NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
squeezebox set up for audiophiles
After researching a bit and reading up on the forum, I would like to set up my squeezebox touch as follows and any input, criticism, guidance, etc to help all of us get on the right path would help. I will post back my experience so others can learn as well:
Current Setup:
1) Do not have an option to run wired ethernet as NAS is in another room and wiring is not convenient. Besides I would like to keep the fan noise out of my listening room
2) Running Squeezecenter on a Readynas NV+ and will upgrade to Netgear Pro very soon. Have a dedicated router that is only used for streaming using WLAN to the touch, duet and SB3 in 3 different rooms. Router is a Cisco Linksys 610N. Have around 2 TB of music and using a laptop with a hiface and a itunes / hard disk / Mac, just does not cut it for me due to my LARGE music library
3) Touch analog outputs are not used and the SPDIF out put goes into the Audio Research Dac 8. Sound is OK but not on par with my Ayre C5XE MP CD Player even using good cables: stereovox xv ultra coax digital cable, kimber palladian power cord and kimber 1120 balanced interconnects on the Audio Research dac 8
4) All the equipment including the Touch is plugged into a Shunyata Hydra 8
Planned Setup:
1) Perform Soundcheck mods as posted on his tutorial
2) Plug the NAS and the router into a conditioner / filter. Thinking of Shunyata Hydra 2. If I use a UPS, the hydra will go into the APC 1000 on line UPS. Use an audiophile cable from the outlet to the Hydra 2. Not decided on the UPS as yet as I usually put the NAS off when not using it.
3) Change the power cable on the NAS to a decent audiophile cable like the KIMBER PK 10 gold
4) Change the power supply on the router and the touch to a linear power supply
5) Buy a bridge like WET 610N or use another router as a bridge (use ddwrt) and change the power supply to linear as well. Connect the touch to the Ethernet port of the bridge
6) Stream using wlan from the router connected to the NAS to the router connected to the touch
Audiophiles may like the setup as it theoretically should isolate all the noise and result in a good / hopefully bit perfect output on the SPDIF output of the touch. The NAS will be in another room and the fan noise will not interrupt with the sound but we need the technically adept members of the forum to give us their input to see if the above will result in a better / bit perfect signal on the touch SPDIF output. Computer Audiophile in its review of the touch claims that the SPDIF output of the touch is bit perfect but I have my doubts as my ears are not HAPPY!
Do not want to be in a situation where I go and buy the power supplies, etc only to find out that its of no use as my ears will still not be happy.
Request everyone that is interested in getting a good sound using WLAN to study the above and give input. Or is there no way to get good sound using WLAN? This is a mystery to me!
Thanks
Current Setup:
1) Do not have an option to run wired ethernet as NAS is in another room and wiring is not convenient. Besides I would like to keep the fan noise out of my listening room
2) Running Squeezecenter on a Readynas NV+ and will upgrade to Netgear Pro very soon. Have a dedicated router that is only used for streaming using WLAN to the touch, duet and SB3 in 3 different rooms. Router is a Cisco Linksys 610N. Have around 2 TB of music and using a laptop with a hiface and a itunes / hard disk / Mac, just does not cut it for me due to my LARGE music library
3) Touch analog outputs are not used and the SPDIF out put goes into the Audio Research Dac 8. Sound is OK but not on par with my Ayre C5XE MP CD Player even using good cables: stereovox xv ultra coax digital cable, kimber palladian power cord and kimber 1120 balanced interconnects on the Audio Research dac 8
4) All the equipment including the Touch is plugged into a Shunyata Hydra 8
Planned Setup:
1) Perform Soundcheck mods as posted on his tutorial
2) Plug the NAS and the router into a conditioner / filter. Thinking of Shunyata Hydra 2. If I use a UPS, the hydra will go into the APC 1000 on line UPS. Use an audiophile cable from the outlet to the Hydra 2. Not decided on the UPS as yet as I usually put the NAS off when not using it.
3) Change the power cable on the NAS to a decent audiophile cable like the KIMBER PK 10 gold
4) Change the power supply on the router and the touch to a linear power supply
5) Buy a bridge like WET 610N or use another router as a bridge (use ddwrt) and change the power supply to linear as well. Connect the touch to the Ethernet port of the bridge
6) Stream using wlan from the router connected to the NAS to the router connected to the touch
Audiophiles may like the setup as it theoretically should isolate all the noise and result in a good / hopefully bit perfect output on the SPDIF output of the touch. The NAS will be in another room and the fan noise will not interrupt with the sound but we need the technically adept members of the forum to give us their input to see if the above will result in a better / bit perfect signal on the touch SPDIF output. Computer Audiophile in its review of the touch claims that the SPDIF output of the touch is bit perfect but I have my doubts as my ears are not HAPPY!
