I had a client accendentally hook a Switch X + Wifi X directly to a Arris S33 modem. The Switch X has NAT and so can work like a router in a limited way. He REALLY liked the result.. But of course he could not hook up his house system to the modem because cable companies only allow 1 device hooked to a modem for residential accounts. So he put back his router and hooked the Switch X to it.
Because the Switch X does NAT he was able to hook it directly to the S33. You can't do this with a normal audiophile switch.
When he put back the router there was a big drop in sound quality even from his local server. This was really disappointing for him as he had heard it sound so much better.
I offered to make him a dedicated highly modded router. The router needed to be multigig of course and based on SFP+ but he wanted it to be passive. AT first he got the router to try it unmodded. https://i.mt.lv/cdn/product_files/CCR2004_16G_2SplusPC_230901.pdf
This was a improvement and he decided to have me mod it. I did all my normal mods that i do on the Switch X and discovered it was best run on 12V internally and so used my noise canceling r-core power supply on it.
He then hooked his S33 up to it using SFP+ ethernet @2.5Gbps. He hooked the Switch X to the SFP+ 2 port via Direct Attach Cable.
He has now reported a VAST improvement over his old router. The combo of a highly modded router, highly modded switch that does a clean isolated network and a carefully tweaked access point all run off r-core power supplies all combined into a killer system.
So I wanted to make everyone aware that your router REALLY does matter. It mattered way more then I thought. Also the combo of doing 2 in series really matters.
This also has me thinking I need to make a router and that the combined synergy of it all really matters.
I identified a lot of areas to mod.. Internal power regulators, clocks..
The 2 yellow lines are the direct traces to the SFP+ ports. They come directly from the ARM router chip. This is a very nice direct path. Isolated from all the ethernet.
The red shows the clean, isolated SFP+ traces which was great as they are away from other noise on the board.
The results were quite good noise wise.. This is the 3.3V that supplies the SFP+ and CPU.. This is measured at the SFP+ port. Most of this noise is down near -120dBm. This is 0hz-5Mhz. The green line is -100.. This is a 45 db drop in noise from stock. The biggest noise component is -95.93.. The harmonics from the regulator are still visible, but WAY WAY minimized.
You can't see all the mods, and I did even more after this pic.. But this shows some of it..
Because the Switch X does NAT he was able to hook it directly to the S33. You can't do this with a normal audiophile switch.
When he put back the router there was a big drop in sound quality even from his local server. This was really disappointing for him as he had heard it sound so much better.
I offered to make him a dedicated highly modded router. The router needed to be multigig of course and based on SFP+ but he wanted it to be passive. AT first he got the router to try it unmodded. https://i.mt.lv/cdn/product_files/CCR2004_16G_2SplusPC_230901.pdf
This was a improvement and he decided to have me mod it. I did all my normal mods that i do on the Switch X and discovered it was best run on 12V internally and so used my noise canceling r-core power supply on it.
He then hooked his S33 up to it using SFP+ ethernet @2.5Gbps. He hooked the Switch X to the SFP+ 2 port via Direct Attach Cable.
He has now reported a VAST improvement over his old router. The combo of a highly modded router, highly modded switch that does a clean isolated network and a carefully tweaked access point all run off r-core power supplies all combined into a killer system.
So I wanted to make everyone aware that your router REALLY does matter. It mattered way more then I thought. Also the combo of doing 2 in series really matters.
This also has me thinking I need to make a router and that the combined synergy of it all really matters.
I identified a lot of areas to mod.. Internal power regulators, clocks..
The 2 yellow lines are the direct traces to the SFP+ ports. They come directly from the ARM router chip. This is a very nice direct path. Isolated from all the ethernet.
The red shows the clean, isolated SFP+ traces which was great as they are away from other noise on the board.
The results were quite good noise wise.. This is the 3.3V that supplies the SFP+ and CPU.. This is measured at the SFP+ port. Most of this noise is down near -120dBm. This is 0hz-5Mhz. The green line is -100.. This is a 45 db drop in noise from stock. The biggest noise component is -95.93.. The harmonics from the regulator are still visible, but WAY WAY minimized.
You can't see all the mods, and I did even more after this pic.. But this shows some of it..
