Optical Network Configurations

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

No it doesn't. The public addressing space is exhausted. It's a broadcast protocol. The header is overly complicated. The subnetting is hierarchical, hacks abound to get it tamed. 

 

IPv4 sucks period.

 

HA!

 

Compared to utopia everything sucks. The unfortunate thing is that utopia doesn't exist. IPv6 isn't utopia either. IPv4 works very well. This site runs on IPv4. Don't tell me the text would be a bit crisper if it was on IPv6.

[The Computer Audiophile]

OK @plissken I'll be done with this conversation that is killing everyone else. I've always told you I value your contributions here. You're very skilled and it shows. However, I see your contributions frequently like that of subjective fundamentalists, but not he other side. Some people say you must have class A amps even if they make your room 100 degrees. That isn't the real world. Your suggestions are always good, but they often ignore the real world. As if every install is a Greenfield and nothing else matters. IT is a service. it serves those who use it, not the other way around. Finding solutions is what's important, not suggesting the best solution in a vacuum. 

 

There's no way you operate at work like you do here. It just doesn't work in the real world. When the general counsel says, we use an old LexisNexis app that requires bonjour / mDNS to be enabled on the network, it gets enabled on the network. If you tell him it's ridiculous and you won't enable it, we all know what happens. 

 

Bringing it back to audio, there is a utopia approach where everything works as you'd like, then there's the real world where people want choices and don't want IT to tell them what to do and how to do it. If there's no way around it, sure, that's the way it has to be. If flow control is available to be used how it was designed, it makes sense to use it. Again, real world, not a utopia or a communist system where everyone has to use a fitlet2 (I like those by the way).

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

If there is no other way sure. And I don't operate this way here or at work. That's you and your transference.  Multiple times now you've brought me in and I helped out. People were finally in enough pain and they simply listened, took my advice, and were better for it.

 

Brownfield I make work. Greenfield I design to best practices.

 

Again I never said don't enable flow control. If you have something that will only work with Flow Control I'll turn it on for you myself.  If you come to me with something that required it I would ask if they are married to it. Why wouldn't I ask and also make other suggestion based on my experience that you seem to have thought I didn't have.

 

My biggest gripe at this point is I think you are being disingenuous in the face of everything else to the contrary wrt to my experience.  So this is my ask: If what you insinuated is what you truly feel then don't PM me when a member here has a messed up audio hardware because other members here have made a dog's meal of it.  Because you honestly shouldn't need my help if you've got it all figured out.

I PM'd you one time to ask if you could help someone. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just now, plissken said:

 

Once for yourself and twice for others from my recollection.

I only remember the guy we both remote connected to.

 

Oh wait, I asked you a question about Ethernet cable testing a hundred years ago. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

18 minutes ago, plissken said:

My biggest gripe at this point is I think you are being disingenuous in the face of everything else to the contrary wrt to my experience.

 

OK, with this we can get back on topic to discussing things other people care about. 

 

I'm just trying to provide some balance because I think readers in any hobby can be lead down a path that isn't necessarily the best for them. Most audiophiles don't care to learn about networking. When I see recommendations that flow control is terrible and one should move on from a component or software that requires it, I chime in because I don't think that advice is very good. 

 

Balance is always good. If you would've described the pros and cons to using flow control in these specific audio contexts (keep in mind I wouldn't expect you to do that because you likely have better things to do with your time), then I wouldn't have even chimed in. I'm looking out for the community and understand it's wants and needs. 

 

People who want to use low powered audio endpoints that require flow control can do so without any negative side effect that I know of. 

 

Question: Do you know of a negative side effect for home users enabling flow control for their audio endpoints?

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

Nuh uh. You sent me your ISP Logs.... I forgot about the Ethernet Cable testing and the University Paper sent you that I used for testing.  So that's another.

I have no recollection, but I'll take your word for it. I would never claim to know everything or even close to it. You've been helpful. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, plissken said:

 

I've already stated this: When I see a vendor in 2019,20,21 release a product that relies on Flow control for congestion management to their own interface I see them incompetent. I personally don't recommend products that operate like that.

 

Now if this is something you already have I will do my best to make it work. As Ericuco already mentioned, and it's been my experience on more than one occasion, that the oR at that time had some issues. Both people that I helped returned them (or one did and one couldn't since it was beyond the window and just went with an additional purchase).

