I regarded that as a defect. Eventually Naim did also, and fixed their equipment, as it was a somewhat easier solution than engineering global radio silence.
I'm amazed that the powerline units gained approval. Absolutely awful in RF terms 
James
Most consumer equipment is designed to work within a level of electro magnetic radiation and be unaffected, and indeed Naim kit is, however it's not a level playing field.
PLA falls ouside these levels significantly in the domestic environment, as they say they are not a radio device primarily, but radio transmission is a side affect ( which from a scientific stance is mumbo jumbo) that a whole lot of compliance regulation does not apply to them ( and you can understand why, they would fail this compliace appallingly )and there is quite a spat going on at moment between the EMC standards bodies, CEPT and the PLA lobby with the former saying PLA are indeed acting outside spec and have a defect. Governments seem to have other priorities at present so this fude continues with the consumer confused and ignorant to what is happening, but annoyed with their low broadband connection speed etc.
Finally the mains and domestic wiring was not designed for HF propagation. If it was the mains wiring would consist of live/neutral twisted pair.
BTW Radio Moscow would be thousands of times weaker than a local PLA, even at Solar sun spot maxima.
Simon
Simon, are you saying that in fixing the dreadful RF breakthrough problems that the NAC12 was prone to, Naim made it worse?
PLA local field strength is much be stronger and is wideband and so has a lot more energy, such a remedy might not provide sufficient attenuation. Or the EM strength might couple into the sensitive micro volt amplifiers. This is where intermods in my opinion will originate from and have the potential to cause noise and distortion. Certainly has done with my Trichord phono preamp.
Hi Simon -
Why is it that everyone who reports RF breakthrough describes it as Radio Moscow?
I preferred the sound of my Superline with no capacitance plug, except I didn't enjoy the nightly newscasts from Russia. Actually, no idea if these voices actually came from Russia, but they certainly sounded eastern European to my ears. Anyway, a 470pF plug (acting, I assume, as a low pass filter) silenced my Superline, and fortunately, without dumbing down the sound too much.
Just curious....why is it never Radio Tokyo...or Radio Mumbai...or anyplace other than Moscow?! 
Hook
Hi Hook, Radio Moscow now known as Voice of Russia used to be the voice of the old USSR & still broadcasts all over the former USSR area & to the world in many languages on medium & short wave. So don't be fooled by picking up French or Polish, its VoR.
Radio Moscow's (VoR) SW network has never been equalled in its transmission power & its reach. Its got some power thats for sure.
So why do we all get it down our phono leads ???
They are acting as RX antenna's. They need to be retuned with capacitors or inductance to get out of that bandwidth.
AM transmissions, short wave especially, bounce off the various ionised upper atmosphere layers. It varies with radio frequency & ionised layer height. They are affected also by day or night as the ionised layers behaviour differently with or without sunlight.
Edward Appleton was the leading scientist in this field & he discovered a layer at 250-350 km which reflected back well in daytime as well as at night. It was named the "Appleton Layer' & was used to send radio all around the world in the early days of radio broadcasting.
The radio industry has some rules on this - which it seems VoR seems to not care about.
In USA Federal Communications Commission require AM radio stations to reduce power or cease operating at night in order to avoid interference to other AM stations.
I fixed my lowly Rega-3 problem with ferrite clamps on each lead, cuppla bucks from Radio Shack.
I used to use some 200Mbit homeplugs, and it worked it worked fine except with 96/24 hi res files (interestingly my pc could play these files using the same connection with no problem). I now use an airport express connected to my qute, and airport extreme connected to the NAS. It now works flawlessly, and as a bonus for casual listening I like to use Itunes and airplay.
I used to use some 200Mbit homeplugs, and it worked it worked fine except with 96/24 hi res files (interestingly my pc could play these files using the same connection with no problem). I now use an airport express connected to my qute, and airport extreme connected to the NAS. It now works flawlessly, and as a bonus for casual listening I like to use Itunes and airplay.
This is precisely what I have been thinking of doing -- NAS connected to my airport extreme, and an airport express connected to a uServe. I am not getting any positive reinforcement about that . . . so it's interesting to hear that it works for you The house wiring ethernet units are cheap enough that I can compare results and send the homeplugs back to Amazon if I don't like them.
In my case, my wifi signal is really strong throughout my house, using an airport express in one spot and a time capsule (newest version) in another. Very strong signal everywhere . . . but I've not tried with music where even a momentary drop out would be quite audible.
The layers react to different frequencies in a different manner, and is relevant for radio break through.
Shorter distance on the medium wave and the lower parts of short wave are very much controlled by the D layer. The D layer is ionised by the sun but being closer to the earth loses it's ionisation before the higher E and F layers. In daylight it severely attenuates LW, MW and lower frequency SW. That's why you can usually on domestic equipment only usually hear local/national stations during the day. But after sun set ithe D layer energy goes and let's the radio through to the higher levels to be refracted and reflected which is why these stations can be heard from further a field late into the night. By early morning the F layers are depleted and so only local/national stations can be heard and the cycle repeats. This phenomenon affects ADSL as that runs in the MW space, and sync speeds will be better in the morning with low quicesent RF energy (RF noise) compared to after sun set.
The F layer energy depends on the seasons and critically the sun spot cycle, and when ionised can hop a radio signal every 2000km, these hops can go round the world, some times multiple times and In a sunpot cycle maxima the quiescent RF energy can remain high due to very highly energised F layer reflecting the radio back to earth until the D layer 'warms' up at sun rise. This round the worlld hop is more prevalent for higher frequency shortwaves that aren't affected by the D layer as much (clearly one side of planet is in day whilst the other in night). There are few broadcast stations in these higher SW frequencies.
Finally of course this issue affects SSB as well as AM, but very few broadcast stations use SSB.
But as I say this RF is all significantly less than PLA local field strength, but hopefully explains why radio breakthrough comes and goes, and why perhaps we only hear radio Mumbai breakthrough only every eleven years with cycle maxima ( nice one Hook ;-). )
The radio rf allocation and power is governed by the ITU funded I believe by the UN to which UN members sign up to. There three administration domains. Russia is with the European and African domain and is separate to the Americas and some differences apply.
Sorry if you know all this Mike but might give some background to others
Simon
Thanks Simon, as a radio nerd I am aware of all this stuff, but its a long time since I got into the whats & wherefores like the D, E & F layers.
Many moons ago when CB was all the rage we used to chat over pirate wavelengths to Italy & Israel when the ions were happy to play with us, but with just a 4w TX.
I sold off the big-rig Ham stuff a few years back, but still keep in contact thru the local club.