5 replies to this topic

[billgr]

I only use a connection from my controlpc to my home router to connect to BubbleUPNP on my tablet (I don't use streaming services). Recently I replaced the router connection with a Cisco AP54-1N wireless access point (with linear power, all static ip addresses). This only has one ethernet port and one radio, no routing and no switching.

 

I was surprised how good this change sounds. Now I'm wondering how to improve this even more.

 

Can anyone recommend an audiophile wap? Perhaps we need a JCAT wireless adapter for the Femto network card?

 

 

[Rob]

Hello billgr, only just seen this post and I agree with you as I use a similar set up, I use a router configured as an access point and plug the Lan cable in when I need, not being connected to the LAN or WLAN makes a noticeable difference to the SQ, and I’m thinking of more ways to improve this I may make hardware mods to the router.

Kind Regards Rob.

[seeteeyou]

First of all, just wondering if your home router were also getting all linear power in the first place?

 

 

 

So far nothing seemed to come with audiophile quality components by default, though a (heavily) modified TP-Link RE650 Wi-Fi range extender should be quite promising given how much the entire package would actually cost

 

https://fccid.io/TE7...-Photos-3262265

https://fccid.io/TE7...tos-3262265.pdf

https://audiophilest...comment-1084871

https://audiophilest...comment-1084918

https://audiophilest...#comment-959334

Let’s also look at pricing...a standard RE650 costs in the region of £120. The ‘customised’ or ‘modified off-the-shelf’ unit costs around £150 and several hours to modify, but that’s not the end. Add the improved PS that the extender uses, the better power cord, the anti-vibration rack for the PS and you come up to around £1220 all in.  So now, we’re comparing a £120 extender with a £1220 customised unit.....

 

Obviously that's all about the hardware with an extra special PSU on top of another premium DC cable, not to mention the Synergistic Research Atmosphere X network cable and AQVox SE switch etc. I guess that wouldn't be the most realistic approach for obvious reasons.

 

 

 

Now here's something about the software that should be somewhat relevant. Usually an entry-level NAS would come with a processor that's NOT very powerful at all, and then we'll have to pay much more for more bays with a better CPU. Unfortunately neither QNAP nor Synology would be any good for we audiophiles since their software wasn't optimized for audio purposes to begin with

 

https://www.synology...oes_my_NAS_have

 

Recently someone retired his 10-year-old Synology DS110+ (with SSD) and the replacement was nothing more than his old fanless mini PC with Celeron processor

 

http://www.minicomputer.com.cn/zmcpjs

 

Basically the hardware should be nothing to write home about, though the key to success turned out to be running this audiophile OS on that old PC and he's happy about the uptick in sound quality

 

https://www.snakeoil...alling-snakeoil

https://www.hiendy.c...ge=3#pid3032577

 

 

 

I haven't tried this myself, though you could simply power another PC at home with a decent PSU and then compare that to your home router

 

How to set up and manage a Network Bridge connection on Windows 10

https://www.windowsc...tion-windows-10

 

How to turn your Windows 10 PC into a wireless hotspot

https://www.windowsc...ireless-hotspot

 

How to bridge WiFi to Ethernet adapter to share internet

https://www.how2shou...e-internet.html

 

If I weren't mistaken, the effect of MinorityClean should cover the entire operating system, therefore even the networking component of Windows 10 might be able to reap the benefits.

 

 

 

As always we could further optimize Windows 10 by removing unnecessary components (creating an account is free)

 

https://forums.mydig...t/posts/1539341

https://forums.mydig...t/posts/1619858

 

Maybe we'll end up removing too many components so that MinorityClean might not be able to run successfully, here's something called Dependencies that could show us what the executable MinorityClean.exe actually requires

 

https://github.com/lucasg/Dependencies

 

Running the entire OS in RAM might also be helpful

 

http://jplay.eu/foru...guration-guide/

[billgr]

I've been chewing over my solution for possible improvements but it's pretty minimalist.

 

The wap is business class with only one rj45 and a single radio, no dchp, routing, switching, or security, and only one vlan. There's not much going on in there. I was wondering whether there might be more silent devices electrically. It's on a linear psu so it comes down to components and layout.    

 

The connection between the controlpc and the tablet control, point is a loopback connection just like the connection between the controlpc and audiopc. It's a very light load.

 

I think a router or wireless extender has more functionality and options, i.e. more potential for latency, jitter and noise.

Of course one day I'm going to want to use Tidal or Qobuz and will have to connect to the router. I'll have to be more creative then (or spend a lot more money).

 

@seeteeyou

I didn't have linear power on my router previously. I should do that before trying anything more complicated. 

In the past I used a 3rd optimized pc as a windows 2016 nas and before that a qnap on linear power. I discovered Marcin was correct; with Jplay Femto the music sounds better with files resident inside the control/server pc. If only I could afford 8tb of ssd.

As per my signature I already run both pcs in ramdisk. I consider windows server much better sounding than windows 10.   

