Recommended Routers/Modems for Quality Streaming

Gary, I really don’t think it makes any difference, as long as the router modem is not faulty.. if you have a quality ISP I usually you recommend you use their modem router as it will be optimised to work with their service.

I believe the days of rubbish modem/routers from ISP's changed some time ago.
I'm currently using the Telstra (Australian version of BT) supplied modem/wifi router and it works perfectly. I do have a couple of Apple Airport Express units connected by ethernet cables to provide wifi in hard-to-reach areas of our home, which is of reinforced concrete construction and not very wifi friendly.
However, if you're setting up a large new home from scratch with CAT6 ethernet cabling etc. I'd go for a Draytek modem and other commercial grade router and wi-fi access points - such as equipment by Ruckus..

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Gary, I really don’t think it makes any difference, as long as the router modem is not faulty.. if you have a quality ISP I usually you recommend you use their modem router as it will be optimised to work with their service.

 

Thanks Simon

blythe posted:

I believe the days of rubbish modem/routers from ISP's changed some time ago.
I'm currently using the Telstra (Australian version of BT) supplied modem/wifi router and it works perfectly. I do have a couple of Apple Airport Express units connected by ethernet cables to provide wifi in hard-to-reach areas of our home, which is of reinforced concrete construction and not very wifi friendly.
However, if you're setting up a large new home from scratch with CAT6 ethernet cabling etc. I'd go for a Draytek modem and other commercial grade router and wi-fi access points - such as equipment by Ruckus..

Thanks, have you used Draytek ?

In the UK, I use Draytek modems and Ruckus router & wi-fi.
It's pricey (being professional standard) but seems to be totally reliable and hassle free.

By home hub5 serves my hifi direct with a Netgear switch for the tv etc. Ethernet cables are qed carbon and have not glitches or issues 

As Simon said,  it makes no difference wrt SQ. I messed around a year or so ago with begged & borrowed routers, in all about five from the well regarded brands.  Sound wise compared to my BT HH5 (at the time) there was absolutely no difference.  Line speed was all the same,   some did better than the BT on 2.4GHz wireless band but not better with 5GHz.   They all had more tunability than the BT but I had no need for anything other than what the BT was able to do.   I had to say all were ugly SOB’s & did not gain favour from mrs Mike. I’ve now changed to BT HH6 & even tho’ it’s less customer configurable than it’s predesessor,  it is smarter than many give it credit for & doesn’t need all that stuff & end of day it really does all I need.

Words of warning from someone I know who got an upmarket router,  he had ISP line problems & that got messy as he disposed of the ISP router;  so if you do go down that route do not get rid of the ISP provided router.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your thoughts.

Gary

The only things I've done to improve matters are to turn off the WiFi from the ISP supplied WiFi router & use a separate WAP (Wireless Access Point) and to add a separate network switch.  The WAP improved the reliability of the WiFi signal and the discovery of the Streamer and Media Server via the Naim app.  I kept the ISPs router to do the Broadband connection.

hifi-dog posted:

By home hub5 serves my hifi direct with a Netgear switch for the tv etc. Ethernet cables are qed carbon and have not glitches or issues 

Thanks

Huge posted:

The only things I've done to improve matters are to turn off the WiFi from the ISP supplied WiFi router & use a separate WAP (Wireless Access Point) and to add a separate network switch.  The WAP improved the reliability of the WiFi signal and the discovery of the Streamer and Media Server via the Naim app.  I kept the ISPs router to do the Broadband connection.

Thanks, that's interesting.

My experience is exactly the opposite of some of the above posts, with the router and its set up having a major influence on SQ. 

My ISP in the UK is Virgin, which means my modem/router is a Superhub3.  The Superhub3 seems to be rather a feeble router, with poorly regarded chip set, buggy firmware and fairly low tech design. Its wi-fi is relatively low power; its resource management is poorly optimized and its performance is compromised by long standing bugs in the firmware that triggers diagnostics whenever workload increases above a certain level. As far as I can see, bandwidth is shared between all connected devices without user ability to set priorities, so its impossible to optimise hi-fi performance.

