A novel way to massively improve the SQ of computer audio streaming

[austinpop]

Yes, I'll get that one.

 

The one I bought was this one:

AmazonBasics USB 3.0 to 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00M77HMU0/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apip_LGTz9cGWeQpQ8

 

It has the ASIX 8179 (?) chipset, which, best I could tell, supports promiscuous mode.

 

What chipset does windows show for your Anker? It'll be in the adapter view.

 

EDIT: is that your Ethernet 4, shown as a Realtek USB in your picture above? That is definitely a different chipset.

 

 

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[lateboomer]

I didn't have to force anything with this one. I just plugged it into a USB port and it worked.

 

It worked in both positions (either as the NIC connected to a microRendu or the NIC connected to my switch which is connected to my router in a different room).

 

Once the network bridge was set up with it and another NIC, HQPlayer could detect the microRendu running NAA. This was with HQPlayer running on the same computer as the network bridge and 2 NICs. But I ran HQPlayer on another computer (a mac connected to the same network as the NIC in the bridged machine connected to my switch/router) and it detected the microRendu running NAA that was directly connected to one of the NICs in the machine with the network bridge.

 

I have this USB to Ethernet adapter plugged into a USB 3 port. One of the listed product features is: USB 3.0 enables SuperSpeed data transfer, backward compatible with USB 2.0 / 1.1 standards.

 

Highly recommended if you can't throw Ethernet cards inside your machine!

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]32553[/ATTACH]

Thank you for the sharing. I need to get one to try it out

 

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[lateboomer]

Thank you for the sharing. I need to get one to try it out

 

Sent from my Redmi Note 3 using Computer Audiophile mobile app

I think first I will retry again this weekend using the usb3.0 ethernet adapter that I already have got it. Because I see the chipset is Realtek family which same as mine. Just that previously I couldn't make it recognized on USB port 3.0! But only port 2.0. I think I need to install the driver come with the adapter

 

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[austinpop]

^^^

 

Me too, I think I plan to update my driver from the ASIX website and try again, before replacing the adapter.

[clipper]

Yes, I'll get that one.

 

The one I bought was this one:

AmazonBasics USB 3.0 to 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00M77HMU0/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apip_LGTz9cGWeQpQ8

 

It has the ASIX 8179 (?) chipset, which, best I could tell, supports promiscuous mode.

 

What chipset does windows show for your Anker? It'll be in the adapter view.

 

EDIT: is that your Ethernet 4, shown as a Realtek USB in your picture above? That is definitely a different chipset.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

 

Yeah, Ethernet 4 is the USB Ethernet adapter. Realtek USB GbE Family Controller.

[phusis]

So to be clear you are referring to using wifi for the connection from your PC to the rest of your network? If so, there has been some discussion on this and as all things in this hobby there is no clear consensus on if wifi or wired is better. I personally tried to have the best of both worlds by having a wireless bridge in my music that is wired to my PC running HQP and Roon.

 

Back on topic and regarding wifi, perhaps try connecting the SMS200 or microrendu to a wireless bridge? I guess that would defeat the purpose of a direct connection but maybe having the PC communicate with the SMS200 or microrendu via wifi even if its through a bridge may be better than a direct ethernet connection?

 

Yes, I've inserted an Edimax WiFi-dongle in a USB-port on my sMS-200, which is then "communicating" directly with the router.

 

Thanks for suggesting the wireless bridge. Any sonic reports on this type of connection?

 

And indeed, yes, I can see (from the few reports I've read) there's no uniform opinion on the sound of the WiFi-route, but I guess I'm surprised by the lack of positive accounts..

[Theobetley]

Ok I tried again, got closer but no cigar. This is what I did

 

1 plugged Ethernet cable from pc to microRendu

2 bridged 2 networks

3 set up promiscuous mode in each Ethernet connection

4 tried running hqplayer no go

5 rebooted hqplayer still would not play

6 rebooted microRendu still would not play

7 tried toggling the network switch in hqp (toolbar far right). Still no play.

 

one more thing when I tried to run a song hqplayer would show a little window in which a green bar cycled back and forth, then stopped and either would not play or seemed to stutter then stop.

 

 

In each instance above I could load files into Hqp but would not play, seemed to play but only stuttered then stopped.

 

i did get a weird windows warning from OS on network...do you want to enable access...or something like that. I said yes. I feel I am close. Any suggestions?

 

Did not try rebooting pc.