 

If turning on FC Tx works than it works and I've no issue doing it.

 

 

You didn't really answer the question in a way that can help anyone. You provided a subjective personal assessment. 

 

I hoped you could provide a simple , no there aren't really any downsides to this in this specific situation or yes, here's the technical objective negative sides to this. 

 

Seriously, it could help people to know the objective facts. 

 

What are the negative aspects of enabling flow control for home audio devices? I don't know if any objective reasons why this is bad. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

10 minutes ago, jabbr said:

When lots of pause frames are present it can cause network congestion, that said there shouldn't be pause frames when endpoints that can handle a full 1Gbe are used. So I don't see harm in enabling and personally do. You can monitor traffic etc and tune the network. My general philosophy is to have gobs more bandwidth than is needed. I'm not on a campus with 1000s of users so don't need to do fancy stuff to optimize. 

 

This is one of those things that isn't really a negative because the amount of pause frames, when flow control is setup for audio devices, are negligible. Meaning, good luck finding something that's effected by it on your network. I use several very low power endpoints with advertised 1GbE, but far lower real world speeds and CPUs that aren't setting the world clocking speed records. 

 

I hear what you're saying though and I try to have far more bandwidth than needed. In fact, right now I'm pegging a 1 GbE interface on a server while copying data to it and I wish it had 10 GbE!

[The Computer Audiophile]

All of this is visible at the analog output of the DAC right?

 

Only kidding, I couldn't resist :~)

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, plissken said:

You only need 100MB (11.25MB/s) connectivity at that point for any 2 channel PCM or DSD format right?

You know this is false. Try 1,536 kHz 24 bit. That roughly 73 Mbps. 
 

1 hour ago, plissken said:

Why implement a subpar system that is basically buffering every other second?

Audio doesn’t stream like a file copy. 
 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, plissken said:

 

It sure can... Tidal does it. JRiver does it.

 

Why would I go with a vendor that has an algorithm that is popping data CONSTANTLY over a what are now becoming common place multi-rate interfaces of 1-5Gbe over old school CAT5e? Never mind I have 10GBe cards passively cooled that cost $20 plus transceiver costs.

 

I can cherry pick examples just as well as you can. But better yet here's a video on the matter. The point I'm making starts at 1:20. You can see the graphic eq active for an entire minute. With 0 connectivity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You’re ignoring the objective facts. 
 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 hours ago, plissken said:

 

73Mbps is 9.125MB/s.

 

Or

 

100mbps > 73mbps.

How close to 100 Mbps one can get without issues is also important. You wouldn’t spec a system for work that’s 73% used with no other traffic. 
 

It’s also more than you said originally. I just used the facts. People stream more than 16/44.1. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just now, plissken said:

 

Actually I'm not. At all. The point I'm making is that you can design a system, if you so wish, with attention paid to selection of products were you can realize as much wire speed as you wish. Often with less expense to esoteric products.

 

Now I do use a Pi 4 and Roipee but prior I was running a system with 10GBe fiber just as an exercise.

You claim JRiver plays music like a file copy, all at once. I showed you evidence of it doing the opposite. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

7 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

If the data rate is indeed 9.125MB/s there is enough overhead for maintenance traffic.

Who uses MB when talking network traffic?

 

It seems disingenuous to convert something using 98 out of 100 Mb into 9.125 MB, when nobody uses MB. 
 

Where on Earth is using 98% of one’s bandwidth advisable?

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

How much content is natively available at 32/768. For the consumer formats that I know of, and I'm making a point about why you would devise a playback system that is constantly paging out of buffer, I simply stated if that's they case and you really believe that then you don't need anything other than 100Mbit networking.

 

I'll stand by that statement all day long.

 

As a practicality 1Gbe is the defacto standard with multi-rate from 1,2.5,5,10Gbe being readily obtainable.

 

If all you all really want to get into the weeds on this. I've no problem. My cheap ass TP-Link Omada AC1350's get me sub 2ms response round trip and ~38MB/s(304mbps or 304000kbps).

 

 

You’re way out of your league again. You know the network text book but not how the real world uses audio. Nothing to do with native rate content. It’s about people who upsample. 
 