I’m fairly new to digital streaming, and initially lacked the knowledge to mess around with routers etc. as a consequence my digital stream was treated like an unwanted stepchild where it entered the house and like royalty once it entered my hi-fi room.  Given that hi-fi is my hobby, I set about learning all I could about wi-fi and networking via webcasts and tutorials. 

Once i had sufficient knowledge I set about optimising my incoming data stream. First thing a did was to try a few routers courtesy of PC World. For support reasons Virgin only allows Superhub3 to be connected to its network, so that mandates using Superhub3 as a modem and connecting any accessory router via the WAN connection.  Ultimately I settled on a TPLInk AC5400 Archer router. With 1 x 2.4GHz and 2 x 5GHz bands I was able to set it up so my hi-fi has its own dedicated 5Ghz band with no resource sharing. This resulted in over 200Mbps download speed and a major uptick in SQ (for the first day SQ was substantially worse).  The new router was connected using the included ethernet cable, so as a next step I obtained a Meicord cable which is well regarded for its excellent price performance. I was dubuious about hearing any substantial improvement but by day 3 SQ again increased. Initially I had the new router sitting on the carpet, which looked pretty tacky so I bought a base layer of an Atacama mini-rack, which is essentially a 5cm thick laminated bamboo platform sitting on short spiked legs. This upgrade was for aesthetic reasons only so I was pleasantly surprised and a little  dumbfounded to hear a further small improvement. 

With the new router set up I was rather pleased with the level of improvement I’d achieved for relatively little money, so I got to wondering if the modem and routers’  SMPSs could be improved upon. I order a Sean Jacobs CHC DC3 dual rail LPS and used it to power both router and modem.  This brought the most significant  improvement is SQ, but took weeks to run in.  With over 40 years experience playing around with hi-fi I’m long past imagining SQ improvements where non exists. Essentially I no longer try to listen analytically....rather I just listen to my favorite music and afterward reflect on what I heard.  If there are improvement I’ll either notice that certain problem areas are resolved or that new information was present.  In the case of this front end optimisation the major improvements were related to imaging, soundstage and low level detail.  In terms of listener involvement the system became more ‘compelling’, grabbing your attention from the first note. Internet Radio and specifically Swiss Classics moved from a system warm up station to a thoroughly viable source of beautiful classical music. While its clear that 128kbps causes massive losses in terms of image depth and musical intensity it’s still an entirely satisfying medium with the above system front end improvements. 

It sounds as though you changed the streamer connection from the Virgin Superhub to the TPLink Archer: changing the switch that connects the streamer to the LAN is known to have an effect on the SQ, irrespective of the TA / router used to connect the LAN to the broadband WAN.

One thing I would add and I think all should bear in mind, whatever router you use; change as a matter of urgency the default 'admin' password. Also change the router name as part of the default router name, which any one within the vicinity of your home can see, will tell any would be hacker driving down your road what router you use. Knowing that they can use the default admin password and gain a lot of information you'd rather other's did not know, a hacker would also know other ways to compromise your security if he knew what router you have even if you have changed the admin password. There's other ways to improve security by changing gateway settings etc, but that's beyond the scope of this reply. Try Googling router security settings. Rich 

Hi Huge, 

No, just changed the cable between the modem (Superhub) and Router.  The connection to the streamer remained unchanged throughout.

You have a router AND the Superhub?

That's very unusual (unless you have two separate LANs and use a router to connect between them or you have an additional WAN in addition to your internet connection).

Thanks for all your feedback. Has anyone setup QoS on their Router with any positive effect on Music streaming?

Regards

Gary

Huge posted:

You have a router AND the Superhub?

That's very unusual (unless you have two separate LANs and use a router to connect between them or you have an additional WAN in addition to your internet connection).

Huge, we do the same. We have the Superhub in modem mode, with a separate router, which is what Blackmorec is doing. 

Same hear. 

