Tinker, Tailor, Streamer, Pi.

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slinger
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Re: Tinker, Tailor, Streamer, Pi.

Unread post by slinger »

I think that Blue Jeans are a big enough concern in the audio world that if that crap was happening we'd have read about it long before now, as it goes against what they promise on their site.

Anywho, as I said, the cables arrived at around 9:30 this morning. The build quality looks terrific; they are quite stiff, and thicker than anything I've already got in place (insert obligatory ooh-errr missis here). They also came with the individual test results, as promised, and in the pretty colours that I ordered: Yellow between router and ATB, Orange and Purple between router and my two NAS units, and boring white to link the router and my TPLink 8-port hub. I've just powered down the NAS unit, so let the surgery begin.
Amps - NVA P50, AP30, A40, Stanislav Palo Tube Headphone Amp BB 85
Speakers - Monitor Audio Silver RX2
Cables - NVA LS1+LS3, SSC, Gotham S/PDIF, IBRA Optical
Digital - NAD C516BEE, SONY ST-SDB900 DAB TUNER, TEAC UD-H01 DAC
Analogue - Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Esprit SB, Graham Slee Gram Amp 2 Phono
Cans - Grado SR80, ATH-M50X

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Re: Tinker, Tailor, Streamer, Pi.

Unread post by slinger »

Cables plumbed in and music is playing. In answer to the next question, I'm 2:21 into the first track I've played, so I don't know yet, but it sounds good, so definitely not a backward step. :lol:
Amps - NVA P50, AP30, A40, Stanislav Palo Tube Headphone Amp BB 85
Speakers - Monitor Audio Silver RX2
Cables - NVA LS1+LS3, SSC, Gotham S/PDIF, IBRA Optical
Digital - NAD C516BEE, SONY ST-SDB900 DAB TUNER, TEAC UD-H01 DAC
Analogue - Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Esprit SB, Graham Slee Gram Amp 2 Phono
Cans - Grado SR80, ATH-M50X

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Re: Tinker, Tailor, Streamer, Pi.

Unread post by Fretless »

In cases like this I'm usually just happy to have music playing at all. :dance:

Upstairs:
Vinyl
Pro-Ject 1.2 + Grado Sig Jr + Cambridge Alva Duo
DigiVolumio PC + Kiss DP-500 + Sabaj A20d
NVA: P50sa - Cube2 - SSP - LS6+ Sabaj A10a (x2)
Downstairs:
Vinyl
Logic DM101 + Syrinx LE1 + Grado Sig MCX
DigiDenafrips Ares II + Volumio PC + Cambridge CXC
NVA: P50 - BMU+ Aiyima A07 MAX (x2) + Arcam One
HP: HifiBerry Digi+ PRO + Sabaj A10d
Office:
Allo DigiOne SIG + SMSL M300se + Douk G4 (x2)
Mission 760 + Monolith THX AAA 887
Headphones: German Maestro, Monolith & AQ

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Re: Tinker, Tailor, Streamer, Pi.

Unread post by Lindsayt »

CN211276 wrote: Thu Jan 09, 2020 11:16 pm I am confused by the Cat specification. Are higher quality routers required to accomodate higher Cat numbers?
For the vast majority of home users, the router will be provided by your ISP. You could buy your own, industrial strength router, configure it and use that instead, but any technical issues and generally your ISP will trouble-shoot it based on you using their router. It's highly debatable if it's worth going down using your own router for home use.

For your internal home network (your LAN), you can use any switch or network of switches you want.

Any network connection between A and B will only go at the speed of the slowest NIC (Network Interface Card) or cable or switch that the signal passes through.

So that for example, for any connection to the Internet, the slowest connection will probably be the line to your house.
I know of businesses with networks of 250 PC's that were running at inter switch connection speeds of 100 Mbps and switch to PC speeds of 10 Mbps where all the internal traffic was lightning fast (printing, saving files to the onsite server, PXE builds etc) whilst anything off site was annoyingly slow (logging on, accessing data on Data Centre servers). All because the bottleneck was the connection to the outside world

The NIC on my laptop will only go up to 1000 Mbps (1 Gbps). That's a typical speed for a PC NIC.
So that in my LAN and the vast majority of home LAN's there is no point in having a switch that will go faster than 1 Gbps.

Speeds of 10 Gbps are mainly the realm of Data Centres. For a Data Centre, think Billion Dollar Brain - raised to the power of 3. A square grid of row upon row of data / server cabinets filled with servers and switches. Servers running internet banking or travel agents with hundreds or thousands of users trying to access their data at the same time. Servers talking to each other in order to handle the business needs.

For cables, Cat 3 and Cat 5 are junk. Bin them.

Cat 5e is fine from a home networking speed point of view. Please note that it's common to refer to Cat 5e simply as Cat 5.


I don't know if there are any sonic benefits to using Cat 6, Cat 6a, Cat 7, Cat 7a or Cat 8.
By all means feel free to try them. Starting with the connection from your music storage device to your switch (or router). And then the connection from the switch (or router) to the streaming device.

