Home network router question

@erik_squires An optical link is a great way to not only protect your system from lightnings/storms but, depending on where in your network you place it, to also reduce the amount of RFI noise reaching your system. Have you tried one and rueld it out? A couple of Fiber/Fibre Media Converters with SFP ports to accept an optica/lectrical transceiver module is all you need; the FMCs are built into some routers/modems but standalone units are inexpensive.

@emergingsoul @cleeds I prefer hard-wired too but some people don't have the option.

Networked audio is one of those unusual areas in which you're really not better off solving a problem at its source; it's better to address noise as close to the streamer as possible. Whether a switch used for audio is "audiophile" or not is actually less important than where it is! If you want to use it to kill RFI noise, rather than as a port replicator to give you more ports, it needs to be the shortest possible length of cable from your streamer (say 1ft to 3ft).

 The switch-streamer cable should either be unshielded (like Cat 6) or ideally be known/measured to have the shield grounded only at one end (there are precious few of the latter); most big name audiophile cables and Cat 8 (it's part of the spec) have in common that the shield is grounded to both plugs and this allows RFI stopped by the switch to travel down the shield and reach the streamer, exactly what we don't want.

@timothy468 I like your thinking

If you or anyone else reading this uses Quantum Fiber (QF) as their Internet providerr Internet provider, QF recently ended their licensing agreement with Plume. The QF tech mentioned that Plume provided the mesh network software for the QF pods. This explains the low bandwidth performance and inability to configure some of my QF pods via the QF app. 

As others have noted, they use Eero for their mesh network which I'll also do.

Others here have answered your 3 questions but I wanted QF subscribers to know they likely no longer have a mesh network via the QF pods. Wouldn't it be nice for QF to inform their subscribers?

nigeltheflash

Networked audio is one of those unusual areas in which you’re really not better off solving a problem at its source; it’s better to address noise as close to the streamer as possible.

Hmmmm, I’m not sure I follow your logic there!

Whether a switch used for audio is "audiophile" or not is actually less important than where it is! If you want to use it to kill RFI noise ... it needs to be the shortest possible length of cable from your streamer (say 1ft to 3ft).

Again, I don’t see the logic there. I’ve found routers and switchers to be more a source of RFI than a remedy. That’s why I try to keep computer stuff as centralized as possible and away from my audio system, which includes both analog and digital sources.