Cable Modems

Xymox

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Apr 16, 2019
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when we buy the best ..... WiFi solutions like Aruba.

I think I would suggest that the wifi solution cannot effect SQ as no audio packets go to apps like roon or UPnP solutions. The app is only for control, while that IS important, wifi is really just for control. It does make for a better experence tho because your REALLY well connected to the roon core or things like the minim server.

I consider the wifi as on the dirty side of things.

Anyone tho looking for the best in audio tho, most likely can afford and should have a super high performance networking setup that is as esoteric and high performance as your audio. So, you can usally find a really pasionate networking person who would love to do a insanity level high performance system. Its fun for these people, its not the normal routine of commercial work. They never get to pick and deploy the very best equipment money can buy. So its fun for them. You gotta poke around and find them. Useally you will find a high end networking person in a commercial IT company. They might think your crazy, but, make sure they know you want the best gear, price no object. Mention Aruba, 100Gbps ethernet cat 8, single mode fiber and routers that can pass 100Gbps. You WILL get thier attention.. I look at this stuff like I am a small ISP. I use gear that would be used for ISPs.

I even have 3 FreeBSD based rDNS servers running Unbound. This gives me DNSSEC and DoTLS. Im even doing TLS 1.3 for it. So my DNS servers, are my own. This really helps performance and makes them VERY secure.
 

matthias

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Mar 14, 2019
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I consider the wifi as on the dirty side of things.

I am looking for the best sounding solution like this:

Cable modem>>>WiFI router:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::WiFi AP>>>Server>>>DAC

Matt
 

Xymox

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Apr 16, 2019
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Cable modem>>>WiFI router:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::WiFi AP>>>Server>>>DAC

What are you using ?

Normally streaming from the net goes:

The audio packets go: Internet > Cable modem > Router > Switch > ( roon core maybe ) > DAC

To control it and pick stuff it goes: Internet <> Cable Modem <> Router <> wifi <> ipad/android <> roon core or UPnP server
No audio packets go thru wifi. Just control packets.

The roon core or UPnP then tells the DAC to pull packets thru the router from the internet.

These are separate flows of packets. Audio packets never go thru wifi.

At least thats my understanding with things I have used. If you have audio packets going thru wifi and thru a wireless device like a ipad, you would want to change how your doing it because that would really degrade the stream.

I suppose its also possible you do not have a wired connection where your music system is. If that is the case, I suggest you have someone run a cat 8, or single mode fiber, or both, from your modem location to your audio system. It might be expensive and invasive as it would likely involve opening up some sheetrock, its a CRITICAL thing to do as gear used by most people on this forum is no small investment. If you do this make CERTAIN to run CAT8 and single mode fiber so your ready for anything in the future.
 

matthias

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Mar 14, 2019
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I suppose its also possible you do not have a wired connection where your music system is. If that is the case, I suggest you have someone run a cat 8, or single mode fiber, or both, from your modem location to your audio system. It might be expensive and invasive as it would likely involve opening up some sheetrock, its a CRITICAL thing to do as gear used by most people on this forum is no small investment. If you do this make CERTAIN to run CAT8 and single mode fiber so your ready for anything in the future.

What is wrong with WiFi for audio?

A very serious manufacturer of UHQ cables admits here on WBF that WiFi sounds better than 20 m of his LAN cable.
Other very serious members claim the same.

So I have my ISP modem in the basement and my set-up on a different floor. I do not want to change the brick structure of my house for new fiber wiring. Maybe fiber has a slight edge over WiFi but not all prefer the sonics of fiber.

So what would be the best implementation of WiFi for audio?

Would a triple band router with reserving of one band for communicating only of the router with the WAP give an advantage?

WiFi 6 or WiFi 5?

Reserving another band for the control only?

Which band is superior for audio, 5GHz or 2,4GHz?

Thanks

Matt
 

Blue58

Well-Known Member
Jan 20, 2013
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London, UK
Hi Matthias,
Having lived with WiFi from my Virgin router to a netgear extender for about 4 years I was always happy with the sound quality and thought the galvanic isolation was perhaps better than having a 30m run of Ethernet cable possibly prone to picking up noise.

I always used the 5Ghz band and powered the extender from a non audio mains line ie. the normal house wiring.

This last week I installed a fibre optic link according to the recommended components from Emile(Taiko Audio) and am happy to report that it does indeed sound superior to WiFi. This is probably down to the poor noise performance of the WiFi extender injecting crap directly into the server.

I would suggest you look into fibre and I was surprised by how thin these cables are and quite easily hidden even if lying along the wall.