Do not want to be in a situation where I go and buy the power supplies, etc only to find out that its of no use as my ears will still not be happy.
Request everyone that is interested in getting a good sound using WLAN to study the above and give input. Or is there no way to get good sound using WLAN? This is a mystery to me!
Thanks
46 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
- You might want to consider adding a WattGate 381 to your power conditioning setup
[Edit: link corrected] - Electricity receptacles are already wattgate and the plugs on both ends of the kimber cables are wattgate. Agree with you these make a difference....thanks
- If you're going to invest in the Linksys 610N bridge, make sure you run it @ 5GHz if you can. While the 610N also supports the more common 2.4GHz band, that band is very "crowded" in comparison ( eg due to cell phones) so the better SNR of the 5GHz band means there's much less chance of radio interference adversely impacting the transmission and so your sound quality. Plus, higher frequencies also demand much tighter jitter control, and reducing jitter is always a good thing.
That said - could be worth experimenting to see which band makes your ears happiest. For example higher frequencies tend not to penetrate certain physical materials as well (eg some very poor 5GHz performance in areas of my home due to old stone walls) so depending on the construction/layout of your home, 2.4GHz might then deliver the best sound quality.
Edit: One more thing as it's not specifically mentioned in your original equipment list - don't forget to pay attention to the ethernet patch cords that will connect the NAS/Touch to the router/bridge.
If you can find them, the Denon AK-DL1 is the premium product - but failing that Meicord (http://meicord.de) sell quality cables that have received very good reviews in various audiophile publications & blogs. Much cheaper than Denon too at ~$100 for the same 1.5m cable - Thanks! Will keep that in mind! Have a linksys 610N router already. Thinking of getting the bridge: wet 610n and connecting the touch using ethernet to the bridge. Another option is to get another linksys 610N router and use it as a bridge
sphardy wrote:
Edit: One more thing as it's not specifically mentioned in your original equipment list - don't forget to pay attention to the ethernet patch cords that will connect the NAS/Touch to the router/bridge.
If you can find them, the Denon AK-DL1 is the premium product - but failing that Meicord (http://meicord.de) sell quality cables that have received very good reviews in various audiophile publications & blogs. Much cheaper than Denon too at ~$100 for the same 1.5m cable
Read about the meicord in the diyaudio forum. Unfortunately not available in my area. will get it the next time I head to Europe. Denon has actually come up with a USD 500 ethernet cable now and monster with a USD 11 ethernet cable. For the time being I am using a Cat 5 cable between the router and the NAS.
Looking at getting the meicord!
Tks- How much money do you intend to spend into the ecosystem on the server side? Did you consider that the Squeezebox Touch is the weak link in your setup? Judging from what you are willing to spend on cables alone should be enough to fund a high end client which will actually improve your setup, e.g. Linn (http://www.linn.co.uk/) or Naim (http://www.naimaudio.com/). If you really want to stick to the the slim devices, at least go for the Transporter.
No matter what you do on the streaming server side, all bits will arrive at your client without any loss ('bit perfect') and each and every client will buffer the incoming data stream, so there is no introduction of jitter as well by the server. Actually jitter is the only source of quality loss when streaming is compared to a "perfect" signal and the exchange of a power cable on the server side is pure voodoo - there is no noise in a digital signal, spending hundreds of dollars on a Kimber will not help, much less the power socket. There is only one element which might introduce jitter to the stream and that is your streaming client and its connection to the D/A converter, those are the elements you need to check carefully, some clients put high effort into preventing a signal stream to be polluted by jitter. The amount of jitter created by a simple Squeezebox Touch or Duet is not even close to the level of some of the high end client solutions, so no matter what you do to your servers, the result will always be below the quality of what you get from the (really nice) Ayre.
Kind regards,
Frank
BTW, I would call my setup including the B&W 502D fronts powered by an Audionet chain not too bad... and I am absolutely happy with my Squeezebox Server software running on a ReadyNAS Ultra connected using the packaged, cheap power cables. Hickup wrote: No matter what you do on the streaming server side, all bits will arrive at your client without any loss ('bit perfect') and each and every client will buffer the incoming data stream, so there is no introduction of jitter as well by the server. Actually jitter is the only source of quality loss when streaming is compared to a "perfect" signal and the exchange of a power cable on the server side is pure voodoo - there is no noise in a digital signal, spending hundreds of dollars on a Kimber will not help, much less the power socket. There is only one element which might introduce jitter to the stream and that is your streaming client and its connection to the D/A converter, those are the elements you need to check carefully, some clients put high effort into preventing a signal stream to be polluted by jitter. The amount of jitter created by a simple Squeezebox Touch or Duet is not even close to the level of some of the high end client solutions, so no matter what you do to your servers, the result will always be below the quality of what you get from the (really nice) Ayre.