Your use case of JRiver with USB DAC and loading files into memory is a clap trap. It has zero to do with using JRiver and a DLNA end point. I showed you facts, you refused to believe them. If you don’t believe screenshots, I’m not sure what else to tell you. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

15 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

It's just a conversion.

 

You  said 73mbps. That's 9.125MB/s.

 

100 - 73 = 27. Or 27% available wire speed. The typical connection should be able to see 90mbps routinely. That's still 13% for over head and maintenance traffic. You wanted to go down this rabbit hole.

 

I can spin up iPerf and simulate this load all day long and show you things like Ping, DNS, Microsoft Discovery Protocol, LLDP, will all function. 

Your arrogance knows no bounds. 
 

Show me a single network you’ve designed, where you were Ok with 13% overhead, rather than just swallow your pride and agree 1 Gbps was probably a better route. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, plissken said:

 

Oh christ Chris... Here we go:

 

 

You understand the term 'being facetious' correct?

 

I'd say your ego can't take a hammering so you resort to taking stuff entirely out of context. I did give you fair warning. You can either be above the belt or you can resort to what you are resorting to now.

 

It just really rubs me the wrong way when you make statements that you may believe are true, but they need much more context and are often not the whole truth. 
 

Last week it took Jussi to explain to you how applications work for you to back off on your assertion that flow control was only used in poor designs and people should move in to new solutions that don’t use it. 
 

You make assertions as if there is a single text book and the entire world works as the book says. I know that you know this isn’t real, but you certainly like to push it as being real when you’re talking to audiophiles. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just now, plissken said:

 

I know that's not the case with any of my networks. But would you believe it if I told you, that according to one of your sponsors, there are about 3000 happy customers doing just this?

 

I don’t care about someone being a sponsor, but you believing happy customers means anything is really something. We should stick to objective facts. 
 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

I didn't back off an inch. I said I would use, and I do use, other products that don't have that ham-fisted approach. I also said if someone were using said products and they asked for my help in enabling flow control that I most certainly would.

 

If you want to get into this let me know. I can provide a master class to you on traffic policing, shaping, marking, and show you how I can design a network using using these audio endpoint devices with 0 flow control having to be turned on for the switch interface.

 

I think everyone else has probably had it with our arguing. I can enable flow control and call it a day. You can traffic police, shape, mark, etc... and get to the same end. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, plissken said:

Again I'm comfortable going to the mat.

We are well aware of that. I'm surprised you haven't offered any money for people to fly out to see the match. 

 

The world isn't black and white. I only counter your statements because I believe they mislead people. Sure, 73 Mbps will work, but you're being disingenuous here because you seem to have no problem throwing flow control under the bus even though it does work. This isn't about what will work. Heck, AAC at 256 will work for many people. It's about being reasonable and seeing that there are many sides to issues and many ways to do things. 

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

11 minutes ago, jabbr said:

Not sue why anyone would limit themselves to 100 Mbe these days.

They've likely weighed the pros and cons of using the products versus not using them and decided to use them. There's more to life than only bandwidth. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, jabbr said:

Unlike copper, optical does not have the same increase in power with increased bandwidth. One of the reasons we are here. 
 

Yes you can weight different perceived advantages and disadvantages. I’ve done that for myself and of course other people are free to make their own optimizations. It’s great we have such diverse choices. 

With you 100%

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, jabbr said:

Not necessary for audio, but to demonstrate the rapid pace of improvement in network storage, now, gulp, faster than local Optane SDD: [NVME-oF]

 

https://www.servethehome.com/new-nvidia-bluefield-2-dpu-nvme-of-performance-faster-than-optane-ssds/

Wow. Thanks for the link. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 hours ago, m.i.c.k.e.y said:

Dont know if it has been posted but LHY has just released their SW-10 Eithernet Switch:

 

That looks interesting. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

45 minutes ago, jabbr said:

 

My server that Roon runs on is a Dell Poweredge in which I have installed a Mellanox 100Gbe NIC. This NIC is powered by a bog standard PCIe bus/PSU. The low noise/jitter requirements to operate at 100GbE are a marvel of modern technology. These NICs have been engineered with their own onboard power systems and are not dependent on a fancy PSU. Similarly modern PCIe buses at PCIe-4/5/6 require vanishingly low noise/jitter in order to work, and they work. Admittedly common mode noise can be generated but again the fiber is a perfect solution for that.

Makes me wanna try 100Gbe