In readiness for my move to fibre in the next few weeks I bought a TP-Link Deco X50 - 2 Pack.
My plan was to have the Optical Network Terminal in the hall where the existing landline plugs in and connect to Deco to that. That’s where I would prefer it to be for aesthetic reasons.
But, I could have the fibre run so that the Optical Network Terminal is just a couple of feet from my Linn DSM streamer.
Would there be any sound quality benefits to doing that?
Thanks
If anything it could be worse having network equipment located close to the HiFi.
The ONT connects to the routers dedicated WAN port over an ethernet, the router then feeds the rest of the system.
So ideally the ONT needs to be convenient to wherever the routers located. And best keep it and router a metre or two away from the audio.
Noise-generating network equipment needs to be as far from the audio system as possible.
Noise-cleansing network equipment (like an audio-optimised switch) needs to be as close as possible to the audio system in order to deal with the largest proportion of accumulated noise.
Many thanks all.
So it seems to be that the ONT/router would be better off in the hallway.
Or - would it be feasible to have the main Deco unit upstairs in a spare bedroom near to where the fibre enters my house (which would be ideal) and have the 2nd Deco unit downstairs near my streamer?
How near to my streamer should I plan to have the 2nd Mesh repeater to get the best signal and minimize network equipment noise?
Thanks
The ISP fibre install people will place the ONT were the fibre enters the house.
The TP-Link Deco has auto sensing WAN/LAN ports and you can use an ethernet length that suits whatever distance you want from ONT to the Deco, anything from 0.5m to 100m
Wireless distance from Deco to streamer is not a problem if it’s in the same room. Its walls that are more of a problem, stud walls not so much, so if you have a joist & wood floor between floors, that’s like a stud wall, but brick or block are more problematic.
Try to position the Deco’s in the open, not hidden in cupboards, off the floor and as far away from walls as practical and as domestic harmony permits.
yes but put into context the typical home broadband router is going to produce less noise to no more noise than say a flat screen TV or definitely a mobile phone (dont have to be using it) … so I would put network equipment no closer that you would keep your mobile phone/tablet and your flat screen TV, STB etc to your audio equipment.
As mike says nearly all ONTs use ethernet to connect to the router - and ethernet is specified upto 100 metres for nearly all domestic use cases.
Yes you could use VLANs but that gets complicated unless you know what you are doing.
Also keep so called audiophile switches a healthy distance away from audio equipment as well - or as far as you would keep regular network equipment. I find 4 feet to 10 feet optimum. Most audiophile switches dont use green ethernet technology which will reduce noise power in ethernet leads .. and also many such devices are not mains earthed which is not ideal from a noise mitigation perspective - certainly for accumulated common mode noise.
One way to help reduce common mode noise and ethernet noise power is to use long coiled runs (say 50 to 100m) of Cat5e cable between switch and streamer (the Cat 5e is important. ;larger cable gauges reduce the electrical losses and the noise reduction effectiveness) but that is not always practical for some setups.
Ethernet itself only uses low very voltages (balanced +/- 1v and balanced +/- 2.5v) - and common mode noise may exceed that with respect to earth on non earthed drives, though of course is safe… but you sometimes feel a little buzz or tremor when touching the bare metal cases of some non earthed devices.
And my experience and advice would be entirely opposite to this. While I agree it would be sensible to keep a “so called” audiophile switch well away from the streamer, an actual audiophile switch is designed to be installed as close as possible to the streamer to give it the very best opportunity to kill the largest amount of accumulated RFI noise, both conducted and radiated, while adding no noise of its own back into the mix. Installing such a switch well away from the streamer is one of the key factors in some people reporting “I tried an audiophile switch once and couldn’t hear a difference”.
The longer the ethernet cable from the second unit to the streamer, the more radiated noise can be picked up by that cable so the less benefit arises from introducing an optical break.
The counter to this is, as @Simon-in-Suffolk points out, if it’s not specifically optimised for audio then it might introduce more radiated noise into your listening environment than the conducted noise the optical link keeps away from it. FMCs in general and SFPs in particular can be very noisy in their own right which helps to explain why optical doesn’t always deliver in practice what it promises in theory.
Definitely worth some comparative listening.
But less than say mains cables for example… ethernet cables use a twisted pair construct to precisely mitigate this - both from emission and reception. Yes the twisted pairs are not perfect so there will be some leakage, but mains cables like in long radials are not generally twisted at all.
The issue with optical breaks is that yes, they stop common mode currents if the transceivers are correctly earthed - however they introduce their own clocks - part of the benefit of an audiophile switch is that it introduces or can introduce a highly stable clock to reduce phase noise power. If you use an optical break you are rebuilding the ethernet clocking - and if your optical break is not using the same quality clocks as your audiophile switch your are throwing the benefit of the audiophile switch away. Using CDR and PLLs say from PAM5 (1000BaseT) and converting to PAM4/NRZ (fibre) and then using a PLL to encode back the other way is going to be producing more jitter/phase noise that the streamer on its twisted pair ethernet physical layer PLL CDR detector is going to have to work harder to recover. Media converters unless you need over 100metres are not normally a good idea - if network noise is a concern.
But as I say often - noise in this area can actually lead to a better end audio product in some cases and setups - its all part of the science of noise shaping… dont assume just because it sounds great that there is no noise… noise is not always bad.. I think some struggle with this concept.
