Core and wifi

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Hi David, an Apple Express can be a dedicated access point, and works reasonably effective as a single access point. However my preference is to use multiple participating access points work single ESSIDs, that is a common SSID that clients can load balance between and hand off between. This creates a more stable higher bandwidth supporting wifi network that uses lower RF power and is less prone to interference. Most setups also give you control so you can prioritise for example your audio wifi clients. 

This used to be only the preserve of commercial setups, and the poor consumer was left to make do with their single broadband router wifi access point.. which is far from ideal for our uses with streaming and am sure has been the one of the main reasons why many consumers have given wifi a bad name...it's just been so poorly implemented.

The devices that I would recommend you look at if interested are the Ubiquiti range... they are affordable, consumer and small office  oriented, largely plug and play and highly effective. The technique  is to have two or more  access points overlapping in the area of maximum activity / sensitivity. 

With a good setup you actually find you need a wired network less for clients , and becomes mostly the backbone between access points... and heavy duty severs and NASs in the office/ coms room. These access points can also be powered over Ethernet for max flexibility and reduced clutter.

Simon,

Re the ubiquiti range, in your view what would be the best approach based on the following set up's

Core connected to 272 via Spdif, in lounge (noted earlier both are currently connected over mains)

Muso in kitchen uses upnp 

broadband router is virgin media

also what is the quality of security via ubiquiti?

thanks in advance

Hi David, I guess if wow want your Core close by your N272 streamer then having them connected via a network switch and Ethernet makes sense.. however if you have your Core say in your study where you broadband router is and backup NAS, you can use a wired Ethernet connection there and run say two access point Ethernet runs from your study office to near where your N272 streamer is and use wifi to connect to your N272. The access points can be mounted on ceilings in alcoves or hallways, and you subtly route your Ethernet cable along the edges of hallways etc.. it's what I do. The access point is a bit like the size of a smoke alarm... in fact I have one of my APs mounted next to one of my smoke alarms. You can power your access points over Ethernet, either by using adapters or a PoE enabled switch... just watch protocols and voltages.. I can advise if you get that far...

As far as security, well they are commercial class... you can run WPA or WPA2 in Personal mode.. defined static  preshared keys, or in Enterprise mode using a RADIUS ... but the latter is probably an over kill for home most home  networks.

Having tried a number of different WiFi configurations in my  network, the one issue I could never get past was the WiFi module inside the Naim streamer. Nothing I did could make this work consistently on a network that, in every other way, was reliable. The solution was simply to turn off the built in WiFi and attach an Airport Express with a short Ethernet cable. This resolved my problem immediately. I went from very regular dropouts even with low bit rate streams to very good reliability even with 24/192 streams just by doing this. £20 for an old style used AE was all it took.

Can the Core (as part of a software upgrade I assume) be upgraded to play internet radio ?  I have a HDX and if it is ever broken beyond repair I want a similar feature on a new ripper/storage/server. 

Wishfull thinking or do I need to:

1. Buy another brand internet radio unit and attach to my n-DAC.

2. Get a naim streamer.

The Apple products really do create a pretty good wifi network.  I use 2 Airport Extremes, and one 'extends' the network of the other.  Even off the 'extender' I get the full 80MBPS that my fibre isp provides to the home.

Personally I'd try that before investing in an extensive Ubiquiti setup.  If the Apple products don't work out, they will take them back.

crackie posted:

Can the Core (as part of a software upgrade I assume) be upgraded to play internet radio ?  I have a HDX and if it is ever broken beyond repair I want a similar feature on a new ripper/storage/server. 

...

Sure it can be updgraded to support internet radio and Tidal, Qobuz, etc. if Naim decides to do so. But I guess Naim wants users to buy a Core and a streamer. Thus, I doubt that they will add support for internet streaming services to the Core's internal SPDIF renderer. Except, perhaps, if there are enough requests from users.

crackie posted:

Can the Core (as part of a software upgrade I assume) be upgraded to play internet radio ?  I have a HDX and if it is ever broken beyond repair I want a similar feature on a new ripper/storage/server. 

Wishfull thinking or do I need to:

1. Buy another brand internet radio unit and attach to my n-DAC.

2. Get a naim streamer.

I'm pretty sure that streaming functionality such as iRadio will not be added to the Core because Naim sees the Core as a server. Both options you mention are valid though ...

Bart posted:

The Apple products really do create a pretty good wifi network.  I use 2 Airport Extremes, and one 'extends' the network of the other.  Even off the 'extender' I get the full 80MBPS that my fibre isp provides to the home.

Personally I'd try that before investing in an extensive Ubiquiti setup.  If the Apple products don't work out, they will take them back.

I am glad 'extending' the networks like this, but it is inefficient and will be a suboptimal  wifi setup ... you may well run into other problems when using Naim discovery and other applications at the same time at some point in the future. Remember the so called speed given is not really an indication of the actual effective throughput. With an extender on the same frequency and you will be getting poor collision ratios on your wifi, knocking the throughput (which is different from the so called speed) back and increasing the likelihood of lost multicast data.

The Apple products are good for their limited capability and I used to recommend them on this forum, at the time they were one of the best devices for a reasonable price for the consumer I was aware of. But the world has moved on and Apple hasn't really focussed on them, our use of wifi has increased with greater performance from multiple concurrent applications on the network, and there are now better devices and technologies on the consumer market if you want to have a truly effective and efficient wifi.

If you are wanting to run to wifi access points point to point ( which is quite a different setup and application that I was talking about where multiple clients are connecting to the wifi access points) remember to configure them to run in AdHoc mode.. which is the correct efficient and reliable mode for that type of setup.

 By the way your ISP is almost certainly providing 80 Mbps and not 80 MBPS.. a difference of about a factor of 8

Here's my experience with the Core setup -

Set it up on the weekend, using an Apple Airport Express to extend the network to the other side of my house from the primary internet access point (router). ISDN line plugs from the Airport Express into the back of the Core. Voilà. Core is on the network and has worked absolutely fine with no issues at all. I've ripped several cds and also transferred several large and small files from my laptop, via the network connection, onto the Core. I was also, at the time, streaming a television show via the BBC app, to my television. No issues i could notice. For me, the AP Express was an easy, relatively inexpensive solution and I would highly recommended it over running a hard line from the router to the Core. 

Good new Paulie.  That mirrors my experience with using the AE as a wireless bridge.  I use them even with kit that has wireless capability, mainly because they work better and more reliably, I find.