Network optimization for serious streamers

For the naysayers. the whole point of this is the listening! Why I started post with serious streamers, if streaming only for convenience or background who cares. If, on the other hand you want streaming sound quality to be your one and only reference quality source and/or compete with best vinyl setups this all matters.

Go over to audiophilestyle and whatsbest forums and you'll find streamers taking far more extensive measures to minimize noise, jitter. Some of these streamers have best of best setups, including Taiko Extremes, Wadax, not to mention their extreme high end  non streaming portions. These are valid experiences vs those with NO experience with network optimizations.

In my case coax cable was already long enough to bring close to audio setup. Assume there would be some losses via coupler, enough to discern in regard to sound quality?

@zappas +1  

What is the best way to couple coax to coax to lengthen the cable coming into the home? Would a simple coax coupler suffice or are there benefits to using some kind of buffer ?

JS

@arafiq Since I'm well acquainted with Netgear interface and already have 12V lps Netgear XR1000 was my choice. The second router feeding house wifi can be any old cheap thing, in my case already had Netgear RS7000 which serves the purpose.

In any case, these are relatively cheap streaming upgrades, some totally free or less costly than what one may be using at present.  For instance, @mournbladeiv  mentioned issue of coax vs ethernet, lengthening my coax, minimizing ethernet was extremely effective in lowering noise floor in my setup.

I've tried a number of far more expensive 'upgrades' further downstream, none made as much difference as getting modem, router issues squared away. Linn philosophy of first link in chain being the most important, in this case makes total sense since many using really noisy solutions early in chain.

Still waiting for my idea of choice solution for routing. This would be managed router with plug n play instructions for integrating into audio systems and off loading wifi for rest of house. This router would also have first rate power supplies, filtering and clocking. Why one hasn't been developed is beyond me. Perhaps no market up to now as people assume present early chain setups sufficient.

I think the most important part of streaming is listening to it.

@mournbladeiv you need to explain to these non technical people why you need shielding to a certain point or they will go crazy like they always do. 
 

And of course, keep in mind that streaming services is not a continuous stream, is burst traffic downloading the song you want to play and typically the next as fast as possible to a buffer, so jitter isn’t particularly relevant. 

Why do you need a modem?

I have 5G fiber straight into my router.

Network and Telephony (VoIP) engineer by trade. 

1. Ping times can be impacted by traffic but mostly by physical distance between you requesting a stream and the provider replying with the data

2, RFI/EMI is bad, which is why good ethernet and thick net (coax) is shielded (shielded twisted pair for ethernet) versus everyday inexpensive ethernet cable which is UTP (unshielded twisted pair)

3. Jitter is directly related to network traffic, both on your LAN as well as overall congestion between your modem and the source(and if you are using proxy service, your ISP, the source and your modem)

4. For the ultimate in noise rejection, use fiber optic cable, but be prepared to spend some coin to get fiber optic switches, transceivers  and cables

5. you can always approximate ping time, for windows : pull up the command prompt, from the prompt type : ping www.<streaming service name>.com you should get something that looks like this (as long as the service provider is not blocking ICMP queries):

jkbyr>ping www.quboz.com

Pinging www.quboz.com [81.171.28.44] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 81.171.28.44: bytes=32 time=123ms TTL=48
Reply from 81.171.28.44: bytes=32 time=123ms TTL=48
Reply from 81.171.28.44: bytes=32 time=123ms TTL=48
Reply from 81.171.28.44: bytes=32 time=124ms TTL=48

Ping statistics for 81.171.28.44:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 123ms, Maximum = 124ms, Average = 123ms

Anything below 300 ms (300 ms breaks VoIP which may or may not be equitable with RTSP) is going to be acceptable, since your streamer is caching the stream

IMO the best critical listening with a streamer is listening to high quality rips from  local storage on the device (SSD installed directly on the device)

Thank you fire sharing. This is very helpful. I think my modem is still the weak point in my digital chain. Is there any specific model you recommend?

@sns 

understood…

thanks for that clarification 

One thing I neglected to mention. Some claim telephony creates noise in modems, in other words phone service connected to modem results in diminished sound quality. I have phone plan with my Spectrum service, did not activate phone service in new modem, can't say if this has any bearing on my sound quality. ISP supposedly offer phone only modems if one needs the phone service.

@j_andrews You need to connect router to modem, routers supply needed IP addresses for network components, switches don't supply IP addresses. What many do is have switch connected to router, switch connects to the audio streaming components. Most do this as they have need to connect more ethernet devices than available ethernet ports on router. Some also use audiophile switches to act as a filter and clocking device for their audio streaming components. This doesn't negate the contamination of router further up chain.

In nearly  all cases one would need second router in order to supply IP addresses and/or the needed wifi signal to all other network devices in house.

There exist managed routers without wifi capability that can then be connected to wifi capable router, these require much deeper knowledge of networking to configure in this manner.

Bottom line is any router in chain of audio network needs optimization referred to in OP. The second router feeding house doesn't need any optimization.

Great post! My score is also excellent.  I will check my modem for the aspects you listed as important in the design.  Thank you! 

Thanks for this detailed report

very helpful for those of us learning about ways to optimize our home networks for streaming.

I know very little about Ethernet and networking…..Curious if instead of using 2 routers as you described, could a quality switch be used after the modem and then the house router could be run off of that switch in another room? Then, another line off the switch would feed a network filter and on to the streamer.

JS

My overall score was EXCELLENT!

Your connection and line quality is

Excellent

If jitter didn't exist on networks,it wouldn't be detectable by measuring devices. The question is at what level is jitter heard, some may theorize there is a certain level.

Jitter is extremely important for precision manufacturing with computers,  for various measurement devices where precision needed, gaming, and music streaming it seems. Manufacturing and measuring industries are leading on addressing jitter and latency over networks. Music streaming way behind in concern for this, many assume any old network fine as long as no drop outs.

Thanks for sharing your experience and all the great info!  Running a secondary router makes intuitive sense, but I would’ve never thought to do that. 
 

I think the most important thing is minimizing latency within your network in order to avoid dropouts and/or delays. Given how error-resistant TCP is, and how jitter is effectively impossible over Ethernet, and everything is buffered anyways, seems like those are good places to start. 

@johnnnyoooops Not sure I agree with your thought on jitter, which is always a concern in a digital source setup whether streaming or not.  @sns Any thoughts on this?

Hmm. I think the most important thing is minimizing latency within your network in order to avoid dropouts and/or delays. Given how error-resistant TCP is, and how jitter is effectively impossible over Ethernet, and everything is buffered anyways, seems like those are good places to start. Many have good luck with Unifi to achieve the above goals plus readily manageable guest networks, solid roaming, etc. Wish you luck.