the question of changing ethernet cables


Hi everyone, I am also new to the site and I have followed many conversations learning much. I have ethernet cables running from the router to the streamer (PS Audio). However, I have a fiberglass cable running from the street input to my main box. That should mean from what I have followed here that I am not bringing any noise into the system from outside. I too, have thought about changing the internal cables and/or employing an isolator of sorts. However, in my case, I am not sure that I need to. Any suggestions would be welcome.

128x128finnlove

Thank you antigrunge2. Everything is in the attached garage, modem, router and this station system to extend wifi. Meaning the main station extender and the slaves are positioned around the house for better wifi.

The router is plugged directly into my fuse box. I have outlets built in. I can see from the wire pile up and the proximity, as well as the use of, the fuse box could add to the noise.

I just started to read about your suggestions. Pink Faun is produced in the Netherlands, which is very close to me. There is also a dealer I found in Germany. It diffently sounds like I need to add some type of filter post router and a filter converter to fiber. Then a fiber cable to the streamer/DAC. That was green computer's solution as I understand so far.

As I said, I am still looking at Lan isolators. I do have to say, this is quite an interesting science. 

 

“I have just the amp and preamp on I have a very slight hiss”
@finnlove

I suspect that white noise / hiss your hearing is coming from router. Without knowing every single component in your system, we can only speculate. I used to own a tube amp that produced a very faint hiss, I could easily hear it when I am near my tweeter but otherwise inaudible few feet away. As you said, hiss is already there when you turn on amp/pre. The noise is further amplified when you turn on streamer. I would look at each and every step in your signal chain i.e. interconnects, speakers cables including LAN cable.

Before you drive yourself crazy and spend more money, do you know if your electronics are supposed to be dead quiet? Contact the manufacturer or read other users feedback. Are you using a power conditioner in your system?

The most common reasons for hiss is poor grounding or gain stage in your preamp. It could be also from poor wiring or EMI/RFI in your environment.

+1 what @lalitk and ​​​​@antigrunge2 Said. The entire chain is key. Quality cable with quality shielding, isolation, quality modem and switch. 

@finnlove Any dimmers/reostats anywhere in house can cause these sorts of hissing/fuzzy sounds. Even with dedicated circuits on audio these can infect, transformers with LED lights can also infect, I know both from personal experience.

 

Otherwise most likely culprit tube amps, pre's. Doubtful SS equipment would cause this. I've never heard any hiss  noise emanating from various routers or modems with or without lps, still, who knows whats possible with these streaming setups. Connecting directly to fuse box like you have may actually increase susceptibility to noise.

 

In regard to possible router noise, just a couple days ago installed  Netgear XR1000 router, this for lower ping time/latency/jitter vs previous Netgear R7000. So new Netgear now direct feed from modem, also now only feeds streamer, NAS and R7000. XR1000 wifi now turned off, R7000 feeds all wifi in house. Point is to get all wifi with it's extremely high levels of emi/rfi completely out of streaming chain. So now I have optimized my entire chain feeding streamer, best modem possible for my particular ISP, all wifi off system with high quality router, ethernet filtering/clocking via JCAT Net Card XE, quality cabling via all AQ Vodka post modem, everything running off high quality LPS. All upgrades prior to latest wifi isolation have been effective in lowering noise floor and more analog like sound via lower jitter. This weekends listening sessions will determine the effectiveness of new router and wifi elimination from streaming chain.

 

 

@finnlove Believe you're speaking of Small Green Computer, specialize in optical steaming. I do use Sonore OpticalModule and OpticalRendu, many experiments with optical in past and continuing into future, some in next few weeks. With optical you can go with generic or Sonore FMC in which case you could go full optical from ISP through streamer, this may or may not beat any ethernet solution, hard to say, implementation is key.

 

Now, if you had optical capable router and all Sonore optical, fully optimized this could be very nice setup, full galvanic isolation from wifi or any other noise. You would still have issue of wifi directly injected into router motherboard which cannot be elimated by any means other than turning off wifi on router. I bet you'd have pretty nice setup going this direction, I'd at least try if I had optical via ISP.

 

Keep in mind optical not so easy as install and forget, subject to optimizations and improvements just as any ethernet setup. I won't go into it here, but suffice to say Sonore equipment superior to the generic FMC. My further upgrades, already in house will come in due course.