Dedicated network as in totally separate source from the internet with dedicated wireless router and dedicated NAS. Any experience with wireless routers?
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Yes. I use a wireless router that oversees a mesh network. I had contemplated doing mostly what you propose and discussed it in detail with a guy who knows much more about networking than i do.
I hard wire everything that i can and use the wireless only for convenience like cell and ipad. What we came up with was the high likelihood of a bad situation with interference for likely no gain. One thing to consider is if you want anything on your home network to talk to your dcs network it wont⌠or it will be unreliable and slow. What i ended up doing was placing two switches after the router. One for the domestic network and one for the dcs/server network. Still needs to share wifi to use mosaic and other control items. I also isolated the dcs/server/switches optically in at least 3 places. It may be overkill. B
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Not sure what you mean Barry.
My idea is to try a new wireless 5G router and use it exclusively for the dCS. So it would be dedicated wireless router->Ethernet switch (SoTM)->dCS.
Possibly your needs are different. I need a network in my home for television, security, cameras, telephones, hvac, pooland spa controls, lighting, computers etc. i thought to have these items on one wired/wireless network and my server and dcs on another. Totally separate. In having a detailed conversation with a very knowledgable associate he reminded me that there are a number of issues for me such as my server talking to other devices in my home such as a tv or ipad for receiving rather than control which eliminates its isolation. Is it data traffic that you are trying to eliminate? Also my cell which i use for mosaic will want to be on one network or the other. Just a few simple examples. If you want the 5g dedicated specifically for download speed without sharing, possibly a gain but i believe you may regret a second network in the big picture
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Well, of course, this would be a separate network from the mother which connects tv, alarm, pcs, etc.
The âdedicatedâ part Is just within your home as the 5G Radios outside your home are shared (noisy) infrastructure.
The problem with 5G (or any current Wireless) connectivity is that itâs prone to significant packet jitter and latency. This is contrary to what you may have read in the media about the benefits of 5G being low latency etc., It doesnât apply to todayâs 5G as itâs mostly Non-Stand-Alone (NSA) which basically means legacy 4G infrastructure with 5G Radios.
Also, in terms of raw bandwidth and throughput, 5G canât match most fixed line broadband (unless you live in some rural area with poor fibre connectivity). If anything, 5G is just going to cause you other streaming problems associated with packet jitter, latency, and throughput.
So, using a 5G Router is not going to improve the sound quality out of your dCS system compared to what you can already achieve with some simple methods already described in numerous other threads all over dcs.community (especially those about optical isolation etc).
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Thanks Anup. So clearly Thai will it work.
The tech guy is coming to my place next Thursday
Will do the following to begin with:
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Will focus on the cable from SoTM switch to upsampler first. Ensure this is Unshielded.
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place the fiber converter on the wall side of the SOtM with only the unshielded ethernet cable from SOtM to Upsampler
Hi Franco,
Iâm not really sure what the problem is that you are trying to resolve here? Whatever the problem is this isnât a fix, itâs a workaround at bestâŚ
I started writing a longer reply and then I saw thisâŚ
Anupâs bang on the nose here âŚ
Iâll often use a totally separated network (whether thatâs a cable router or a 4G/5G router just to create a small local network that is separate to the main network but still having an internet feed) just for testing purposes but thereâs absolutely no advantage to doing this from the perspective of isolating your streamer from the ânetwork chatterâ of everything else thatâs going on on your main network - any network switch will do that for you as itâs part of the functionality of a switch (rather than a dumb network hub which would just forward everything out everywhere on your network - hubs basically were phased out 20 years ago).
If youâre looking to use the 4G/5G router to separate your HiFi electrically from your main network then you are basically just replacing one router with another which may or may not be any âbetterâ than where you came from originally.
What exactly is the problem that you are trying to fix and are you sure that itâs a âproblemâ and that it can be âfixedâ?
BR
Phil
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And just how far away from your hifi is this 5G router going to be?
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Phil, as I said at the beginning of this long (and now interesting) thread, I intend to improve the SQ of my streaming /hi-res files play sources, which is absolutely not comparable (say 5 to 10) as compared to my other sources (analog, sacd and redbook cds in order of priority). That doesnât make sense for a full stack Vivaldi so something must be wrong.
The idea of a separate 5G network came to a friend of mine but if you guys say that itâs not worthwile, I am not going to do the investment (not even try it since the sole cost a 5G router is approx. 300 euros plus youâd need to add the cost of internet service).
It would have been a couple meters.
As you correctly say it does not make sense that you are finding poor sound streaming from a Vivaldi stack. We do see issues concerning drop outs, discovery problems etc. which are all related to the network configuration. However poor sound per se seems to be unique to you.
So I will echo Phil by asking for some better information from you as to exactly what you are trying to fix.