BTW, sound is now more relaxed and less grain to the upper frequencies. No loss of dynamics and no downsides I can hear.

cheers
 

ray-dude

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Dec 8, 2019
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2. Use a dedicated router. The Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X (make sure you configure hardware NAT) is a good choice. You can also configure a seperate VLAN for your audio, but that's a little bit more advanced and you need to know what you are doing - there is some benefit in sound quality but not nearly as much as the other items I have listed here. Power up with good linear power supply. I use Sean Jacobs DC3, but there are many good cheaper options.

Fantastic info, great thread!

@nenon have you tried the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X SFP? I have an Extreme enroute, and I'm thinking of running fiber direct to the router in my comm closet (vs going the FMC route). I have ATT fiber, so I'm coming through the ATT combo unit

(edit) Ah, I see you have your WiFi connected to the SFP on the EdgeRouter X, so the answer is yes ;)
 

wil

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Jul 22, 2015
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I too have Att fiber. Unfortunately, the Gateway Modem/Router they supply can not be replaced. One easy step at improvement is to disable the wifi radios on the Gateway.
 

matthias

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Mar 14, 2019
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Please, can someone shed some light on why the best Arris modems with Broadcom chip like the Arris TG9442 are available or working nearly everywhere in the world but not in Europe?

Thanks

Matt
 
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Devg

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Feb 16, 2020
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I was running wifi all along and recently changed to wired connection to great effect. Removing the wifi card from the streamer/NUC gave a great boost to SQ. I don't use Tidal/Quboz, hence nothing streamed from internet but I do stream from a NAS.
My network is as follows


Cable ---> Arris SB6121 ---> Netgear Orbi Wifi Router ---> Edgerouter X SFP ----- fiber ----> eR (B) ---> Streamer

The NAS is connected to one of the A side port of eR (difficult to draw here).

The Arris/Orbi/Edgerouter is in a different room and there are couple of other network devices (like a Vonage router, a media server) connected to the Edgerouter. I run a long fiber connection to the audio room connected to the fiber port A side of eR. (I also have a Sotm sNH-10G loaned from a friend that I am playing with)

As you can see the audio path for the local streaming is all copper and isolated from the rest of the wifi network but I am not sure if its the optimal. I have ordered the SB8200 to replace the SB6121 to see if it further improves SQ - note, both 6121 and 8200 are BCM based but 8200 is DOCSIS 3.1 compliant. If the 8200 still makes an impact, it will be welcomed but I will have no idea why :)
 

matthias

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Mar 14, 2019
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I was running wifi all along and recently changed to wired connection to great effect. Removing the wifi card from the streamer/NUC gave a great boost to SQ. I don't use Tidal/Quboz, hence nothing streamed from internet but I do stream from a NAS.
My network is as follows


Cable ---> Arris SB6121 ---> Netgear Orbi Wifi Router ---> Edgerouter X SFP ----- fiber ----> eR (B) ---> Streamer

The NAS is connected to one of the A side port of eR (difficult to draw here).

The Arris/Orbi/Edgerouter is in a different room and there are couple of other network devices (like a Vonage router, a media server) connected to the Edgerouter. I run a long fiber connection to the audio room connected to the fiber port A side of eR. (I also have a Sotm sNH-10G loaned from a friend that I am playing with)

As you can see the audio path for the local streaming is all copper and isolated from the rest of the wifi network but I am not sure if its the optimal. I have ordered the SB8200 to replace the SB6121 to see if it further improves SQ - note, both 6121 and 8200 are BCM based but 8200 is DOCSIS 3.1 compliant. If the 8200 still makes an impact, it will be welcomed but I will have no idea why :)

As I wrote on another thread I would try to connect the streamer to a port on the A-side ot the eR.
Further maybe you can remove the Orbi, it appears to me that you do not need it.

Matt
 

djsina2

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May 30, 2019
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If you are only streaming wired locally no packets are going to touch the Orbi or the Arris.
 

Devg

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Feb 16, 2020
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As I wrote on another thread I would try to connect the streamer to a port on the A-side ot the eR.

Yes, I will eventually try it.

Further maybe you can remove the Orbi, it appears to me that you do not need it.

The Orbi is the wireless router which connects the control plane of Roon and my whole home wireless network. I am using the Edgerouter as a layer-2 switch only.

If you are only streaming wired locally no packets are going to touch the Orbi or the Arris.

Yes, that's correct, except the control packets from/to Roon will go over the Orbi which is off-coarse not the audio path. Looks like there are reports where upgrading the modem improves sq when even streamed locally. Not sure if their network topology is same as mine, so I wanted to see if the 8200 brings anything to the table.
 

djsina2

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May 30, 2019
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Yes, that's correct, except the control packets from/to Roon will go over the Orbi which is off-coarse not the audio path. Looks like there are reports where upgrading the modem improves sq when even streamed locally. Not sure if their network topology is same as mine, so I wanted to see if the 8200 brings anything to the table.

