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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
sphardy wrote:
Here's a link to that denon cable on amazon - now selling for $10,000 - read the comments, if only for humour...
http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AKDL1-Dedic ... 976&sr=8-1
Hilarious - thanks for these links, I love the comments :-D
Although I find it unbelievable that this cable is actually really only a CAT-5 and not at least CAT-6, -6a or -7?
Kind regards,
Frank- Have you read the official description from Denon? They still have this cable listed on their website, but as a discontinued product:
Denon's 1.5 meter (59 in.) proprietary ultra premium Denon Link cable was designed for the audio enthusiast. Made from high purity copper wire and high performance connection parts, the AK-DL1 will bring out all the nuances in digital audio reproduction from any of our Denon DVD players with the Denon Link feature connected to a Denon Link enabled Denon A/V receiver. The AK-DL1 employs high level tin-bearing alloy shielding not typically available in commercial cabling, to eliminate data loss caused by noise. Additionally, signal directional markings are provided for optimum signal transfer. Attention to detail when building this cable was used by employing high quality insulation and woven jacketing to reduce vibration and to add durability. Rounded plug levers help prevent breakage.
So in future, make sure you plug your ethernet cable in the right way round, and if the cable runs along the floor, tiptoe as you walk past so that your footsteps don't cause vibrations that could lead to data corruption
There's even an "Owners manual"... sphardy wrote:
Here's a link to that denon cable on amazon - now selling for $10,000 - read the comments, if only for humour...
http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AKDL1-Dedic ... 976&sr=8-1
Ha! Ha! loved the comments. Very funny indeed: cable for time travel: Denon. Thanks for the explanation. So for ethernet, cables do not matter at all. Finally its clear. For SPDIF, in my experience, cables matter...
Spreadsheet joke: I actually fell for it, saw shunyata misspelt and replied. :D did not read the rest as I did not find it relevant. Then after a few more posts, somebody had to actually tell me it was a joke. Looked into it and found it very funny. The zeroes had more focus on excel ha ha!
Ethernet: using cat 5 cables right now. From what you are saying, upgrading to cat 6 should not matter...
Saved a couple of bucks. Tks again!- [quote="Hickup"]
In that case you still miss the point of the DAC8. The HiFace is a USB to S/PDIF converter, so again, instead of being able to use the superior capabilities of the DAC8's handling of USB based input, you feed something inferior to it which cannot be handled well by that machine.
Tried it and it sounds good. Back to same problem: have to use itunes and small library. - PC: Great idea! a friend is working on building a very quiet HTPC (noise wise). can run softsqueeze on it when done and still use squeeze box server. Probably a better solution to everything around. SSD for the operating system is a great idea as well. No noise from the harddisk. How about the cooling? how do we do this? If can cool it without a fan, will sound better as will be quieter in the listening room. Any ideas?
sphardy wrote:
So in future, make sure you plug your ethernet cable in the right way round, and if the cable runs along the floor, tiptoe as you walk past so that your footsteps don't cause vibrations that could lead to data corruption
Now I know why my WiFi connection is so weak from my PC to my Router! I always thought that I needed to reposition the antenna or buy a better router... I use my ethernet cable in the wrong direction!
I must go home and give this a try, I am sure with this knowledge I can get at least an 31.415926536% increase of the transfer rate - I am happy. I just need to remember that I do not play any music in this room any more, because obviously all these vibrations are harming the data flow as well. This is where these "bad vibrations" must come from you hear so much about.
Kind regards,
FrankHickup wrote: dhinesh wrote:
I believe we should not start discussion different brands of speakers, that would be too much off topic for the ReadyNAS forum - still I would judge your budget distribution a bit uneven.
Absolutely, perhaps one day will buy the Revel but for the time being still love these speakers. Great Bass! Transparent, etc etc. anyway lets not get side tracked. Tks for the great idea again about the PCEthernet: using cat 5 cables right now. From what you are saying, upgrading to cat 6 should not matter...
Ermm... No, that's not quite correct.
Your networking equipment is all gigabit ethernet. The Gigabit Ethernet specification includes the specifications of the cables required to achieve full performance. CAT-5 will work, but they do not meet the gigabit ethernet specification with the net result being you will experience lower performance - though still far in excess of what is needs for transmission of audio data (The denon cable is CAT5!). You require CAT-5E or better for that full performance.
Let's leave SPDIF - it works for most users, but it has been criticised and there are hundreds if not thousands of forum threads on it all over the internet. Not all digital communication protocols are good, some are better designed than others, and SPDIF seems to not one of the better ones. (I don't use it so have never looked into it further)sphardy wrote: Have you read the official description from Denon? They still have this cable listed on their website, but as a discontinued product: Denon's 1.5 meter (59 in.) proprietary ultra premium Denon Link cable was designed for the audio enthusiast. Made from high purity copper wire and high performance connection parts, the AK-DL1 will bring out all the nuances in digital audio reproduction from any of our Denon DVD players with the Denon Link feature connected to a Denon Link enabled Denon A/V receiver. The AK-DL1 employs high level tin-bearing alloy shielding not typically available in commercial cabling, to eliminate data loss caused by noise. Additionally, signal directional markings are provided for optimum signal transfer. Attention to detail when building this cable was used by employing high quality insulation and woven jacketing to reduce vibration and to add durability. Rounded plug levers help prevent breakage.
So in future, make sure you plug your ethernet cable in the right way round, and if the cable runs along the floor, tiptoe as you walk past so that your footsteps don't cause vibrations that could lead to data corruption
There's even an "Owners manual"...
Denon cable comments by you guys: I am cracking up. 31% increase in signal path, tiptoe past etc etc.sphardy wrote: You require CAT-5E or better for that full performance.
ok will go for cat 6. glad to know any cat 6 will do so do not have to wait for denon to come out with a USD 12k cat 6 cable: mark II or something to that effect. :lol:
thanks
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