Routers and switches.

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anthony
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Routers and switches.

Post by anthony »

For those who have experimented, and believe the surface the switch or router is placed, can make sonic differences.....I have a question!

If a router is connected to a switch and all ds traffic is via the switch, I assume the router placement is irrelevant?
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Post by SaltyDog »

Dry surfaces work best. (But then I like dry humor!)
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Re: Routers and switches.

Post by Linnofil »

anthony wrote:For those who have experimented, and believe the surface the switch or router is placed, can make sonic differences.....
Why "believe" and so many dots, we who have tested know! ;-)
anthony wrote:If a router is connected to a switch and all ds traffic is via the switch, I assume the router placement is irrelevant?
I have not tested this (yet). But the cable from the switch to the router (to get IP for DS/NAS and access to them from the network not connected directly to the switch) matters. A good quality cable connected in the right direction improves the DS noticably. Most routers also have a small outboard powersupply. Connecting this the right way to the wall outlet makes a noticable difference to the DS performance. (May not work for UK style outlets.)

I'm sure SaltyDog think everything sounds better with a bit of salt water under your feet. At least it feels better! :-)
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Re: Routers and switches.

Post by minge »

Linnofil wrote:
anthony wrote:For those who have experimented, and believe the surface the switch or router is placed, can make sonic differences.....
Why "believe" and so many dots, we who have tested know! ;-)
anthony wrote:If a router is connected to a switch and all ds traffic is via the switch, I assume the router placement is irrelevant?
I have not tested this (yet). But the cable from the switch to the router (to get IP for DS/NAS and access to them from the network not connected directly to the switch) matters. A good quality cable connected in the right direction improves the DS noticably. Most routers also have a small outboard powersupply. Connecting this the right way to the wall outlet makes a noticable difference to the DS performance. (May not work for UK style outlets.)

I'm sure SaltyDog think everything sounds better with a bit of salt water under your feet. At least it feels better! :-)
So the right way to connect is through the switch to router i connect router and then to switch?

Mike
anthony
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Re: Routers and switches.

Post by anthony »

Linnofil wrote:
anthony wrote:For those who have experimented, and believe the surface the switch or router is placed, can make sonic differences.....
Why "believe" and so many dots, we who have tested know! ;-)
Believe, because I appreciate many do not!

What are the cable recommendations?

Thanks.
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Re: Routers and switches.

Post by Linnofil »

anthony wrote:What are the cable recommendations?
Brand: Microconnect. Type: halogen free, shielded Cat6.

Three meters or longer in length is best. (Even if you need shorter.) These cables are the best so far (as tested by me and others) for all places in a DS system. (From switch to NAS and switch to DS.) Even from switch to router, why I don't know, but I can easily hear it.

Having great network cables is not expensive and thats why it's such a good investment!

I have heard from one source that they are not as good as they used to be any more. Why I don't know. Maybe time to buy right now and hope for some old stock?

The best support that I know of is the Yggdrasil NAS/switch rack. Expensive, but experimenting with different supports are free!
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Re: Routers and switches.

Post by Linnofil »

minge wrote:So the right way to connect is through the switch to router i connect router and then to switch?
Both DS and NAS shall be connected to the switch. Preferably with good cables in the right directions. The switch is then connected to the router, only to provide DHCP service (IP adress to DS/NAS) and enable control of the DS from the network, i.e. iPads, PC's etc. You may also need access to the NAS files for adding more music etc.
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Routers

Post by anthony »

Thanks Linnofil.
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Post by Music Lover »

Tried many different Netgear models (FS and GS-series) and the best has always been the 8 port models.
I haven't tested switches the last 3-4 years so it would be interesting if anyone could check again.
Back then, GS was the better of them. So please test GS108 vs other alternatives and get back. (note the GS series have been modified over the years)
It's all about musical understanding!
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Post by Music Lover »

paolo, please list all switches you tried.
(likely with the better signal from LS NAS the evaluation of switches and cables etc going to be easier)
It's all about musical understanding!
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Post by paolo »

