LAN over the mains

That is the sixty million dollar question ...

Some will argue that dirty mains power will invariably pollute the passage of net-packets

Others will argue that network protocols are robust enough and that streaming is preferable to the alternative anyway...

Me ... well I wouldn't worry too much about it -
I assume that you have already made the decision to avoid laying Cat cable all over your house and Lan over powerline is an appropriate compromise. You shouldn't have bandwidth problems with audio files anyway.

One alternative would be to wire only one half eg. NAS/Computer to router and use Wifi for the remainder - depends how robust your wireless signal is. In a nutshell - if it works and you like the sound I doubt if powerline will make much difference... but that's just me.

Tog

Yes this is an explosive topic

Most interesting is to hear from persons who really have made som testings with PowerLan, WiFi and Cat.

The usual argument against LAN over powerlines is that it introduces noise onto the power line which may (through the PSUs of your equipment) affect the SQ of your system.

Different audio equipment will be affected differently so YMMV.

Eloise

quote:

Most interesting is to hear from persons who really have made som testings with PowerLan, WiFi and Cat.

FWIW I have run my Akurate DS in my bedroom system using 'powerlan'. It normally resides in my main system hard wired to the gigabit router on Cat 6.

Allowing for the different quality of the replay sytems I could not detect any difference or affect on replay quality due to use of a powerlan.

My NAS is permanently hardwired to the router.

Geoff

quote:

Most interesting is to hear from persons who really have made som testings with PowerLan, WiFi and Cat.

Made some test myself several time with my SB3 (of course the SB3 is not as we can define "reference system" nevertheless the result was for me clear enough.)

Best to worst is :

1) Lan : (cat6) : the best we can...not as good as an very good CDP or a good turntable, especially on the bass...less punchy...SB3 limitation ?.

2) Wifi: Huge step below...sounds flat and focused...ok with my SqueezeBoom but not the best on the SB3.

3) PowerLan system : (tested myself Devolo, D-Link and finally the last generation of Netgear)
The sound is nothing a could live with... on an Naim system at least.

Perhaps a little bit different on other setup but would assume that the rank will stay the same....LAN winner

As usual try yourself fist then...take the best for you (Wifi and CPL are very convenient indeed)

Correct me if i'm wrong but LAN is also recommended by Naim.

Dear all,

thanks for all the replies.....mmhhh it looks like having the nas and the streamer close or in the hifi rack is the best solution and using the powerline connection just to copy downloaded files from the office pc to the nas and not for streaming....

Richard (somewhere around lake of thun)

quote:

Originally posted by Rikum:
Dear all,

thanks for all the replies.....mmhhh it looks like having the nas and the streamer close or in the hifi rack is the best solution and using the powerline connection just to copy downloaded files from the office pc to the nas and not for streaming....

Richard (somewhere around lake of thun)

Yep...i choose myself to put my NAS close to the Router (using cat7) and link my SB3 to the router using a long Cat7 Cable (15Meter).
Why ? Just because the NAS is not very noisy but more that a CD or turntable (fan noise) so close or in the rack will make it audible.

Just my 2 cents

quote:

Originally posted by Rikum:
Dear all,

Before starting to think about when and how to stream music I would like to clarify a open question. I'm using a Devolo dLAN product to distribute my LAN over the mains in the house. Just wondering if this is a adequate solution for streaming Audio Files. It's just a feeling from my side that 22OV and Audio Files somehow can't live together. Does this affect the quality of the Files/Sound? Any experience or explanation.

thanks a lot.

Richard

Hi Richard, the biggest issue with poerline Ethernet is that it has to Inject a relatively large amount of RF energy into the mains to work. If you are a person that is careful on mains blocks and mains leads you might find power line Ethernet undermines all of that. There is also a warning in some Naim manuals about limiting exposure to RF energy.
However you might find it works for you, but if you have any audiophile neighbours you might want to check you are not causing them side effects.
Simon

I can't really see why WLAN should sound different from LAN. If that is the case, then I would guess it has something to do with the receiver, i.e. the SB3 has both devices and one has been designed poorly.

If the receiver however only has LAN and you send the signal to a router who then forwards it to the LAN device, it should sound the same. I can't hear a difference streaming via LAN or WLAN or using a USB stick when I use my mediadevice.

I would think that dLAN would result in the same quality if everything were ideal. But it is not.
I would imagine the noise would influence all electronics connected to the same spur, and not just the Naim source, but also pre- and poweramps.
Also, the more error correction there is the more likely it is you will hear a difference. dLAN seems notoriously noisy and error prone.

It depends on how far the distance is between two devices and how many breakers are in between etc. but I have heard from friends that they have really poor transmission rates compared to even 54MBit WLAN. But as I said, it depends on how far the distance is and how many things are in between.

Maybe it's different in the UK, but here quite often each room has it's own breaker. So going from one room to the next will often result in going through a breaker and quite a fair bit of cable.