If you are saying that when comparing such sources they are not exactly the same then I am afraid this is inherent. I have LPs dating back 50 years that sound better than the CD reissues and cases where the stream from Qobuz is not exactly he same as the redbook original or where even a purchased download of the same from Qobuz itself is preferable. However the latter difference is admittedly marginal.
If your issue is that ALL streamed repertoire sounds unacceptable then I doubt that wires, switches and routers will provide a solution. Maybe you can take good sound and turn it it good plus sound but you canât make truly poor sound into good sound by these methods. If you could we could sell our expensive dCS equipment and buy a cheaper rig with some âmagicâ wire or a better router 
As I have asked before which country of Qobuz are you subscribed to? I could at least check Qobuz UK and see what I hear if you give some examples.
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We at least need to get a bit of a baseline to work from - if you have ripped any of your CDs (or are you able to rip some of your CDs) then do those files sound poor when played from either a USB pendrive / flashdrive plugged into the rear of your Upsampler or from a UPnP server on your local network?
Unless you know that youâre working from exactly the same source mix of a piece of music then it becomes very hard to make objective rather than subjective evaluations ⌠subjective opinions and quality ratings are a massively difficult thing to quantify to someone else and allow forâŚ
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Pete, of course, not all recordings are the same but in my case, unfortunately, itâs the overall quality of streaming that is pretty poor (compared to my other sources) so there must be something that I can do (o.r at least try to do) about it.
Iâm based in Italy and the subscription is to Qobuz in Italy.
Looking forward to receiving indications of Qobuz tracks to test the system with!
Thanks,
Franco
Thatâs a good point Phil. Iâll A/B tracks based on ripped CDs and
Files are played from my Roon Nucleus. Files played from a USB pendrive plugged into the Upsampler play better than files played from the Nucleus.
Streaming (whether Roon or Qobuz) is the worst part of my current system.
Thanks Franco. So it is everything. streamed. I understand that CD/SACD replay is fine as is playing from USB stick. That leaves replay via the network . All streaming from Qobuz using Roon or Mosaic is unacceptable to you. So to try to get a baseline Phil has asked you to try one other replay method that also uses the network, UPnP. I hope you are able to do what he asks. If both Qobuz and UPnP are poor then perhaps the network has some kind of incorrect configuration. If the issue is only Qobuz then the feed to your network may need to be looked at. So that could involve your feed from Qobuz Italy and your ISP. Have you measured the actual speed of your connection?
Anyway I am happy to provide some examples of albums via Qobuz UK which ought to sound as good with Qobuz Italy ( assuming they are available). Try the Super de luxe edition of Beatles, Revolver ( 2022, 24/96), Tchaikovsky The Nutcracker, Vladimir Jurowski, State Academic Symphony Orchestra ( live recording) and Handel Water Music, Academie fur Alte Musik Berlin.
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Thanks Peter. Yes the weak part is for sure streaming.
Thanks Franco but I think there is a language problem. Wen you say " walk part" do you mean âweak partâ?
Streaming has two meanings; streaming from a service such as Tidal or Qobuz or streaming local files using UPnP. Have you tried the latter and is the result good or bad? You say:
What is the result?
Have you tried Qobuz streaming other than from Roon?If not as an experiment just download Qobuz desktop player to your computer and connect USB from computer to Vivaldi Upsampler. I know it wonât be as good as Vivaldi itself should be but nevertheless does it continue to show the same faults as Roon? What if you do not use Roon Nucleus but use dCS Mosaic?
As I have mentioned, is the signal that you are getting from your ISP satisfactory? We may as well check. I asked if you have measured the actual speed of your connection. Are you OK to do this? If you have never done this then you will probably be able to use Google to find a free download to your phone that will do it.
Have you tried the example Qobuz streams of the albums I suggested?
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Hi Pete,
Issues with quality are generally unlikely to be down to the throughput of the external internet connection itself - external internet connection issues (such as latency) would normally cause dropouts or slow browsing rather than an actual loss of quality unless your internet connection is so poor that your streaming provider is giving you MP3 rather than lossless.
A âspeedtest.netâ type speed test will only test the speed (and latency) of your internet connection to the speedtest.net servers which are generally known (and might I suggest, easily prioritised by ISPs to make the ISPs numbers look better).
BR
Phil
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Yes, of course. Thanks for spotting it. Iâve just edited my post.
I mean streaming from Qobuz. I cannot stream using UPnP since I have no UPnP available server. This is how the technician configured my dCS system.
Iâve tried streaming from the Mosaic app and itâs slightly better than Roon but still much lower SQ than my other sources, as I said earlier.
Speed is currently 465 mbps in download and 165 mbps in upload. Seems decent to me.
Trying now.