[clipper]

Ok I tried again, got closer but no cigar. This is what I did

 

1 plugged Ethernet cable from pc to microRendu

2 bridged 2 networks

3 set up promiscuous mode in each Ethernet connection

4 tried running hqplayer no go

5 rebooted hqplayer still would not play

6 rebooted microRendu still would not play

7 tried toggling the network switch in hqp (toolbar far right). Still no play.

 

one more thing when I tried to run a song hqplayer would show a little window in which a green bar cycled back and forth, then stopped and either would not play or seemed to stutter then stop.

 

 

In each instance above I could load files into Hqp but would not play, seemed to play but only stuttered then stopped.

 

i did get a weird windows warning from OS on network...do you want to enable access...or something like that. I said yes. I feel I am close. Any suggestions?

 

Did not try rebooting pc.

 

1) What are the 2 Ethernet adapters? Built-in and USB Ethernet adapter? Built-in and PCI-E card? Other?

 

2) If you open up a command prompt, what do you see when you issue the ipconfig command?

 

 

3) Find out the IP address of your microRendu (by going to MySonicorbiter, for instance). Open up a command prompt and ping that IP address 10 times. What do you see?

 

[Theobetley]

1) What are the 2 Ethernet adapters? Built-in and USB Ethernet adapter? Built-in and PCI-E card? Other?

 

2) If you open up a command prompt, what do you see when you issue the ipconfig command?

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]32637[/ATTACH]

 

3) Find out the IP address of your microRendu (by going to MySonicorbiter, for instance). Open up a command prompt and ping that IP address 10 times. What do you see?

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]32638[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]32639[/ATTACH]

1 built in pci - e card

 

2 I see something similar as you

 

did not try to ping the microRendu. Will try that.

[clipper]

1 built in pci - e card

 

2 I see something similar as you

 

did not try to ping the microRendu. Will try that.

 

I think if you're using built-in Ethernet and PCI-E NICs, you shouldn't (generally) have to do anything regarding forcing promiscuous mode. Maybe that's what's messing it up.

 

Open a command prompt and issue the netsh bridge show adapter command. What do you see? Here's what I see (on a bridge that's working with 3 NICs):

[Theobetley]

I think if you're using built-in Ethernet and PCI-E NICs, you shouldn't (generally) have to do anything regarding forcing promiscuous mode. Maybe that's what's messing it up.

 

Open a command prompt and issue the netsh bridge show adapter command. What do you see? Here's what I see (on a bridge that's working with 3 NICs):

[ATTACH=CONFIG]32641[/ATTACH]

ok when I tried again I could not manually reassign my ip4 etc. etc. addresses in the bridge so I could not get internet access to get sonicorbiter.com to show me my Rendu address. Interesting when I tried to put in my original Ethernet address of 255.255.255.0 it would only accept addesses between 1 and 233. Also after I bridged I noticed that windows OS try to and successfully set up a virtual network. Also when I tried the

netsh bridge show adapter command I get something very different from you ... a longer output set.

 

Really befuddled now.

[Theobetley]

Obviously I did not set up the bridge correctly. Not sure what happened because it is such an easy set of instructions to bridge 2 nics.

[austinpop]

Obviously I did not set up the bridge correctly. Not sure what happened because it is such an easy set of instructions to bridge 2 nics.

Don't despair, you have company! Mine's not working either.

 

In my case, not all machines on my network are ping'able from my bridged machine by IP address. Some are, which is the weird thing.

 

I'm going to suggest you try something which I will try, but I won't have a chance to do it until early next week (traveling). Dismantle your bridge on your Windows box, reboot and start over. For each of these cases, allow enough time between steps to allow the affected boxes to fully come up and be active.

 

 

1. Setup the bridge as per the instruction.
   
2. Shutdown the windows machine.
   
3. Shutdown your switch, your router, your NAS, and any other boxes in your audio chain that are networked.
   
4. Bring up your router.
   
5. Bring up all switches.
   
6. Startup your Windows bridged machine
   
7. Startup other machines in your chain
   
8. Finally, startup your endpoint connected to the bridge (mR?)
   

 

See how that goes. My suspicion on my ping experience is that the ARP tables in all the machines on the network aren't getting updated. A full reboot of everything might fix it.

 

Or not.

