JCAT Net Card Femto

[dminches]

I installed my card yesterday and followed Marcin's guide in order to set things up and adjust the card's settings.  I am powering it with a 5V rail from my HD-Plex 400W LPS.

 

Have people experimented with any of the settings and have anything to share?

 

I plan on letting things play as is for a while but then I may adjust things.

 

Marcin, which are the most influential settings that you would recommend people play with?

[StreamFidelity]

The instructions from Marcin are great. Unfortunately a bit dated. I did'nt found all described settings. Of course I use the latest Intel drivers. But everything runs optimally with the guide.

 

I had experimented a lot with the settings before. Also with the tool SG TCP Optimizer. That was'nt succesfull. 

 

I'm convinced that lowest latencies are the key factor in streaming. I therefore test each setting with the tool LatencyMon.

 

 

[Marcin_gps]

2 hours ago, dminches said:

I installed my card yesterday and followed Marcin's guide in order to set things up and adjust the card's settings.  I am powering it with a 5V rail from my HD-Plex 400W LPS.

 

Have people experimented with any of the settings and have anything to share?

 

I plan on letting things play as is for a while but then I may adjust things.

 

Marcin, which are the most influential settings that you would recommend people play with?

I'd check 1Gbit and 100Mbit link speeds - this is the biggest difference. 

 

Regards, 

Marcin

[Marcin_gps]

Actually, if it's not a problem in your scenario, 10Mbit also sounds great, but make sure to set it to full duplex. 

[StreamFidelity]

Hi Marcin,

 

are there any considerations to offer an optical fiber connection at some point (e.g. Asus XG-C100F 10G network card SFP Plus Port)?

 

I'm asking because my switch SOtM sNH-10G has two SFP ports.

 

Regards Gabriel

[mourip]

On 12/31/2019 at 9:42 AM, StreamFidelity said:

Hi Marcin,

 

are there any considerations to offer an optical fiber connection at some point (e.g. Asus XG-C100F 10G network card SFP Plus Port)?

 

I'm asking because my switch SOtM sNH-10G has two SFP ports.

 

Regards Gabriel

 

My system is set up with a clean side and a dirty side with isolation using a big transformer. My server was connected to the LAN side with an optical cable using FMCs. The FMC on my clean side was powered by an LPS. My FEMTO card has the two ports bridged with one port going to the LAN and the other directly to my Roon endpoint. On a lark I decided to remove the optical isolation and just use an ethernet cable to my stock Cisco router. To my surprise I liked the sound better. Perhaps the issue was with the FMCs themselves? Perhaps sometimes simpler is better?

 

I am just pointing out that for me in audio sometimes theory does not always account for what I subjectively experience. Or perhaps I am working with the wrong theory or do not really have a good handle on it?

 

Either way the FEMTO card has been an excellent addition to my system, surpassing the two port bridged Intel card that it replaced.

[Marcin_gps]

On 1/2/2020 at 2:34 PM, mourip said:

 

My system is set up with a clean side and a dirty side with isolation using a big transformer. My server was connected to the LAN side with an optical cable using FMCs. The FMC on my clean side was powered by an LPS. My FEMTO card has the two ports bridged with one port going to the LAN and the other directly to my Roon endpoint. On a lark I decided to remove the optical isolation and just use an ethernet cable to my stock Cisco router. To my surprise I liked the sound better. Perhaps the issue was with the FMCs themselves? Perhaps sometimes simpler is better?

 

I am just pointing out that for me in audio sometimes theory does not always account for what I subjectively experience. Or perhaps I am working with the wrong theory or do not really have a good handle on it?

 

Either way the FEMTO card has been an excellent addition to my system, surpassing the two port bridged Intel card that it replaced.

 

On 12/31/2019 at 3:42 PM, StreamFidelity said:

Hi Marcin,

 

are there any considerations to offer an optical fiber connection at some point (e.g. Asus XG-C100F 10G network card SFP Plus Port)?

 

I'm asking because my switch SOtM sNH-10G has two SFP ports.

 

Regards Gabriel

In my opinion and my experiences with fiber optic connections this is not the best way to go in terms of sound quality, so I'm hesitant to introduce SFP in the NET Card

 

Happy New Year! 

 

Regards, 

Marcin

[mourip]

Hi Marcin,

 

Have you ever considered adding an input for a 10M reference clock to the Femto card?

 

Is this something it might benefit from or does this even apply to the way the card works?

 

I am considering adding a EtherRegen switch to my system. It allows for a 10M reference input and so this thought came to mind.

 

Best,

Paul

[Marcin_gps]

 

1 hour ago, mourip said:

Hi Marcin,

 

Have you ever considered adding an input for a 10M reference clock to the Femto card?

