I just use Spotify to stream and it sounds pretty good.Can’t justify Roon to her indoors😃
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I am using Roon as part of a one month free trial (5 days to go) and like what it does. However the Naim app is also very good and I just need my iPad whereas with Roon I need a separate core computer plus iPad to control.
I was quite certain that I would take out a one year subscription but now I will delay that decision until I try it via WiFi.
If the powerlines remain turned on, they will be radiating RFI over your entire house mains circuits. To benefit from removing them, you really need them to be turned off.
Whether or not you actually hear a difference when you remove them is another matter, but I would certainly give it a try.
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Quite a lot of updates here to digest.
HomePlug Powerline adapters piggy back on the existing mains cabling as a means to effectively provide wired data networking without the need for separate cabling runs. This is the main motivation for consumers who want a simple plug and play solution. Similar solutions using telephone wiring (HPNA) and coaxial cabling (MoCA) are popular in certain regions, the US has a lot of MoCA for example as Coax cabling around the home is quite common place there.
However with convenience comes some penalty especially with HomePlug as it will inject a certain amount of noise on to the mains power feeding out to your sensitive audio and video equipment.
If you are able to, it helps to isolate your av equipment from other electrical equipment in your home (fridges, microwaves, computers and so forth) by putting them on to their own dedicated mains circuit. In my case I have my primary 2 channel and AV systems on their own mains spurs and each circuit has a dedicated grounding bonding point.
If you leave the Home Plug adapters on the mains circuit they will continue to inject noise on to that circuit, the ability for that to pass between circuits will depend on your main circuit board and if you have RCD’s fitted to the primary mains feeds. Modern circuit breakers limit the ability for HomePlug signals to pass between circuits which is why HomePlug performs best when all the adapters are on the same circuit, in the UK that is typically a ring circuit to single or double socket outlets.
In order to remove the chance of interference you would be best advised to remove the HomePlug adapters completely. A suitable alternative here could be a Wi-Fi extender with RJ-45 wired Ethernet ports. I’ve done this also myself including having done so using Orbi extenders as an example.
The key point to bare in mind with existing mesh capable solutions vs Wi-Fi 6 certified solutions is that existing products only work within the same product family, eg: All Netgear Orbi, all Plume, all Google Home and so forth.
If I was looking to invest in a new Wi-Fi network solution for home use I’d be inclined to wait for Wi-Fi 6 certified products as they can be extended and managed more easily and support features which should minimise issues with streaming and high client concurrency.
Comparisons between solutions concerning perceived audio quality are entirely subjective, a well configured and setup solution based on existing Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) products will work sufficiently well to support all current streaming services and underlying technologies.
In my personal experience I’ve found a well setup Wi-Fi infrastructure to perform to an equivalent level to a wired Ethernet solution. Concerning a Roon Core server, I have mine running on a dedicated Mac Mini Server which is hard wired in to my dedicated router, the recommendation is for your Roon core to always be hardwired to your LAN. I would also do this directly to a router or via a switch rather than through a HomePlug circuit as well. Also note that the HomePlug versions/types are giving theoretical speeds, even in a controlled lab environment you’ll be lucky to get any where close to the speeds they market them at.
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Thank you for the excellent explanation.
With Sky Q the mini boxes also act as wireless extenders. I have one of these in the cupboard with my Naim gear and another upstairs. Sky Q works great around my house at the moment using Power-Line adapters - I am a little bit concerned that switching all of them to WiFi may make it less stable. Do you have any experience of Sky Q. Not sure if you are in the UK.
I believe Sky have stopped using built in powerline adapters in their boxes. A friend has just had Sky instal several boxes, and they put in a couple of Ethernet cables after testing the WiFi performance and finding it to be unstable.
Hi @ChrisSU, I didn’t realise that Sky used internal Power-Line adaptors - I always use external sockets. Perhaps it is just my understanding or lack of.
Not looking promising for me moving to WiFi for everything!
As I have stated though, my main source is an SSD connected directly to my NXD2 - there is no way that Power-Line can interfere with this - is there?!? 
…just another thought, I connect my 1TB Samsung external SSD with the supplied USB cable - are there any sensible alternatives?