As far as recommendations re router's. As others have said, most modern isp supplied router's will do a reasonable job, BT home hub 6 is well thought of although I believe you can only use it if you're with BT. Connect using Ethernet where possible. If you're a heavy user with multiple gamers using wireless then you may require a more upmarket one. Have a look at router comparison sites for more details. Rich 

hungryhalibut posted:

Huge posted:

You have a router AND the Superhub?

That's very unusual (unless you have two separate LANs and use a router to connect between them or you have an additional WAN in addition to your internet connection).

Huge, we do the same. We have the Superhub in modem mode, with a separate router, which is what Blackmorec is doing. 

So you set-up your NAT, Firewall, Routing tables, DHCP Server and DNS on the router?  Wow, that's a lot of config work. I leave all that to the ISP/ router and just move the WiFi to a separate WAP.

(I do also have a separate switch in the network to keep separate data streams apart and functionally isolate the streamer / NAS communications from much of the rest of the data.)

I must be missing something as to why you need to do all this, or am I OK to remain smug content?    My BT HH6 gives wireless all over the required parts of house & outside e.g. not required in shower but it does.   I’ve split wireless bands & DHCP, I set the IP addresses & DHCP keeps those numbers.  Baby Cisco switch is to audio only,  other services are direct from router over ethernet or wireless.    100% rock solid,  why do I need WAP or more?

Huge posted:

hungryhalibut posted:

Huge posted:

You have a router AND the Superhub?

That's very unusual (unless you have two separate LANs and use a router to connect between them or you have an additional WAN in addition to your internet connection).

Huge, we do the same. We have the Superhub in modem mode, with a separate router, which is what Blackmorec is doing. 

So you set-up your NAT, Firewall, Routing tables, DHCP Server and DNS on the router?  Wow, that's a lot of config work. I leave all that to the ISP/ router and just move the WiFi to a separate WAP.

(I do also have a separate switch in the network to keep separate data streams apart and functionally isolate the streamer / NAS communications from much of the rest of the data.)

No. The new router looks after all of that. All that’s necessary is to go into the ISP router/modem, switch it to modem mode and reboot.  In modem mode all the auto configure stuff is switched off. Once the modem is booted and shows the appropriate indicator light, the new router can be connected via a WAN ethernet cable and switched on. The new router takes over all the auto config duties in exactly the same way as the ISP router. Once the new router is fully booted, one simply sets up the names and passwords for the 3 bands and configures which devices are allowed to connect to which band. I typically connect fixed devices to the first 5GHz band, mobile devices to the 2.4GHz band and the hi-fi to the second 5GHz band.  For device bandwidth sharing I can assign priorities and nominate up to 4 devices to work simultaneously. 

FYI my hi-fi is up and across a flight of stairs from my modem & router, so I use a wireless connection to a TPLink RE650 extender. The RE650 is set to receive the data stream from the TPLink Archer router on its 5GHz band, with the 2.4GHz band and all wi-fi transmissions disabled.  A Synergistic Research Ethernet cable then takes the stream to an AQVox SE Switch. The AQVox is also powered by a Sean Jacobs DC3 LPS.  The resulting SQ is way better than a direct ethernet connection between ISP router and server. 

Given the overwhelming success of the above mods, one final mod is underway. A TPLink RE650 has been modified to remove the mains input and cheap as chips integrated SMPS and a new DC3 will supply the necessary 5V DC.  Wall mounting is taken care of with a Button-Fix module, so remains ideally orientated 

I used to fiddle around with routers including a Draytek 2860 when I had snail copper. A few months ago Openreach fitted FTTP because our rural speeds were lousy. They supplied an FTTP variant of the BT HH6 and things have never been better. Not a single dropout on 50mbps. I could have gone for 300 but 50 suits me just fine. I use a Cisco switch and AQ Ethernet cables and all is fine. No need to fiddle at all and much better than the 2mbps speeds I’ve had to endure for the last 10 years and I pay what I did for the old service

I'm sure that better line speeds and no dropouts do more for SQ and enjoyment than any cheesy router could.

My feedback above is based on Virgin FTTC at around 220 mbps, so in my case, routers did indeed make a substantial difference.....however getting rid of their cheesy SMPSs  made an even bigger improvement.