+1 :wink:Hickup wrote: Did you consider that the Squeezebox Touch is the weak link in your setup? Judging from what you are willing to spend on cables alone should be enough to fund a high end client which will actually improve your setup, e.g. Linn (http://www.linn.co.uk/) or Naim (http://www.naimaudio.com/). If you really want to stick to the the slim devices, at least go for the Transporter.
tks for the input. Am aware touch is the weak link and thats why I want to find ways to make it "STRONG". considered transporter, naim and some other stuff. My gut tells me that we are going to see many better products coming out very soon: like the Weiss Mann 2002. These are still very pricey: 10k and above. Naim is the best candidate so far, but I prefer to wait a bit and then choose the best.
My gut tells me that we are looking at the tip of the iceberg as far as this technology: NAS, WLAN to a receiver unit, is concerned and you will see a lot more products coming very soon. Ayre was supposed to come out with a CD player (successor to the ayre c5 XE) but they axed it as the threat of network players is very real and you will see better audiophile products coming out very soon.
Transporter: Not interested as will probably never use the dac and hence can save the money for something else
Touch: Already own it and it is the interim solution. All the other stuff in the ecosystem: cables, conditioner, etc can still be used if I buy a Naim or a Weiss or whatever comes along. So for the time being I prefer spending on the ecosystem and then use the ecosystem to plug in the new device (whatever it is).
Hence, the cheap interim solution is to just get a linear power supply for the touch and mod the touch (soundcheck mods) and manage.
Eventual goal: No CD player in the system and only network music player that sounds as good or better than the ayre. I believe we are heading there.
Trust the above gives you a better idea of where I am coming from- If you plan to invest such an amount of money to strengthen an interim solution, then take all that money and buy a better streaming client and call this interim as well. Even the Kimber PK 10 you considered alone is more expensive than the Touch. Changing anything on server side is a waste of money in your case, especially power cords, etc. If there is no audible stutter in your music, which would hint at disconnects, you cannot enhance anything any more, all of those bits and bytes will arrive at the client the same.
Waiting for some new devices to emerge is your decision, but until then, nothing will really enhance your listening experience, most of these modifications you list are purely cosmetics. My Duet is delivering the digital signal into my preamp directly (Audionet MAP I) and that setups beats my CD player easily, I ripped all of my CDs and those are now boxed and stored away. Most high end streaming clients plus an equivalent DAC today will surpass even the most expensive CD players. Sure you could wait with the client (next years technology will always be better in some way making you wait indefinitely), but I would advise to consider a Linn Majik which is in an ever lower price range than all of those cosmetics summed up but offers a substantial improvement for real.
If you stick to the thought of the client being only a temporary thing and you want to invest into something which is sustainable, you might want to consider an AudioVolver II, which is offering audible improvements and doubles as a network player and a DAC. So even if you think of the streaming client capabilities of this machines as being an interim solution, this machine will still offer a lot of benefit being primarily an audio processor when you buy the "final" streaming client.
Kind regards,
Frank dhinesh wrote: tks for the input. Am aware touch is the weak link and thats why I want to find ways to make it "STRONG".
@dhinesh Please note this doesn't change the fact that NOTHING in what you are proposing to do in the area of storage and transmission of your audio files will make the slightest difference to the quality of sound you will experience - even with your high end setup.
You are clearly very focused on high quality audio reproduction, and maybe you're very experienced in the analogue domain, but in digital network communications, data either arrives fully in tact or it doesn't. There's nothing in between - no possibility of the occasional error or 'jitter' that might cause a slight 'degradation' - it is binary, 0 or 1, works or doesn't - the data arrives or it does not no matter what convoluted path if goes through. And when it does not arrive, you'll know about it even on the cheapest of equipment. New power supplies to the NAS or routers, conditioners, even the use of a wireless bridge is pointless, and given you appear to be connecting the Touch to a DAC, not to an amp via the analogue out, so the communication continues to be digital, bit perfect.
Even if you were connecting via the analogue out, the modifications to the Touch that you are considering are not based on fact, but speculation with no supporting evidence. *Maybe* in that situation changing the Touch PSU to a better linear PSU would help, but that is hardly a revelation. The rest, adjusting volume parameters, buffer sizes, wireless bridging etc is all nonsense as again, the data arrives at the internal DAC in tact, or it doesn't, sound or no sound.
Personally I'd recommend you just enjoy what you already have and not waste your time further trying to make the Touch "STRONG"
NETGEAR Academy
Boost your skills with the Netgear Academy - Get trained, certified and stay ahead with the latest Netgear technology!
Join Us!