The first Deco has to be coupled to your router by a network cable. The rest can go where you want.
Don’t forget to turn the WiFi off in the router.
Another tip is to rename the WiFi password to the same as your existing one. Saves having to re log everything in again which in my case would have amounted to about 15 devices
Agreed re twist rates but all Cat and Cat-based network cables incorporate compromised twist rates ie. due to their proximity, the four pairs must use different twist rates in order to avoid introducing crosstalk = actual data corruption. By definition then, only one of the pairs has the greatest twist of the four and the maximum ability to reject noise.
The key point here is not the noise produced and radiated by the pairs; it is the environmental (radiated noise) they pick up and then conduct to the streamer. Shielding goes a long way to protect against this but a shield connected to both metal RJ45 plugs acts as a fabulous conductor of noise from a switch or Fiber Media Converter to the streamer. Which is one reason that device is usually best installed just before the streamer and connectd by a 05m to 1m UNshielded cable (if for now we exclude cables with the shield grounded at only one end)
From a sound quality perspective, clock accuracy in and after the streamer is vitally important; it is a non-concern before the streamer as ethernet is asynchronous by design, with error-checking, packet retransmission etc built in. Jitter (time variability/distortion) is absolutely not a concern here, as the streamer rebuilds the data using its clock. Obsessing about clock accuracy in an asynchronous domain is unnecessary and counter-productive.
The one thing most folk can do most easily to remove the greatest amount of noise is to install an RFI-reducing device just before their streamer; even a non-audiophile one will do more good than harm in the vast majority of systems.
Agreed. Some people have spent many years shaping/”voicing” their system around a given amount of noise and the removal/mitigation of this noise can lead, in the short term at least, to an unbalancing of the sound. However, once the noise has been removed, no-one wants to put it back and lose the clarity they have gained.
Yes Ethernet TCP is kind of asynchronous… but the clocks that are relevant are at a lower layer .. they are the serialisation clocks of the symbol encodings at the physical layer. These have no relevance to clocks in higher levels such as application data and then bit stream sample clocks… but the phase noise in the symbol serialisation clocks couples into receiving physical layer electronics and can modulate ground planes and power lines.
Thanks for the further replies, but I really understood very little of what has been recently posted.
The fibre will be coming from a telegraph pole near my house so it will likely have to come through the wall of an upstairs bedroom. The downstairs front of the house has a wet room (so totally inappropriate for the ONT) and the kitchen with lots of electronic devices and 2 brick walls between it and my streamer - so also not ideal.
So my thoughts at present are to have the ONT located in the upstairs bedroom with a short ethernet cable to the main Deco unit then place the 2nd Deco unit in the downstairs hall which is about 15-20ft away from the one upstairs.
This would mean that the 2nd Deco unit would be about 20ft away from my streamer but behind a brick wall and part of a brick alcove.
If that sounds problematical, then I could get a 3rd Deco unit and place that in the lounge between the 2nd Deco unit and my streamer.
Would that be the best option?
Thanks
The fibre will enter the house wherever YOU want it, within reason.
My cable comes from a pole to a high point on the house and runs down the outside wall to a ground level entry point.
I’m with BT so the fibre network is Openreach, and changed to fibre just a few months ago.
Openreach talked about where I wanted the entry point, I wanted the same, near the audio …
But some of my neighbours have changed, one has gone round the back of the house.
If you are getting Openreach or one of their contractors, you will be invited to discuss it with them, you might be surprised.
Cheers @Mike-B
It will be Openreach that do the install in late Sept. They do not perform a site survey prior to installation.
My main concern is getting the fibre installed to a location that will end up giving me the best sound from my streamer using the Deco Mesh units - that’s no.1 priority
From some of the responses above it seems I shouldn’t have the main Deco unit near my audio due to noise.
There is no obvious entry point on the front of the house downstairs for reasons mentioned in my post above.
The side of my house is a long garage, so that’s not appropriate, and being semi-detached that’s the only other accessible side.
The cable could go over the top of the house to the back wall, but then the only access to inside is on the wall where my audio is.
So the most obvious answer (as far as I can think) is to have the main Deco unit upstairs and use the other downstairs and maybe add another if needed.
So it’s the location of the Deco units that I’m most concerned about and would like advice on.
I don’t want cables trailing around rooms as I had when I had Sky installed many years ago - that always looked a mess.
My Openreach install did not include a site survey, just a polite and sympathetic discussion on how I wanted it with the man who came to do the work.
These OR people have done it all before and with few exceptions most people’s requests are just more of the same.
One of my neighbour’s wanted his entry point at the rear of the house, the OR people agreed a new date and they came back with an electric platform hoist ….. it really was no problems.
The TP-Link Deco www has all the recommendation for placement and how to connect all.
…. >1m from the audio and 10m between Deco’s.
Thanks Mike, that’s a reassuring story. I’m planning to upgrade to fibre to the house via overhead cable, shortly. I’m confident that my ISP (Zen) will handle their side of things well, but less sure about Openreach after they messed up our internet connection when replacing the pole in the street.
Your positive story gives me a bit more reassurance, so thanks.
Roger
I’ve got 3 TP Link Decos going spare for a reasonable price if anybody is interested.Complete with disk holder which holds them near the plug.
I went to EE and got two extenders FOC with my Router so they are spare.
