I was bored this morning so set myself a new project. Having managed network gear from Unifi I can very easily setup different dedicated networks or VLANs. I already have 3 separate ones, one for the main network and then one for Chromecasts and video stuff and the other for the rest of the IoT gear such as Alexa and Philips hue and harmony hubs. The latter VLAN is completely isolated from main network for security. Main Lan can talk to the IoT VLAN but not the other way.
Some believe that separating off audio gear from a busy network is beneficial for sq, I don’t adhere to that myself but as I was bored thought I would do it anyway as it’s so easy to do with Unifi kit due to it managment UI.
So I created a new VLAN network called Roon as its what I use to playback to everything, set up a new wireless network using same VLAN called Roon for the wireless music zones. On the Unifi switches that are used to connect to my Atom, Roon core and a pi based streamer set their respective ports to be the new VLAN and then rebooted them all. Next connect all the wireless zones to the new Roon SSID. Job done
All my control apps for Roon and the Naim app are on the normal network but can see and control all the devices on the audio VLAN thanks to the way Unifi manage their VLANs could isolate completely but then you cant control it without being on the same network which is not family friendly also I use the remote devices for other stuff on the normal network so it’s just not practical to keep switching networks so let Unifi manage this it’s effective and requires no input from me.
So now it’s done did I hear a miraculous change in SQ, of course not, but it might perform better in other ways and I won’t have the rest of the network including vpn for working from home getting in the way.
Anybody else done this? Did you find any benefit doing it?