If for example you try a 5 metre £150 audiophile Cat 7 cable and you get a sonic improvement, I would recommend trying a Cat 8 cable (for example £18 from Farnells) as well. If the Cat 7 cable sounds good, the Cat 8 should sound just as good or better because it's made to a higher standard (thicker conductors and foil sheathing round each pair), whilst costing a lot less because it's not some audiophile wank.

If you have a gigabit switch (assuming it's properly configured) and Cat 5e cables, you will (very probably) be maxed out from a home computing network speed point of view.
The cost of maxing out is quite modest. Gigabit 24 port switches cost from £10 used on ebay. That'll be for something like a Cisco or HP built like a tank, should last for a very long time switch. Fanless ones from £30. I have so many cat 5e patch leads that I give them out for free to any friends or clients that want one.

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Re: Tinker, Tailor, Streamer, Pi.

Unread post by CN211276 »

Lindsayt wrote: Fri Jan 17, 2020 5:12 am
CN211276 wrote: Thu Jan 09, 2020 11:16 pm I am confused by the Cat specification. Are higher quality routers required to accomodate higher Cat numbers?
For the vast majority of home users, the router will be provided by your ISP. You could buy your own, industrial strength router, configure it and use that instead, but any technical issues and generally your ISP will trouble-shoot it based on you using their router. It's highly debatable if it's worth going down using your own router for home use.

For your internal home network (your LAN), you can use any switch or network of switches you want.

Any network connection between A and B will only go at the speed of the slowest NIC (Network Interface Card) or cable or switch that the signal passes through.

So that for example, for any connection to the Internet, the slowest connection will probably be the line to your house.
I know of businesses with networks of 250 PC's that were running at inter switch connection speeds of 100 Mbps and switch to PC speeds of 10 Mbps where all the internal traffic was lightning fast (printing, saving files to the onsite server, PXE builds etc) whilst anything off site was annoyingly slow (logging on, accessing data on Data Centre servers). All because the bottleneck was the connection to the outside world

The NIC on my laptop will only go up to 1000 Mbps (1 Gbps). That's a typical speed for a PC NIC.
So that in my LAN and the vast majority of home LAN's there is no point in having a switch that will go faster than 1 Gbps.

Speeds of 10 Gbps are mainly the realm of Data Centres. For a Data Centre, think Billion Dollar Brain - raised to the power of 3. A square grid of row upon row of data / server cabinets filled with servers and switches. Servers running internet banking or travel agents with hundreds or thousands of users trying to access their data at the same time. Servers talking to each other in order to handle the business needs.

For cables, Cat 3 and Cat 5 are junk. Bin them.

Cat 5e is fine from a home networking speed point of view. Please note that it's common to refer to Cat 5e simply as Cat 5.


I don't know if there are any sonic benefits to using Cat 6, Cat 6a, Cat 7, Cat 7a or Cat 8.
By all means feel free to try them. Starting with the connection from your music storage device to your switch (or router). And then the connection from the switch (or router) to the streaming device.

If for example you try a 5 metre £150 audiophile Cat 7 cable and you get a sonic improvement, I would recommend trying a Cat 8 cable (for example £18 from Farnells) as well. If the Cat 7 cable sounds good, the Cat 8 should sound just as good or better because it's made to a higher standard (thicker conductors and foil sheathing round each pair), whilst costing a lot less because it's not some audiophile wank.

If you have a gigabit switch (assuming it's properly configured) and Cat 5e cables, you will (very probably) be maxed out from a home computing network speed point of view.
The cost of maxing out is quite modest. Gigabit 24 port switches cost from £10 used on ebay. That'll be for something like a Cisco or HP built like a tank, should last for a very long time switch. Fanless ones from £30. I have so many cat 5e patch leads that I give them out for free to any friends or clients that want one.
Informative and thought provoking.
Main System
NVA BMU, P90SA/A80s (latest spec), Cube 1s, TIS, TISC(LS7)
Sonore OpticalRendu, Chord Mscaler & Qutest, Sbooster PSs
Network Acoustics Eno, ifi iPurifier3, AQ JB FMJ, Cisco 2940 & 2960
DH Labs ethernet, BNC & USB cables, Farnells cat 8 ethernet cable

Second System
NVA P20/ A20, Cubettes, LS3, SSP, SC
Sonore MicroRendu, Chord Mojo 2 MCRU PSs, AQ Carbon USB cable & JB FMJ

Headphones
Grado SR325e/Chord Mojo, Beyerdynamic Avetho/AQ DF Colbat

RIP Doc

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Re: Tinker, Tailor, Streamer, Pi.