Music Lover,
as soon as I go home this evening I'll check and find all model numbers I've tried. Some are not in my hands anymore so I'm not sure the list will be complete, anyway I still have surely the best ones.
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Post by Music Lover »

Made a list of current available Netgear Switches, quite a few...
GS108T v2
GS108E
GS110TP
GS108PE
GS108P
GS110T
GS510TP
It's all about musical understanding!
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Post by paolo »

The Netgear switches I've compared some months ago are the following:

GS105
FS105
GS108
GS108E-100PES
GS105E
GS108T-200GES

The best one has been GS108T-200. I cannot remember the order of the other ones but generally the 8 ports models have been all very good, better than the 5 ports ones. The FS switch has been the worst of the whole group (but still quite good).

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Post by Music Lover »

Good info, I use a GS108T V1 H1 with firmware 3.0.3
It's all about musical understanding!
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Question about ethernet cables

Post by jlrchrds »

I'm rewiring my house for the various Linn DS units I have. Can anyone recommend the best sounding in wall CAT6 or CAT5 cable to use? Thanks. Jeff
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Post by ThomasOK »

This weekend I tested my newly purchased GS108T-200 compared to a GS108v2 I had borrowed from the store. I had run in the GS108T for a week and found it was indeed a bit better than the GS108v2, although not a big difference. I also found, as others have that the AC adapter sounds better plugged in one way than the other (as luck would have it I started out with it plugged in the wrong way). There was also a musical difference between the two power adaptors which, even though they look identical and have the same specs, do have different part numbers. It was really nice finding the music getting more absorbing with each improvement here.

Has anybody found another power supply than the supplied one that is even more musical? Anyone else found that the different versions of the Netgear PS units sound different?
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Post by tokenbrit »

ThomasOK wrote:This weekend I tested my newly purchased GS108T-200 compared to a GS108v2 I had borrowed from the store. I had run in the GS108T for a week and found it was indeed a bit better than the GS108v2, although not a big difference. I also found, as others have that the AC adapter sounds better plugged in one way than the other (as luck would have it I started out with it plugged in the wrong way). There was also a musical difference between the two power adaptors which, even though they look identical and have the same specs, do have different part numbers. It was really nice finding the music getting more absorbing with each improvement here.
I took advantage of a Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Crazy Wednesday, or something sale and bought myself a GS108. It's just the regular NA version - not the T-200 switch - it arrived today and is a GS108v3. A Google Image search suggests the v2 has an earth or grounding point on the rear, but the v3 does not - I checked twice ;)

For those of you that have a Netgear GS10x switch with an earth point, do you connect it to something to ground the case? The AC adapter is only 2 prong so there's no grounding through the power supply...

I now have a GS105 & a GS108 to compare - I will have to see if I can hear a difference between switches, ports, AC adapters, and power supplies, and which way the adapter is plugged in - something to do over the holidays, I guess. Does anyone have any recommendations for good music to use for the comparisons? :)
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Post by Spannko »

I thought it was about time I posted a preliminary report on my experiment of comparing my 5 year old FS108 (v2) and my new GS108 (v3).

Compared to my FS108, the GS108 was very disappointing. Not only was the musicality (tune) considerably worse, the sound was quite "phasey". I remember thinking to myself "the music sounds inside-out": very strange! I made sure that both switches were placed on exactly the same surface, with the same cables.

Given other peoples findings with the GS108, I thought I'd better dig deeper and try and understand what was going on. I had to use the supplied power supplies because the DC plugs were different sizes, and different voltages (7.5V for the FS and 12V for the GS). I just happened to have an old 12V linear supply, so I tried it on the GS. This combination was much better than with the supplied PS, putting the tune back up on a par with the FS. The sound was still slightly different between the FS and the GS, but at least the GS had lost the strange phasey effect. I didn't spend any time trying to decide exactly which of the FS or GS was more tuneful, because of the effect of the different power supplies. I've now managed to source an old variable voltage linear supply which I can use to power both, as soon as I've sourced the right size DC plugs. This will probably be in the new year now.

