ND555 with WiFi

The new generation of Naim streamers have proper 802.11ac WiFi modules, which is a big improvement on the old models. 

If you’re using the WiFi from an ISP supplied router, it may or may not be any good. Again, see if it runs ac as opposed to n or g. It’s a simple matter to turn off the WiFi on a poor router, and connect it to a decent wireless device instead if necessary. That may also make it easier to put the WiFi device in an optimum location.

If you still don’t have a reliable connection, running a cable costs very little, although it may be a bit messy. 

As for sound quality, I don’t have an ND555, so can’t help you there. 

I have not yet tried my ND555 on the home wifi network.  I put the antenna in the box..I should dig it out and try it.  My GUESS is that in my system I won't hear a difference in SQ vs. the ethernet cable that runs in my wall to an outlet behind the Fraim.  And I have a wireless access point right in the same room, so I'm guessing I wont get drop-outs but I'll try sometime soon to see.

ChrisSU posted:

The new generation of Naim streamers have proper 802.11ac WiFi modules, which is a big improvement on the old models. 

If you’re using the WiFi from an ISP supplied router, it may or may not be any good. Again, see if it runs ac as opposed to n or g. It’s a simple matter to turn off the WiFi on a poor router, and connect it to a decent wireless device instead if necessary. That may also make it easier to put the WiFi device in an optimum location.

If you still don’t have a reliable connection, running a cable costs very little, although it may be a bit messy. 

As for sound quality, I don’t have an ND555, so can’t help you there. 

Thanks Chris...have ac WiFi with my BT Smart Hub...so should be okay I guess..will have to try...

Bart posted:

I have not yet tried my ND555 on the home wifi network.  I put the antenna in the box..I should dig it out and try it.  My GUESS is that in my system I won't hear a difference in SQ vs. the ethernet cable that runs in my wall to an outlet behind the Fraim.  And I have a wireless access point right in the same room, so I'm guessing I wont get drop-outs but I'll try sometime soon to see.

Okay,  cheers, keen to know how It goes...

understood that with WiFi you either get the signal or not..as you can’t get part of the signal and have poorer quality sound ...if that makes sense. 

Yes, I would give it a try first. If you want to make the comparison, you can always buy a long Cat5e Ethernet cable, which is very cheap, and run it loose to the streamer. If you don't get an improvement in either stability or sound quality, you can cross that drill off your Christmas list.

Hi, almost certainly it will sound slightly ‘different’ between Wifi or Ethernet, as different internal modules are being activated as appropriate.. and these in turn add to the noise profile.. or sound ‘tuning’ of the streamer .. whether one is prefereable to the other will be down to you...

If you do use Wifi can I recommend Ethernet connected overlapping cooperating Wifi access points (in a ESSID configuration) covering where your streamer is, as many access points will then load balance providing optimum performance for your Wifi streaming experience including hidef with other users on your wireless network. Ubiquiti offers such a solution, ... note this is not the same and is almost certainly beneficial to mesh Wifi setups.

The new streamer architectures have larger amounts of application media memory allowing more elastic data transfer flows compared to the older architecture... this is beneficial for busy Wifi and internet streaming where drop outs are better avoided or avoided all together.

I use Ubiquiti, and I think I am right in remembering Naim have used them as well in some of their custom installs.

Thanks Simon..nice to know there are options if required...will check out Ubiquiti..

Preference is just streaming as-is ...so that will be my starting point..Ubiquiti can be my plan b.

AdrianB posted:

Thanks Simon..nice to know there are options if required...will check out Ubiquiti..

Preference is just streaming as-is ...so that will be my starting point..Ubiquiti can be my plan b.

I don’t doubt that the Ubiquiti WAPs are good, but note that the idea is to run cables to at least 2 or 3 of them at strategic locations around your house. Running a single cable to your streamer might be easier, and will certainly cost very little. 

Cables are what I won’t to avoid...unless they improve the sound over and above WiFi sound, which, I can’t find anyone to testify that they do...