[Rob]

Hello what I use is a single band low power router configured as an ap, you can configure the firmware to do what you want, which gives me an ap with four ports.

Kind Regards Rob.

[seeteeyou]

I've been chewing over my solution for possible improvements but it's pretty minimalist.

 

The wap is business class with only one rj45 and a single radio, no dchp, routing, switching, or security, and only one vlan. There's not much going on in there. I was wondering whether there might be more silent devices electrically. It's on a linear psu so it comes down to components and layout.

 

Running a lean operating system and providing clean linear power often provided positive results, your PSU should be doing its job while such an early model of Cisco Small Business Pro turned out to come with the most basic hardware

 

https://www.cisco.co...c78-566239.html

• 64 MB RAM

• 32 MB flash

 

In other words, they must keep the software part to a bare minimum or else having 64 MB of RAM wouldn't cut it. And then having the least amount of RAM could be an advantage in terms of noise and current draw etc.

 

https://audiophilest...comment-1014096

These Ram modules are a custom order type, similar to the Apacer types popular in the Jplay forums, but taking it just a bit further. They do create less noise and draw less current then other offerings.

 

 

 

@seeteeyou

I didn't have linear power on my router previously. I should do that before trying anything more complicated. 

In the past I used a 3rd optimized pc as a windows 2016 nas and before that a qnap on linear power. I discovered Marcin was correct; with Jplay Femto the music sounds better with files resident inside the control/server pc. If only I could afford 8tb of ssd.

As per my signature I already run both pcs in ramdisk. I consider windows server much better sounding than windows 10.   

 

Maybe you could consider giving this a try?

 

https://audiophilest...comment-1073703

Today for the first time I got satisfying sound from my external 4TB usb drive using wtfplay. Before today I much preferred playing from a little optane disk but it meant I had to copy files over (converting them to wav while at it). Today I placed the usb drive far away, in another room, powered it with 5V linear battery power and connected it with a fibre optic usb 3.0 extension cable:

https://www.aliexpre...2999206380.html

The NUC -- unlike my previous PC -- recognized the drive!

 

The SQ was almost indistinguishable from that with optane.

 

Another step forward...

 

 

 

Other than that, you could do some research on InfiniBand and SMB Direct etc. since the hardware became so affordable already.

 

CPU offload with RDMA might also be a good idea for accessing SMB shares

 

https://audiophilest...comment-1014096

What you really want to do is reduce your hardware active processing times as much as possible. The net effect is much like a class A amplifier, you have a higher baseline power consumption, but power draw does not vary much, and this is very good for a more “natural/relaxed” sound. I hope this makes sense 🙂 But you do need a power supply which is very comfortable supplying the load. You really want the least possible variation in load, and higher cpu power / bandwidth systems are better at that with very low load music playback processes.

 

https://redmondmag.c...datacenter.aspx

RDMA network adapters offer this performance capability by operating at a line rate with very low latency thanks to CPU bypass and zero copy (the ability to write directly to the memory of the remote storage node using RPCs). In order to obtain these advantages, all transport protocol processing must be performed in the adapter hardware, completely bypassing the host OS.

 

This direct transfer operation allows the application to access remote storage at the same performance as local storage.

 

These NICs implement RDMA in hardware so that they can transfer data between them without involving the host CPU. As a result, SMB Direct is extremely fast with client-to-file server performance almost equaling that of using local storage.

 

https://gigaom.com/e...h-chadd-kenney/

We do see about a 25% CPU offload with RDMA, so this gives a lot of CPU back to the application, not to mention that you can further consolidate the amount of density that you have within that rack.

 

There's no need for an expensive InfiniBand switch, two PCIe adapters could be connected to each other directly.

 

ConnectX-2 could be easily found on eBay etc.

 

https://www.ebay.com...le/114206084717

https://www.ebay.com...-E/203159197721

https://www.ebay.com...LP/264653470495

https://www.ebay.com...r-/292180656774

https://www.ebay.com...SR/203159230863

 

Simply get firmware version 2.10.0720 for ConnectX-2 in order to enable RDMA

 

https://mitrocketsci...infiniband.html

https://mitrocketsci...iniband_15.html

 

https://forums.serve...e-2#post-198479

https://forums.serve...e-2#post-198826

 

https://www.dell.com...?driverid=d2v84

https://dl.dell.com/...1/D2V84_A00.exe

 

Custom Firmware for Mellanox OEM Infiniband Cards – RDMA in Windows Server 2012

https://www.servethe...ws-server-2012/

 

Still not too much money to lose even if you weren't able to get SMB Direct (a.k.a. RDMA over SMB) working between your Server 2019 machines, and then ConnectX-2 also worked fine with Windows 10 Version 1809 (i.e. equivalent to Server 2019)

 

https://www.reddit.c...indows_10_1809/

 

Finally you just need to find out what cables are compatible with those PCIe adapters

 

https://www.mellanox...s_QSFP _DAC.pdf

https://www.mellanox...pper_Cables.pdf

https://www.mellanox...ive_Optical.pdf