 

Is this something it might benefit from or does this even apply to the way the card works?

 

I am considering adding a EtherRegen switch to my system. It allows for a 10M reference input and so this thought came to mind.

 

Best,

Paul

 

Hi Paul, 

 

I did, but I don't think many customers would use it. I have sth better in the works. Please stay tuned till March  

 

Regards, 
Marcin

[ASRMichael]

Marcin

 

Your teasing us! More info please? 

[Marcin_gps]

On 1/31/2020 at 9:45 PM, ASRMichael said:

Marcin

 

Your teasing us! More info please? 

Yes, that was a tease

5ppb - no more details for now, sorry

 

Regards, 
Marcin

[ASRMichael]

Maybe too many clues! New Femto card with Ultra OXCO clock! 

[FelipeRolim]

I bought the JCAT USB Card FEMTO a year ago, and I'm still postponing the purchase of the Net Card FEMTO. I need two units., but it seems better to wait a little longer, hehehe...

[Marcin_gps]

Current JCAT NET & USB Cards will not be updated / replaced

[ASRMichael]

Re Femto Drivers. As owners are aware when you purchase the Femto there is a guide on how to get the best SQ by changing driver settings, well in Windows at least. As for Linux I believe it's just a generic driver. Generic what does this mean? it simply doesn't have all the settings Windows driver has, so can't be optimized?, is it an inferior driver?, if so, then can the driver be improved?/optimized?

[Marcin_gps]

On 2/18/2020 at 9:46 AM, ASRMichael said:

Re Femto Drivers. As owners are aware when you purchase the Femto there is a guide on how to get the best SQ by changing driver settings, well in Windows at least. As for Linux I believe it's just a generic driver. Generic what does this mean? it simply doesn't have all the settings Windows driver has, so can't be optimized?, is it an inferior driver?, if so, then can the driver be improved?/optimized?

I think that some settings can be adjusted, but I can't provide detailed instructions as my experience with linux is limited. 

[mourip]

On 2/18/2020 at 3:46 AM, ASRMichael said:

Re Femto Drivers. As owners are aware when you purchase the Femto there is a guide on how to get the best SQ by changing driver settings, well in Windows at least. As for Linux I believe it's just a generic driver. Generic what does this mean? it simply doesn't have all the settings Windows driver has, so can't be optimized?, is it an inferior driver?, if so, then can the driver be improved?/optimized?

 

Try the AudioLinux thread here. I am pretty sure some of those folks have used the Femto card with AL and they are a very collaborative group.

[Patatorz]

On 2/18/2020 at 9:46 AM, ASRMichael said:

Re Femto Drivers. As owners are aware when you purchase the Femto there is a guide on how to get the best SQ by changing driver settings, well in Windows at least. As for Linux I believe it's just a generic driver. Generic what does this mean? it simply doesn't have all the settings Windows driver has, so can't be optimized?, is it an inferior driver?, if so, then can the driver be improved?/optimized?

thanks for asking the question as I have the same thought about linux. @Marcin_gps the drivers for Windows are generic or specific ?

[Marcin_gps]

14 hours ago, Patatorz said:

thanks for asking the question as I have the same thought about linux. @Marcin_gps the drivers for Windows are generic or specific ?

Windows will load the drivers automatically, but I recommend installing the drivers from intel. The drivers from intel are also available for Linux

[Patatorz]

Thanks Marcin, I’m checking with Piero from AudioLinux if he has some ideas

[FredM]

On 2/6/2020 at 5:37 PM, Marcin_gps said:

Current JCAT NET & USB Cards will not be updated / replaced

 

In that case, it would be interesting to see a JCAT endpoint, fanless server or -even better- a NUC Compute Element JCAT expansion NET card. I’ll keep my fingers crossed 👍

[FredM]

Could this perhaps be it?

Where I’m still pondering how the 5ppb oscillator would fit in 🤔

 

 

[mourip]

Apacer SSD..hmmmmm

[Marcin_gps]

12 hours ago, FredM said:

Could this perhaps be it?

Where I’m still pondering how the 5ppb oscillator would fit in 🤔

 

 

 

This is a prototype of a music server that I showed in Munich last year. There have been new developments since then which will delay the music server. 

 

Regarding smaller endpoint device, I've been working on it for quite some time already - designing a computer from a scratch is a complex project... 

 

Regarding 5ppb oscillators - these are small these days, you will see. 

 

Anyway, this is OT discussion. 

[austinpop]

On 2/23/2020 at 2:22 AM, Patatorz said:

Thanks Marcin, I’m checking with Piero from AudioLinux if he has some ideas

 

Please let us know what you learn. It seems like this can be done with a sequence of "ethtool" commands, but there may be a cleaner way using a config file somewhere.