When you use broadband fibre (ie xPON fibre) you must always your providers’s NTE (network terminating equipment). This converts the time shared fibre signal into a specific Ethernet framed WAN presentation that is specific to you. You connect the router then to your NTE. Again I would always recommend your ISP’s router, but here you can sometimes use third party devices i you really want to. These devices other than producing in some extreme scenarios with low quality devices electrical noise into the metallic cables of your home network, have NO impact on performance or quality of your home audio.
They are as likely to cause as much impact to your home audio as your refrigerator is. (Compressor noise in the mains)
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So just to be clear, we have hifi racks for routers now?
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We? One person does… or does anyone know different?
They do here. My BT router sounds very different according to what it is placed on. I wish it didn’t - but time and again I’ve proved that it does.
My wife, who has absolutely zero interest in these things and thinks it’s all a bit silly has also heard it too, to the point where she has said “I shouldn’t put it on that - the bass is nowhere near as good”
And this applies whether or not the music files are actaully going through the router. ie. if I’m watching a music video on YouTube the sound is affected, and clearly here the data is passing through the router. But exactly the same effect is apparent when playing music from our Melco on the main system. Here no music data is passing through the router at all. It’s all going from the Melco via USB straight to our Qutest DAC.
I can’t explain it. Other than to say perhaps different support surfaces somehow affect the amount of electrical noise entering the LAN. Possible I suppose as if internal router components are microphonic (and why not?) then different supports could quite reasonably be expected to have an effect - they do with virtually everything else in hi-fi after all.
I’m not interested in the slightest about debating with anyone about what I do and don’t hear. If everyone else finds that their router sounds identical placed on top of their cat or glued to their ceilng then that’s fine with me.
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Fridges and lighting systems and PCs and TVs and poorly designed switches and myriad other electrical units can and often do inject various forms of electrical noise into people’s hifi systems through the connected electrical cables of the home, including ethernet cables.
E.g. “…there may be common mode electrical noise passing through the ethernet cables”.
Whilst prevention may be ideal, given the myriad of sources it may be easier to focus on blocking the noise before it enters the DAC rather than trying to minimise every source’s generation… And/or change DAC (or streamer) for one with designed-in blocking/filtering/immunity. The cost of multiple third part power supplies and ‘audiophile’ switches (and soon maybe routers) all add up, and a better DAC/streamer may bring other advantages.
But the cost of immunity is usually blandness.
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Well to be fair even the wife heard it so it must be true.
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The concept of electrical noise affecting the performance of hi-fi systems has been recognised for a long time. Especially with regard to mains supply. The problem is that many (most?) of the products marketed to prevent this are also found to have a negative impact on musical performance.
It’s only comparatively recently that noise in home IT networks has also been recognised to be an important issue. Again we begin to see a number of commercial solutions making an appearance. It’s early days and my guess is that it’s all in a rather crude state of development at present.
I’ve no doubt at all that in the future we will see far more sophisticated solutions and that equipment manufacturers will incorporate safeguards as standard.
But we can only live in the present. What we have is what we have.
I just don’t see the value in for instance paying 2k for a switch to reduce electrical noise when a fridge, freezer etc is on the same network.
Or at the very least put the 2k to a dedicated spur first. Sure it’s not as sexy but it is the more logical approach.
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Which then all goes to the same Busbar on the Consumer Unit anyway……
Where do you stop…!?
Well it doesn’t does it? Then we land up with hifi stands for routers lol.
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Lol
Chord Dave is certainly not bland. People don’t claim the ND555 to be bland. I don’t know how resistant is to electrical/RF noise, nor next one down NDX2.
Dedicated mains done properly uses a separate consumer unit, so no, it doesn’t share a busbar, circuit breaker or cable with anything on the main house CU.
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So a separate CU comes off where, the main CU… Same same….
No, you split the meter tails.
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But at some point they meet? If you don’t have a separate cable all the way to the power grid in your town.
Sun panels from your neighbour might very well cause issues into your home. I believe there is no return hiding from noise now and onwards with electrification of the society. I got myself a Puritan 156. It’s awesome.
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It’s about as ‘clean’ as you’ll get, but it’s still meeting at the end of the day, just on the other side of the main bar….
Not always a connection terminal to take off to another board either….
Regardless, if there’s someone up the street doing some arc welding at their house, you’re still going to get a dirty supply……
Short of having a ‘dedicated’ line to the universe’s ultimate source of power, any connected grid is always going to be subject to pollution……
what size dc barrel plug did you use with your BT router (smart hub)?
It doesn’t correspond to any available barrel plug that I could find.
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