Given my success with replacing the "crappy switch mode wall-wort" with a "better for audio linear wall-wort", I was convinced that "switch mode was bad", and "linear was good", so I decided to replace the SMPS supplied with my QNAP NAS. I bought the Maplins 12V, 3A linear supply which is often recommended as an upgrade on the audio forums. The "upgrade" was very disappointing! To my surprise, the supplied SMPS was much more tuneful!

From my initial experiments, it would appear that the PS could have a greater effect on the tune than the switch/NAS, and a greater effect on the tune, of the whole system, than changing the network cables. I should know more later.

The consensus on the general HiFi forums appears to be that linear supplies are much better than SMPS's for audio use, with perhaps the exception of the Linn SMPS's which are optimised and very expensive (compared to a 5£$ wall-wort). However, my finding that a well designed cheap wall-wort SMPS can sound better than a cheap linear PS has been a real eye opener!
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Post by tokenbrit »

Spannko wrote:I thought it was about time I posted a preliminary report on my experiment of comparing my 5 year old FS108 (v2) and my new GS108 (v3).

Compared to my FS108, the GS108 was very disappointing...
That's a little worrying given that I just recently received a GS108v3 - it's still burning in, along with some 3m MicroConnects, so too early to do meaningful comparisons against my GS105, So far, at least, my GS108 does not sound inside-out - which side of 'the pond' are you Spannko: North America, or Europe? (Maplins suggests UK)

Also, a quick question to ThomasOK with respect to the preferred 'polarity' of the Netgear power supply: Since US outlets have a broader flat pin, & a narrower one, did you find the better orientation of the power supply to be with the cord on the same side, or the opposite side to the broader pin? Or do you think it's likely to be inconsistent / wiring / supply dependent?
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Post by Spannko »

I left the GS108 to run in for a couple of weeks, but it didn't seem to change in performance. I'm listening to the GS108/LPS as I type this, and it's sounding OK, so I don't think there's a major problem with the switch itself. I did wonder if I happened to get a slightly faulty/out of spec SMPS because of the odd things it was doing to the sound, which I've never experienced before.

I'm situated in the middle of the UK.
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Post by WIJI »

My GS108 sounded pretty dire compared to the FS108 it replaced.
So I swapped the PSU to one from another device.
Problem solved.

This has got me thinking about the viability of using a multiple output decent quality variable PSU to replace all the cheap plug top PSUs in my network cupboard (I still have a 30A unit from my amateur radio days). Slight overkill perhaps, but so many of these cheap plug top devices seem to be a source of unwanted noise.

Paul.
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Post by flojo »

WIJI wrote:This has got me thinking about the viability of using a multiple output decent quality variable PSU to replace all the cheap plug top PSUs in my network cupboard
I'm thinking the same direction. For 2 years I bought a Chakra PSU from a M4100 as a backup should my 5103 die. Now the Lejonklou pre will be there in the near future as the #1 candidate replacing my 5103, I started thinking about reusing this Chakra to feed my two GS108's and Linksys router. I know little about PSU's. So what do you think: is it possible to use a Chakra PSU feeding my network hardware? And if yes: how?
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Re: Routers and switches.

Post by erho »

Hello, a little bit late to this party but I need advice for buying a switch.

Is this one recommended ?
https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B0000X ... KAKR8XB7XF

Or is this a false one, which is the best?
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Re: Routers and switches.

Post by Music Lover »

The 8-port is better.
It's all about musical understanding!
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Re: Routers and switches.

Post by Nature »

Netgear GS108GE.

GE = Europe, Ordering Information.
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