I made all the logical upgrades that i felt were worthwhile and were pertinent to my main system. I called in Verizon and was persistent in my desire to pay for their fastest network service package available to me in my area. I gave them a detailed description of what was in my house and the year it was installed. They quoted me the monthly fee, and applied a standard services installation fee on top of that.
The technician arrived in a few days w/ equipment in hand and was happy to oblige me. He removed my OLD Optical Network Terminal (ONT) and added a new upgraded version inside my music room directly. From there the fiber run is converted direct to ethernet and with a short 4ft cable attaches directly to the new router Verizon provided. My signal to my streamer is now fed directly via a short 3ft ethernet cable with NO coaxial anywhere in the line anymore. We then used the router to feed back the rest of the house via my switching network located in the basement which I used my own āman-skillsā to upgrade myself just enough to handle the new faster gig-a-bit connection. The switch that feeds the house has no external power supply it is plugged directly into a circuit which was added to the panel when i had the house built originally
No fancy audio equipment, it was not necessary since i bypassed the long runs usually required to get to the router itself. Thank you all for the information, it helped me figure out what i was asking for.
Did any of this help my system? That is the ultimate question. Well, i also added the SOTM USB regeneration device along w/ the upgraded LPS they sell and took the time and effort to adjust my speaker positions and seating arrangement. I did ALL of this concurrently and YES the system background is the blackest ever, and the spatial recreation is excellent. I think that in conjunction w/ being able to adjust the seating arrangement and having the flexibility to move the speakers I have maxed out about all I could improve with the equipment in hand.
Any upgrades beyond this to the source chain would possibly require swapping the streamer, adding a very expensive re-clocker and then the addition of a DAC at a whole other price point thousands beyond what i have on hand along w/ speakers of a completely upgraded price point.
Iām sure there is capacity beyond what i have for better sound but i feel, the work i have done to this point puts the equipment i have in hand relative to the capabilities and cost of each piece. I cannot think of anything else i could do to maximize performance of what is on hand and available to me. Maybe some cable tweaks and upgrades after the window treatments are installed? I just donāt know, iām playing with diffusion using furniture and possible treatments to some of the walls.
I am extremely pleased currently with the impacts all these tweaks and upgrades have made in combination with each other, it really is an incredible listening experience. I can āSee the musicā and feel the relaxation and joy it brings me each and every time i sit down for a listening session and ultimately this has been what itās all about. Recreating a level of performance that brings peace and tranquility to my soul.
Hello,
Does it really make that much difference to invest in the network?
I have a Vigor 165 modem connected to the Netgear XR 500 and a normal standard Lan cable that goes to the PC and is galvanically separated in front of it.
The Lan cable could possibly be interesting and better, but thatās expensive if you need 10-15 metres.
Otherwise I have no problems with the design.
I once read that it supposedly only makes sense to invest in the network if you have a streamer in the house.
But Iām still a bit sceptical.
Other than faster connection speeds across the house via ethernet with much better wifi coverage, the only differences i can attribute to the network are in the main listening room where removal of coaxial cables and being able to plug my streamer directly into the router seem to be, which was my only goal anyway. I wanted the shortest run possible directly into the optical home run from the carrier and i got it.
This reminds me of an article I came acrossā¦ the title made me laugh, article itself is nothing special
I have the etherRegen as well, with a cheap audiophonics LPS. I have the impression background was blacker and tonality was a touch fuller but it was really minimal, maybe even only in my head. I think that on most systems the improvement will be very marginal so better spend that money higher in the chain if that can be improved as well for the same amount. If only I could listen to my own advise but curiousity got the better of me.
The etherRegen is definitely not making things worse so Iām leaving it in for now but it crossed my mind to dump it, mainly because of 2 reasons which Iāve mitigated a bit:
In my experience its not the most stable device, when I donāt touch my chain I donāt have any issue but when tinkering on my network the EtherRegen sometimes requires an extra manual reboot to get my endpoints available again in Roon. This is not a front row component so always a bit cumbersome to reach for but now with the LPS its more friendly as the LPS has a button on the front.