Unread post by slinger »

Excellent post, Lindsay. I chose Cat 6a as my "basic" Ethernet cable for the audio setup even though Blue Jeans make 5e, 6, and 6a cables. I thought I might as well go for their "top end" cable. I ruled Cat 5e out because it's unshielded and rightly or wrongly I chose Cat 6a over plain old 6 just because I could. Choosing Blue Jeans was a no-brainer. I know that one shouldn't put too much stock in the load of old codswallop written on most company websites but what Blue Jeans have to say made a lot of sense to me. In fact, it only took the first paragraph really...
The vast majority of cables sold as Category 6 or 6a, whether in brick-and-mortar establishments or online, simply do not meet the Category 6 or 6a specifications; we've put a lot of samples of a lot of other manufacturers' product through proper certification testing, and cables that actually pass spec are unusual. In fact, it's not uncommon for cables that are sold as "Cat 6" to even fail to meet Cat 5e specifications. Vendors get away with misrepresenting Ethernet patch cord performance because the average consumer isn't in a position to buy the $10,000 worth of gear it'll take to check his purchase against the spec. Here at Blue Jeans Cable we don't want to have anything to do with misrepresenting spec compliance -- every Ethernet patch cable we sell comes with its own individual test report, run on a Fluke DTX-1800 certification tester, showing that it meets or exceeds the applicable spec. If it doesn't, we won't sell it.
They also have Belden make up their bulk cable to their own specs. I've never heard a bad word about Belden, or Blue Jeans come to that.

It all, eventually, came back to my original decision to place more value on construction quality than fancy specs which actually far exceed anything one might need to pump music round a network and make it sound good.
Amps - NVA P50, AP30, A40, Stanislav Palo Tube Headphone Amp BB 85
Speakers - Monitor Audio Silver RX2
Cables - NVA LS1+LS3, SSC, Gotham S/PDIF, IBRA Optical
Digital - NAD C516BEE, SONY ST-SDB900 DAB TUNER, TEAC UD-H01 DAC
Analogue - Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Esprit SB, Graham Slee Gram Amp 2 Phono
Cans - Grado SR80, ATH-M50X

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Re: Tinker, Tailor, Streamer, Pi.

Unread post by Latteman »

I just installed a cat 7 between router & Apple box- found 20m used on fb marketplace for £10.
I couldn’t get the additional hub to accept VM signal- must be decommissioned hub.
Analogue Source -
Denon DP47f- Ortofon mc20 supreme
Ifi Zen Phono
Doug Self balanced Pre amp
Akai 4000DS mk2 R2R
Digital Sources- IfI stream, Ifi Neo idsd Dac; Tidal / Radio Paradise
Amplification Nva 30vdc mono blocks
Speakers Lii Audio F-15 in Open Baffle; Ls6
Weiduka AC8.8- for digital sources
Mini BMU for analog sources

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Re: Tinker, Tailor, Streamer, Pi.

Unread post by CN211276 »

I had a look at the Cat 8 cable on the Farnells website. There is a pdf which goes into some detal with illustrations. What is inside the cable does not look cheap.
Main System
NVA BMU, P90SA/A80s (latest spec), Cube 1s, TIS, TISC(LS7)
Sonore OpticalRendu, Chord Mscaler & Qutest, Sbooster PSs
Network Acoustics Eno, ifi iPurifier3, AQ JB FMJ, Cisco 2940 & 2960
DH Labs ethernet, BNC & USB cables, Farnells cat 8 ethernet cable

Second System
NVA P20/ A20, Cubettes, LS3, SSP, SC
Sonore MicroRendu, Chord Mojo 2 MCRU PSs, AQ Carbon USB cable & JB FMJ

Headphones
Grado SR325e/Chord Mojo, Beyerdynamic Avetho/AQ DF Colbat

RIP Doc

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Re: Tinker, Tailor, Streamer, Pi.

Unread post by Latteman »

Latteman wrote: Fri Jan 17, 2020 2:57 pm I just installed a cat 7 between router & Apple box- found 20m used on fb marketplace for £10.
I couldn’t get the additional hub to accept VM signal- must be decommissioned hub.

Amazing- it sounds like ‘proper HiFi’ the general presentation is up- previously I could tell if it was cd or Apple box- not now- Apple box may just be ahead
Analogue Source -
Denon DP47f- Ortofon mc20 supreme
Ifi Zen Phono
Doug Self balanced Pre amp
Akai 4000DS mk2 R2R
Digital Sources- IfI stream, Ifi Neo idsd Dac; Tidal / Radio Paradise
Amplification Nva 30vdc mono blocks
Speakers Lii Audio F-15 in Open Baffle; Ls6
Weiduka AC8.8- for digital sources
Mini BMU for analog sources

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Re: Tinker, Tailor, Streamer, Pi.

Unread post by Fretless »

That is just going from a WiFi link to wired?

Upstairs:
Vinyl
Pro-Ject 1.2 + Grado Sig Jr + Cambridge Alva Duo
DigiVolumio PC + Kiss DP-500 + Sabaj A20d
NVA: P50sa - Cube2 - SSP - LS6+ Sabaj A10a (x2)
Downstairs:
Vinyl
Logic DM101 + Syrinx LE1 + Grado Sig MCX
DigiDenafrips Ares II + Volumio PC + Cambridge CXC
NVA: P50 - BMU+ Aiyima A07 MAX (x2) + Arcam One
HP: HifiBerry Digi+ PRO + Sabaj A10d
Office:
Allo DigiOne SIG + SMSL M300se + Douk G4 (x2)
Mission 760 + Monolith THX AAA 887
Headphones: German Maestro, Monolith & AQ

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