I have a wifi bridge but not to nd555 rather to a wifi unit and it connects to nd555 via ethernet. So not using nd555 wifi part. Its very stable for upnp and guess this would be same SQ as full ethernet. Br Lars

Thanks for that. What does that look like ? Router to wifi bridge cable to ND555. Do you do this  just to avoid using the ND555 WiFi module? If so, why? Thanks

Personally i have used WiFi and wired on my Uniti Atom and both sounded the same. I even recorded the output digitally to see if there was any difference in the signals and  I could a/b them more accurately. there wasn't any difference and the waveforms where identical. The benefit of wired is it's just more reliable overall. I've found the Atom is flakey with interruptions to its network connection and can hang quite frequently on wireless, it's far more reliable on wired. Whilst its not the nd555 I'd imagine a lot of the components are the same from a network standpoint.

I don’t honestly think the WiFi performance of the Atom bears comparison to that in the ND555. The latter is hugely more resolving, and likely to show up small differences that would be masked by the performance of an all-in-one box. Although both have 802.11ac WiFi, the Atom has an internal antenna, whereas the ND555 has dual external antennae, so there are certainly differences in the implementation. 

SimonPeterArnold posted:

Personally i have used WiFi and wired on my Uniti Atom and both sounded the same. I even recorded the output digitally to see if there was any difference in the signals and  I could a/b them more accurately. there wasn't any difference and the waveforms where identical. The benefit of wired is it's just more reliable overall. I've found the Atom is flakey with interruptions to its network connection and can hang quite frequently on wireless, it's far more reliable on wired. Whilst its not the nd555 I'd imagine a lot of the components are the same from a network standpoint.

Interesting.. use a very sensitive spectrum analyser on the digital transport stream or analogue outputs and look to see if identical between Ethernet or Wifi.... that will be the real test.. not the encoded static digital file which unless there is a digital format corruption (extremely unlikely) is going to be identical.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

SimonPeterArnold posted:

Personally i have used WiFi and wired on my Uniti Atom and both sounded the same. I even recorded the output digitally to see if there was any difference in the signals and  I could a/b them more accurately. there wasn't any difference and the waveforms where identical. The benefit of wired is it's just more reliable overall. I've found the Atom is flakey with interruptions to its network connection and can hang quite frequently on wireless, it's far more reliable on wired. Whilst its not the nd555 I'd imagine a lot of the components are the same from a network standpoint.

Interesting.. use a very sensitive spectrum analyser on the digital transport stream or analogue outputs and look to see if identical between Ethernet or Wifi.... that will be the real test.. not the encoded static digital file which unless there is a digital format corruption (extremely unlikely) is going to be identical.

If I ever can be bothered to run it again, perhaps. I do have access to the software to allow a spectrum analysis. But I have no real urge to it, it proved enough to me that I could hear nor see any evidence in the waveform representation  of wifi changing the sound signature coming out of it and for the record I also used playback from USB stick of the same file as control without a network connection plugged in. Funny enough that was the same to. Since all this  I have learnt not to worry about such things as its just folly and listen to the music and enjoy it and I enjoy my Atom a lot, less revealing or not.

This is great.. this wealth of knowledge, from direct experience, is so hard to come by. Thanks to all.

Going back to the original question...Ethernet  v WiFi, irrespective of the box, atom or  nd555 or whatever, does the Ethernet cable, even the expensive ones, produce a better sound than air/WiFi?  

I am not convinced an Ethernet cable adds sonic value to the nd 555, although it may present differently, but then I haven’t bought mine yet...I have that pleasure to come.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

SimonPeterArnold posted:

Personally i have used WiFi and wired on my Uniti Atom and both sounded the same. I even recorded the output digitally to see if there was any difference in the signals and  I could a/b them more accurately. there wasn't any difference and the waveforms where identical. The benefit of wired is it's just more reliable overall. I've found the Atom is flakey with interruptions to its network connection and can hang quite frequently on wireless, it's far more reliable on wired. Whilst its not the nd555 I'd imagine a lot of the components are the same from a network standpoint.

