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What is the best audiophile router?


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I recently bought the SOtM switch, but I found a big difference also in modding my router:
 

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So my current network stack which connects to our music server is:

- Telenet Docsis modem-only (so no router / no wifi)
- Microtik 13x gigabit router, with custom DC inlet and custom cooling, and 12V Sbooster Mk1
- SOtM switch with clock and 9V Sbooster Mk2
- Music server
 

 

My idea is to order this Mikrotik router, as it has a 10 gbit SFP+ cage, so you can go optical between the SOtM and the router.
It also has those enterprise / datacenter I want being a former network security engineer for companies such as Alcatel:

RB4011

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1. it has an SFP+ slot so it's future proof
2. it has the same cpu as their 13 port RB1100AHx4 model, which is the successor of my RB1100AHx2
3.
maximum throughput should be similar to the RB1100AHx4 as they share the same cpu, so 7.5Gbit
4. it's completely passive cooled, so it tends to run a little hot - the whole case acts as heatsink
5. it has a DC input, so you can use any linear PSU with it, and most linear PSU's will handle it's amperage requirements

Max power consumption without attachments = 18 Watts



 

 

Designer of the 432 EVO music server and Linux specialist

Discoverer of the independent open source sox based mqa playback method with optional one cycle postringing.

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The goal of this topic is also discuss routing tricks. One of the ideas is to limit the number of broadcasts the music server has to receive, so splitting up a big broadcast domain into smaller VLAN's, so the music server gets a lot less interrupts coming from broadcast network traffic not related to audio.

I once had a small network with only one Linux box in it, dual homed, and our music server, and that one with the cheap PSU on a wifi router, sounded better than our busy network, with an Sbooster to a metal TP Link easy smart switch.

So that got me thinking why non-audophile beats an audiophile setup. It's most likely also in the background broadcast traffic that you don't want the cpu to be interrrupted with. If you have a LAN with 2 hosts (router and one node) those broadcasts will be a lot less.

If you have hosts with samba / windows file sharing, expect a lot more traffic from broadcasts, which all the nodes have to process.

Designer of the 432 EVO music server and Linux specialist

Discoverer of the independent open source sox based mqa playback method with optional one cycle postringing.

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  • 3 years later...



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A recent passive cooled 10 gigabit dream router, and it accepts DC from a linear PSU:
 


Going optical between the SOtM switch and this router is possible, and both devices can be powered using a linear PSU. Electrical isolation bliss.

Designer of the 432 EVO music server and Linux specialist

Discoverer of the independent open source sox based mqa playback method with optional one cycle postringing.

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