[tboooe]

Success! I got this to work but perhaps in a different configuration that what others have tried. In my case, I do not have a SMS-200 nor a microrendu. I use an i3 based mini pc to act as the NAA. This pc runs Server 2012 R2 Essentials. This pc is already set up with a fixed IP address. In my server pc running HQP and Roonserver I have an X520 DA2 dual fiber NIC. Here is my network setup:

 

Server PC:

Port #1 - fiber directly connected to Cisco SG300 fiber switch

Port #2 - fiber to FMC to NAA pc

 

Cisco SG300 fiber switch:

Connected to wireless bridge via cat6 cable

 

Dlink DAP 1650 wireless AC bridge:

wireless connection to Netgear Nighthawl R7000 AC router upstairs where NAS is attached.

 

At least for me, I got the direct connection to my NAA pc working without any problems. Once I installed the dual port fiber NIC, I made sure Port #1 could communicate with the rest of my network and that I could play music. I assigned a fixed IP address to this port just for troubleshooting purposes but it is not required. Without my NAA attached I bridged Port #1 and #2. This took a little bit of time. Once bridged, I connected my NAA pc. Everything worked. I wish I had some good advice for anyone setting this up but for me it just worked without having to change any of the IPV4 settings of the two ports. Things are perhaps a bit more complicated for the microrendu and SMS-200 since you cant directly assign an IP address.

 

I cant yet comment on the sound quality but I did notice my ping times have increased a bit. I noticed there is always 1 ping response to the server pc and NAA pc that is a lot higher than normal. For example, pinging the NAA pc I get:

3ms

3ms

3ms

27ms

 

I'll report back with my listening impressions.

[xiddox]

Apologies if this is a dumb question, but why use bridge mode? When I used to use jplay, I just configured the second card interface as a different network. I would have thought bridging these two interfaces might expose the interface you want isolated to other network traffic.

 

 

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[tboooe]

Apologies if this is a dumb question, but why use bridge mode? When I used to use jplay, I just configured the second card interface as a different network. I would have thought bridging these two interfaces might expose the interface you want isolated to other network traffic.

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

 

You are right. In my case where I am connecting two PC's where I am able to edit the network settings I could have used the Jplay approach. The problem for me is then I wouldn't be able to access the second PC remotely. I don't have a monitor or keyboard in my listening room so I use remote desktop.

 

In the case of devices like the microrendu where there is no capability to edit the network settings bridging is required so a DHCP server can automatically assign the IP, subnet, etc. Because of this requirement, most people usually just connect the microrendu to their switch or router. Bridging then doesn't expose it to more or less network traffic. Bridging does however allows the user to bypass the switch or router which seems to have some benefits.

[Theobetley]

1) What are the 2 Ethernet adapters? Built-in and USB Ethernet adapter? Built-in and PCI-E card? Other?

 

2) If you open up a command prompt, what do you see when you issue the ipconfig command?

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]32637[/ATTACH]

 

3) Find out the IP address of your microRendu (by going to MySonicorbiter, for instance). Open up a command prompt and ping that IP address 10 times. What do you see?

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]32638[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]32639[/ATTACH]

When I ping my microRendu I get 1' and 2's rather than all 1's like you got. When I try to play a song in HQP I get the green bar oscillating back and forth...no play. I even went to control panel networking and tried to find an fix problems. Same result. Tried rebooting, same result

[Theobetley]

These are my pinging results

 

 

:\WINDOWS\system32>ping 10.0.0.114 -n 10

Pinging 10.0.0.114 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 10.0.0.114: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64

Reply from 10.0.0.114: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64

Reply from 10.0.0.114: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

Reply from 10.0.0.114: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

Reply from 10.0.0.114: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

Reply from 10.0.0.114: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64

Reply from 10.0.0.114: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

Reply from 10.0.0.114: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

Reply from 10.0.0.114: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

Reply from 10.0.0.114: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for 10.0.0.114:

Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 2ms, Average = 0ms

[clipper]

These are my pinging results

 

 

:\WINDOWS\system32>ping 10.0.0.114 -n 10

Pinging 10.0.0.114 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 10.0.0.114: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64

Reply from 10.0.0.114: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64

Reply from 10.0.0.114: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

Reply from 10.0.0.114: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

Reply from 10.0.0.114: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

Reply from 10.0.0.114: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64

Reply from 10.0.0.114: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

Reply from 10.0.0.114: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

Reply from 10.0.0.114: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

Reply from 10.0.0.114: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for 10.0.0.114:

Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 2ms, Average = 0ms

 

Those ping results are fine. I just wanted to make sure you weren't dropping some (or all) packets.