Interesting.. use a very sensitive spectrum analyser on the digital transport stream or analogue outputs and look to see if identical between Ethernet or Wifi.... that will be the real test.. not the encoded static digital file which unless there is a digital format corruption (extremely unlikely) is going to be identical.

After a cursory check there seem to be a wide range of spectrum analysers for S/PDIF signals, with prices ranging from hundreds to tens of thousands pounds. Do you have any specific suggestion? Is it possible/meaningful to rent one such devices for a test? Thanks, nbpf

I know 272 cannot compare to ND555 but back when I was using WiFi instead of a wired connection, I've invested in the larger antenna Naim offers, the WA5. The benefits, in my setup were huge.

Just buy 2 for your ND555 and you're set. Or use a switch between the router and your streamer.

AdrianB posted:

This is great.. this wealth of knowledge, from direct experience, is so hard to come by. Thanks to all.

Going back to the original question...Ethernet  v WiFi, irrespective of the box, atom or  nd555 or whatever, does the Ethernet cable, even the expensive ones, produce a better sound than air/WiFi?  

I am not convinced an Ethernet cable adds sonic value to the nd 555, although it may present differently, but then I haven’t bought mine yet...I have that pleasure to come.

All Ethernet cables result in a slightly different spectrum of RFI entering the streamer, this in turn interferes with the analogue electronics in different and unpredictable ways, so different Ethernet cables give a slightly different 'sound' from the analogue output.  (However, because Ethernet is electrically isolated and balanced, the detrimental effect of this is usually less then the detrimental effect of the operation of the WiFi module.)  As a result of this it's worth trying a range of several different cheap 'generic' Ethernet patch leads to see which works best in your system - anything from Cat 5 to Cat 7 is suitable.  They're cheap, so there's no reason not to try several; in my testing a simple £5 cable resulted in a better sound quality than both the 'audiophile' cables I also tried.

It's worth noting that (unlike analogue cables) Ethernet cables don't of themselves have any particular sound signature, they interact with electrical noise in the environment and the electronics of the streamer to alter the resulting sound in unpredictable ways. The same Ethernet cable will very often result in different changes to the sound when attached to different streamers or used in a different location.

Thanks... it might be a suck it and see yet again.. your insight is welcomed. So basically there is some science that leans towards a cabled approach...that’s what i was after..Will do some simple testing to see if the theory is supported by the outcome.  Then again, as many on the forum know, audio equipment testing is a funny business with so many fragile dependancies. 

Missed your response there Dan.S ......another option...nice.

I tried WiFi then Ethernet on my 272 when I got it a few months ago and there was no noticeable difference in SQ. But I just put the cable in and turned the WiFi off - I didn't do A/B or blind tests.

I stayed with the ethernet, which seems to work very well. But I'm still planning to try a Cat 7 cable rather than the old twisted Cat 5 one I retrieved from the mess of cables in my garage. And if I ever get time, I plan to do a proper comparison of a few cables and WiFi.

The problem for me is that in order to plug in ethernet cables to the TV and audio boxes I've had to run the PlusNet router close to the rack. The router also has a solar panels WiFi box plugged into it. So there is now a lot of more cabling and electronic kit close together.

JimDog posted:

The problem for me is that in order to plug in ethernet cables to the TV and audio boxes I've had to run the PlusNet router close to the rack. The router also has a solar panels WiFi box plugged into it. So there is now a lot of more cabling and electronic kit close together.

Can’t you put a switch near the HiFi to run devices that have to be there, and put the router back in its more distant location? Then you may be able to keep any other networked devices, and their PSUs, well away from the system. 

Chris - yes, that's a great idea. (We are now about to try to move house, but I'll do that if we don't.)

thanks

Jim