No control packets are going to hit the modem. So you’re saying your “remote control” is going to somehow improve the sound by replacing a device which is not even in the path? I do remember someone saying their CDP sounded better from pressing the device play button versus using the remote. o_Oo_Oo_O
 
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Devg

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Feb 16, 2020
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No control packets are going to hit the modem. So you’re saying your “remote control” is going to somehow improve the sound by replacing a device which is not even in the path? I do remember someone saying their CDP sounded better from pressing the device play button versus using the remote. o_Oo_Oo_O

No, I am not saying or claiming anything here. Many (including @romaz) is of the opinion that improving the network in general (irrespective of them being in the audio path or not) may effect the SQ for good or bad. I believe its worth trying it out as its a minor investment compared to $10k power cord investment that many venture.

See here:
https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/...-music-server/?do=findComment&comment=1030198
 

djsina2

Well-Known Member
May 30, 2019
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No, I am not saying or claiming anything here. Many (including @romaz) is of the opinion that improving the network in general (irrespective of them being in the audio path or not) may effect the SQ for good or bad. I believe its worth trying it out as its a minor investment compared to $10k power cord investment that many venture.

See here:
https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/...-music-server/?do=findComment&comment=1030198

This thread and the one you linked reminded me again why I don’t do digital. :D
 

Scatterbrain99

Well-Known Member
Aug 18, 2016
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@Xymox Thank you for sharing your expertise regarding networking device. I’m currently using a Mikrotik RB4011iGS+5HacQ2HnD-IN-US wireless router. https://mikrotik.com/product/rb4011igs_5hacq2hnd_in
what’s your opinion about this router? I’m using sfp from this router to my SoTM switch. A Supra CAT8 connects from the SoTM Switch to JCAT net card inside my music server. Modem is an Arris SB8200. Mostly linear PSU, waiting for another linear PSU for the router.

what do you suggest I should do to improve my streaming performance?

Btw, all my networking stack (modem, router and switch) is sitting next to my music server and dac on my Audio rack. Do I need to put the networking gears in a different room? If so, should the music server reside next to the networking gear?
 
Mar 11, 2020
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I've tried two copies of the Motorola MB8600 3.1 modem to replace my aging Arris SB6141. I don't need or want more bandwidth but less latency and jitter would be great. Alas Cox will only sell more bandwidth compounding the problem.

The node I'm on in SoCal is so oversubscribed that once the kids begin getting home from school the packet loss rate swings between 15-50% and more.

I tried the 2nd MB8600 to ensure the first wasn't bad. It's not, the network is. So, I've gone back to my 3.0 modem, 0.3% drops during the same time frame but more latency and jitter. When the 3.1 modem worked, it sounded great, but my local node needs an upgrade to be usable. They've probably moved most to 3.1 and now 3.0 frequencies are open for the few remaining.

From what I've read it's next to impossible, short of filing an FCC complaint, to get Cox to do anything substantive about problems like this...it means they must spend shareholder money to upgrade.

Both of the Motorola's had the default factory firmware and Cox did NOT upgrade either of them. Perhaps the hot-blooded Arris SB8600 is worth trying. I'll have one on Saturday to test/eval.

It should be clear which ping plot is from the MB8600 and the SB6141.
 

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djsina2

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May 30, 2019
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The node I'm on in SoCal is so oversubscribed that once the kids begin getting home from school the packet loss rate swings between 15-50%/QUOTE]

Those loss numbers aren’t accurate. Machines will ignore pings if they’re busy even though they’re passing real traffic fine. As little as 2% true packet loss will make your connection unusable
 
Mar 11, 2020
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Those loss numbers aren’t accurate. Machines will ignore pings if they’re busy even though they’re passing real traffic fine. As little as 2% true packet loss will make your connection unusable

It was unusable, with the 3.1 CM. They are accurate from a comparative point of view if not an absolute value. I know that ICMP is given very low priority but the packet loss represented in the plot matches with my empirical evidence with both modems all else being precisely equal.

On the networks I manage, we track down any endpoints with 0.1% or more loss and fix it.
 
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Mar 11, 2020
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Well, 3rd times a charm. The Arris SB8200 hw version 6 is working great. Interestingly, the self-provisioning that worked for the Motorola MB8600 (both of them) did not work for the SB8200. In fact, it didn't just fail it stated the modem was not supported. A phone call resolved the provisioning. So far, 10 mins, no lost packets. It appears my node is not compatible with the Motorola despite being on the supported list for Cox.

Regardless, time will tell if the jitter is improved or not. Hope this info helps someone in the future.
 
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