There’s a lot of hoo-ha made about powerline and how it effects ‘sound’. My advice is try it and see. If you have the powerline units there already then just do a simple test using a long lan cable instead of over the powerline and see if it improves things.
PS if using powerline devices you MUST ensure that EVERYTHING mains powered near or around the homeplug device is mains powered via the filtering socket on the front of the units. This stops (20dB attenuation) all of the rubbish mains noise from things like power supplies, cfl, led, etc… getting onto your mains.
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Thanks, yes all are fed from a power strip connected to the front socket of the power line adaptor at least in the cupboard where the Naim gear sits.
Surely the Naim power lites supplied with my gear help as well?
Thinking about it, perhaps I should apply the same principle all over the house.
I thought you meant in your previous post that the powerlines in your Sky boxes were in use, but maybe not?
Is this attached directly to your streamer? If so, I presume you can’t access it via Roon.
Sorry for the confusion @ChrisSU, I didn’t even know that Sky boxes had that feature - I meant that I use the adaptors that plug into the mains sockets and then an Ethernet connects from the adaptor to the NDX2.
Hi @ChrisSU, yes correct. However, I have an identical drive with the exact same content that I connect to my laptop upstairs (Roon core) if I want to listen to my ripped music via Roon. I will have to do some serious comparisons between my SSD into NDX2 via Naim app vs SSD into core via Roon and power lines.
Understood - let us know if you hear any difference.
Yes… everywhere you have a homeplug device then everything nearby must be powered through it. This cleans up your mains and makes the homeplug a lot more reliable. And… aren’t we told clean mains is good?
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It’s amazing how many users don’t know the purpose of the pass-through socket… they think it’s to ‘save’ using up a mains socket but actually it’s for noise filtering. In the argument re. mains noise then is it better to use the filtering and hence stop noise from SMPs, LED, CFL, chargers, etc, etc, going around the mains or is it better for the homeplug noise? Okay, in a perfect world, then neither. But is it better to have noise in the KHz range (SMP) on your mains or in the megahertz range (homeplug)?
Because I was stupid enough to NOT run lan cables when we did our house refurbishment a decade ago, I mean floor boards up throughout the house and guess who forgot to run lan cables? I mean I’m in the business I should know better! Anyway I used the old 200meg homeplug devices for the living room, hifi, telly, printers, garage, outdoor wifi and even a camera on the outside of the barn, and by adopting the policy of clean mains it all worked perfectly with a good sustained and rock stable 50meg throughput. The only small issue I had was if we had a power outage (overhead mains) then sometimes the odd unit would go offline - the simple fix was unplug it and then plug it back in again, 10 seconds later all was well. However we get some nasty power outages - even crashed the NDX once. I only started a policy of replacing them with proper lan cable earlier this year when, after10 years use, they started to die. It took be a whole morning to run 4 lan points (running lan cable around the outside of the house) and I must admit at one stage I was tempted to stop and just get some more homeplug devices - when they work it’s just so much easier! I still have a few left though going to a pair of network printers in a spare room.
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Powerlines create phenomenal amounts of RFI. If you are not susceptible to the audible effects of RFI and the resultant digital noise then you will be fine… though you neighbours might have an issue.
Certainly in the higher end Naim portfolio, much effort is made to decouple and reduce RFI, and powerline adapters will just rail road through it.
Remember Powerlines convert your home mains wiring loom into a wide bandwidth radio transmitter antenna… so the RFI is conveyed in wiring and conducted through the near field air through out your house… ie you don’t need a physical wire connection.
If you are concerned with RFI and not sure whether it’s compromising your audio, use the radio test to identify relative field strengths and sources.
A MW or SW radio set off station brought close to radiating powerline mains cable or SMPS, or poorly designed LED light, poor solar panel inverter etc etc will buzz crazily… this will be affecting your sensitive audio equipment if near by. As I say if you hear no detrimental effects then you are lucky and should be fine with noisy SMPS and noisy network equipment… take advantage of it…
Word of caution, if you use Superfast fibre broadband, ensure your twisted pair digital line is well away from mains wiring or mains appliances if you don’t want a performance hit with Powerlines… such interference could well band your link as a compromised line… much of radio spectrum used by VDSL is not gapped by Powerlines as it is for protected radio services.
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So your conclusion is…?
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