 

If you kill the bridge and have the microRendu hooked up to your normal network, do you get music instead of the oscillating green bar?

[Theobetley]

If you kill the bridge and have the microRendu hooked up to your normal network, do you get music instead of the oscillating green bar?

 

If you mean the microRendu connected to my router while my pc is connected to the router (this is my normal setup) yes I get music. If you mean no bridge but microRendu connected to my 2nd nic on the pc I get no music.

[Theobetley]

Btw my nic 1 is 100/1000 speed while my 2nd nic is 10/100. Is that an issue?

[tboooe]

Strange...my bridge died this morning for no apparent reason. I had to delete and redo it. Another weird thing, I think there are some issues when I try to assign the bridge a fixed IP. When I do this I notice the default gateway of my network gets deleted after I enter it and press ok. Maybe this had something to do with my Roon remote not being very responsive, though music played fine. If I allow the bridge to get the IP address automatically everything seems to work better. I do not know if this is coincidental or not, but when I let the bridge get its IP address automatically, it always gets the address of the port connected to my network I had previously defined manually.

 

I also did a test this morning to verify that music was being direct from HQP to the NAA through the direct connection versus back through my network which would of course defeat the purpose of this tweak. Unfortunately the command tracert is not very useful because it only shows network routes through routers and not switches. So what I did was play a music file locally on my HQP PC, remove its connection to my network and verify that music still played. Luckily it did so that means the direct connection is working as intended.

 

Anyway, for anyone having trouble perhaps do not manually assign an IP address the bridge?

 

 

EDIT...it seems my bridge dying has something to do with switching back and forth from GUI to Minimal Server mode with Audiophile Optimizer. It just happened again. Odd.

[tboooe]

After listening to a direct connection to my NAA PC here are my thoughts:

 

Positives

As others have mentioned there is definitely more clarity. I am able to hear more nuance and detail in the music.

There seems to be more energy in the music. The sound is also bigger. Certain high notes like guitar strings sound very well defined and immediate.

What I like most is how my soundstage is more layered giving it a 3d effect. Vocals are more forward in the soundstage while instruments "appear" further back. Very cool.

 

Negatives

Admittedly, I am more of a wannabe tube guy. I prefer sound a bit on the warm and lush side. The energy and definition the direct connection provides can at times sound a bit harsh to me.

I am also more a mid venue kind of guy in that I prefer the music to be a bit further away from me versus right in front of me. The vocals moving forward in the soundstage makes me feel like the singer is too close to me.

 

Overall, I would say this direct connection definitely changes the sound. At this point I am not convinced if the changes are right for me though.

[Peter_T]

After I managed to get my setup working in bridged mode with a 3-way bridge (NIC1, NIC2, Wifi see my post #340) under W10, I now got it working under W2012R2 in minimal server mode with AO optimization V2.1.

 

The sound quality is certainly much better than under W10!. The SQ is again more transparent, cleaner, better bass, more dynamic. I didn't think it was possible, but it is. It is similar to what tboooe describes above. Including sometimes a bit of harshness? (on my headphones) but not with my tube-amp (Audionote Conqueror)

 

In my previous setup (Jplaystreamer-Dual-PC, with W2012R2 in core-mode plus JCAT USB-card) there is some reason to expect benefits in SQ with the audio-PC directly attached to my DAC. But in my new setup the single audio-server is only attached to the SOMT200, not to my DAC. But yes : there is a remarkable improvement in SQ (again).

 

Making the bridge under W2012 gives a slightly different result : the bridge was not requiring a static IP-address (like under W10), but could use DHCP. What stays the same is, that I could disconnect the Wifi-component from my router, without causing stuttering.

 

There were some network quirks I had to overcome before Jriver MC20 could pickup the SOTM200-renderer. I had to switch on "network detection" by manually turning on some services. I will come back to this point, but I want first to ask AO about this.

[kennyb123]

Admittedly, I am more of a wannabe tube guy. I prefer sound a bit on the warm and lush side. The energy and definition the direct connection provides can at times sound a bit harsh to me.

 

I have heard a bit of this as well. I'm not yet sure if it's a case of hearing bad recordings more clearly or whether just more system optimization is needed. I'm tending towards the latter as the directly connected Mac Pro is a far from being optimized from audio.

 

My bias is towards a clearer view of the music, even if that means I might more clearly hear problems in recordings. That's why I'm inclined towards trying to optimize this direct connection.

 

 

 

 

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