Networking-for-audio-performance questions

[fzman1956]

This post is my attempt to combine a number of questions/concerns about how to get the best sound out of networked audio--without spending a fortune 'buying and trying'. I'm running Roon core on my desktop PC, pulling files from a NAS, feeding 4 zones.  My internet is 150G Xfinity, and I live in a house by myself.

 

 I don't expect to get a concensus on all of this, but would love to hear what's worked (or failed miserably) for people, and what some of the real theory behind these things might be. It will become clear that I am not an EE or a network engineer, so forgive me in advance if some of these questions are naive/wrong-headed, but it is useful to understand how I may be relying on an incorrect picture/model of how these things work.  I also believe that the stuff in the basic textbooks is not always the whole truth either.  Here goes, in no particular order:

 

1.Switches, beside # of ports, and managed/unmanaged, what matters for performance?

 

2. I've built but not yet tried some of the JS grounding adaptors, but also have a few metal-cased switches that have grounding screws.  Should I connect their grounds as well?  Should I do this for every wallwart powered network device in the whole network?

 

3. I have an ASUS AC88U router with a built-in 8 port switch- will it matter whether I use all 8 ports, feeding other switches as necessary, or should I offload the switching functions from the router as much as possible? Is it good/bad/neutral to have data/music flow through mutiple switches, vs a more direct path?

 

4. Ethernet cables: Is anything above CAT6 enough?  Shielded vs. unshielded? Proximity to other cables - AC, e.g.?

 

5. Will LPS's work better than SMPS, for all of the networking hardware?  

 

That's it for now.  Thanks in advance for your replies.

 

Mark