It gets hot, really hot, not tube hot but still. Iām not sure what its doing to get that hot but when there is no reason to get hot its usually inefficient design that translates lost energy in heat. But yeah, what do I know, its audio magic, Iāve bought a heat sink to put on it, seems to cool things down a bit.
Well, oddly enough, I have the impression it now runs cooler on a 9v LPS then it did on the original 7.5v SMPS. I stayed away from 12v as the extra heat was a concern but when you read the 9v seems to be the sweet spot so I opted for that.
That was my experience initially as well, only after upgrading the rest of my setup multiple times did it make a difference that was fairly apparent, otherwise I wouldnāt consider one until the cost of the next upgrade far outweighs the cost of a etherregen+nice psu. At first basically only bought it so I could use a sfp port on my switch lol
I meantioned Micro Tik before, I wound up purchasing one of these. A shit ton of networking functionality, too much maybe for some people that donāt have a networking background. The build quality is very good and I liked the fact that I can put my streamer on an Ethernet port instead of a gigabit port. Eveything Iāve seen on the high end streamers, the preference is to keep it to Fast Ethernet because itās less noisy inherently.
Anyway, figured Iād put it out there because the price is right if anyone is looking to get out of a $20 Netgear boxes. Also a wide input voltage range so you can use a LPS you have laying around.
Was there a consensus on 9V being the optimum voltage for the Etherregen? I recall someone mentioning that but I canāt find it now and my old man memoryā¦
So the Lumin I snagged from @dB_Cooper is only controllable through an app. Meaning even with local storage it needs network connectivity and it is wired ethernet only.
Since I am not about to run ~150ft of cable literally to the opposite side of my house. (3 floors apart, other side of the building) Can someone suggest a device that I can keep near my streamer but can connect to my current wifi router and has an ethernet out?
My recommendations w/o getting deep in the dollar spend would be to replace your current Wi-Fi with this; Netgear Nighthawk Mesh
In lie of that, you can go the let me just pick something up cheap for now route;
These things work, not my first choice but they work and I used one for about a year and a half. The biggest issue, Iād lose network connectivity when my son used the microwave in the kitchen while I was listening to music. They basically plug into the nearest outlet, and then just repeat your existing Wi-Fi signal and theyāve got an Ethernet port you can plug a wire into. Youāll get maybe 1/2 the throughput out of them than you would a regular wired connection, but you donāt need much for music anyway.
My current solution to your same need, is the Nighthawk mesh I recommended above but Iāve got an inexpensive switch with an SFP port and fiber connected between it and the EtherREGEN (I picked up a couple of weeks ago) and that going into my Weiss.
For the mesh and other things that take 12v I use these. They can power multiple devices, are designed to stay up 100% of the time and since theyāre not for āaudiophilesā they are free of the audiophile tax. For general purpose clean power, theyāre awesome. Iām using an SBOOSTER Ultra for the EtherREGEN.
Yes, this is the route i want to take here as everything is temporary just to get things running. I have like 3 usb network stick from old PCs but those unfortunately wont work on a lumin.
My router is an older TOTL Netgear Nighthawk r7000 AC1900. It covers the whole house well (even with microwave use) but one of my dadās devices has been screwing it up and it requires frequent daily resets, sometimes it even self restarts. I have other routers from when my work moved and they let me take a few goodies. I am not sure if i can use one of those routers to connect to the main netgear, and use it as a wifi extension point. But right now I do not want to āinvestā in anything until i move out, and to keep this solution as cheap as possible without inducing an aggravatingly unreliable solution.
With that said i will probably look for something like you linked but see if there is something more like $40-50. Since i do not have anything wifi 6 maybe i can save on an older device.
@Deleeh are all drivers up to date for the onboard?
FWIW iād assume the problem is configuration rather than hardware, while network devices can fail in odd ways, itās not normally the case that they āworkā generally, but canāt communicate with a specific protocol.
It just isnāt really how they work.
but curiousity got the better of me.