Ethernet cable-from router to streamer.

[PeterSt]

1 hour ago, intothedragon said:

What is curious is with RCA cables that are metal terminations too the issue goes away

 

Think this over:

 

Your RCA interlink may comprise of two wires, A signal wire and a ground wire. This is fairly normal for such a signal wire.

What;' also fairly normal is that the two wires are surrounded by a shield. This shield will be conductive, Now:

 

When you use metal RCA plugs, this undoubtedly will mean that the metal connectors will be inter-connected by the shield. Next, the  chassis connectors (inlets) at both ends (devices) may have connected the outer part of the connector to the chassis. Well, I can't envision it, but if you talk about metal connectors it will be about the outside, so they should touch the chassis(es). Anyway, in that particular case the shield of the cable will provide ground. And if that indeed is so, then it will mean that at the inside of the device (probably not both) a connection is loose.

You could test this by means of an additional wire from chassis to chassis (find conducting parts in the faulty situation. Does it help ? then I am correct (but more than one RCA cables must give the problem).

 

I don't see the relevance really with the metal connector, but alas. It's worth a try.

[intothedragon]

1 hour ago, plissken said:

Here we go again. Maybe a sticky for this type of question:

 

1. You shouldn't used chassis tied shielded cables. IE they make a common ground connection between switch and endpoints on that switch. An end point is any multiple devices that have a ground connection over shield to the switch. Switch being the 'hub' and endpoints being 'spoke'

 

2. You can use a cable with a floated shield. That is a shield that is only there when we are running 300 cables in a bundle and want to reduce inter-cable cross-talk.

 

3. You should use UTP Cat5e or CAT6. Both are good for 10GBe applications. 147 foot for CAT5e, 180 foot for CAT6. CAT6A by standard are supposed to be shielded. Don't use them for anything else other than non-audio applications. They are good for 10GBe at 328 foot.

 

4. Use a quality BJC, Panduit, Tripplite cable. All are guaranteed to spec out and meet IEEE / TIA standards for Skew, NeXT, Interpair crosstalk, propagation delay.

 

5. There is nothing but anecdote that cables of a Category (5e or 6) make an audible difference. The issue being is that the standards that the cable has to meet determines the design. Doesn't matter if it's silver coated or CCD or ETP. They all hit air gapped magnetics on BOTH ends. At the switch and at the end point.

 

6. Empiric evidence on everthing from $30K audio analyzers to $100K Agilent scopes show us that cables that meet spec simply meet spec and do nothing magical for us.

 

Would an optical ethernet setup be another solution for my case?

but yes, I'm really considering changing all the cables to UTP anyway to eliminate the ground loop in all my devices

[intothedragon]

18 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Think this over:

 

Your RCA interlink may comprise of two wires, A signal wire and a ground wire. This is fairly normal for such a signal wire.

What;' also fairly normal is that the two wires are surrounded by a shield. This shield will be conductive, Now:

 

When you use metal RCA plugs, this undoubtedly will mean that the metal connectors will be inter-connected by the shield. Next, the  chassis connectors (inlets) at both ends (devices) may have connected the outer part of the connector to the chassis. Well, I can't envision it, but if you talk about metal connectors it will be about the outside, so they should touch the chassis(es). Anyway, in that particular case the shield of the cable will provide ground. And if that indeed is so, then it will mean that at the inside of the device (probably not both) a connection is loose.

You could test this by means of an additional wire from chassis to chassis (find conducting parts in the faulty situation. Does it help ? then I am correct (but more than one RCA cables must give the problem).

 

I don't see the relevance really with the metal connector, but alas. It's worth a try.

Do you think using a Coaxial Ground Loop Isolator would solve my issue? 

[PeterSt]

4 minutes ago, intothedragon said:

Do you think using a Coaxial Ground Loop Isolator would solve my issue? 

 

Those make it theoretically worse, when I am right in the first place. Or, it is unpredictable in that case (the still lacking ground will find an other path).

 

But foremost: No, these devices are highly unlinear.  Read: They imply a  bad sound (depends on what you are used tom but hey ...).

[intothedragon]

50 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Those make it theoretically worse, when I am right in the first place. Or, it is unpredictable in that case (the still lacking ground will find an other path).

 

But foremost: No, these devices are highly unlinear.  Read: They imply a  bad sound (depends on what you are used tom but hey ...).

maybe setting an optical ethernet point would solve everything

[plissken]

2 hours ago, intothedragon said:

Would an optical ethernet setup be another solution for my case?

but yes, I'm really considering changing all the cables to UTP anyway to eliminate the ground loop in all my devices

Optical is great, if, you have it natively implemented in an end point device. I did 10GBe optical for ~$210. That's including a Cisco switch with four SFP+, two NIC's (4 port Dell R620 daughter card with two SFP+ and two GBe copper), a Solar Flare NIC with two SFP+, two FS.COM SR LC 10GBe optics and cabling.  332MB/s on my lowly Celeron N3150 JRiver based setup.

 

I think you are going to see more and more solutions with SFP+ cage built in.

 

Also Wireless is a great isolation method. I get 38MB/s over my TP-Link setup. I have three TP-Link Omada 1350AC WAP's at $56 per. With their controller I have 802.11 k/v/r implemented and operates smoothly. Also I just setup a wireless bridge for a company and over 150 yards I'm getting 80MB/s. All for $200 an EnGenius bridge in a box.

[PeterSt]

24 minutes ago, plissken said:

Optical is great, if,

 

26 minutes ago, plissken said:

over 150 yards I'm getting 80MB/s. All for $200

 

Great speed / cost ratio !

Everybody should do this.

[plissken]

9 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

 

Great speed / cost ratio !

Everybody should do this.

 

You should if you have two buildings and no other way to connect them... Yep killer for $200.

[intothedragon]

1 hour ago, plissken said:

 

You should if you have two buildings and no other way to connect them... Yep killer for $200.

If I want to make just an end point to connect optical on my streamer to eliminate this issue, I will need two of These converters plus the optical cables and that's it? or do I need something else?

[R1200CL]

14 minutes ago, intothedragon said:

If I want to make just an end point to connect optical on my streamer to eliminate this issue, I will need two of These converters plus the optical cables and that's it? or do I need something else?

Any FMC is OK. But make sure it has a SFP cage. TP link or Planet is well known brands. The $99 Mikrotik switch is nice. The Sonore OpticalModule is great. Even better is EtherRegen. Many prefer singel mode fiber. Yellow cable. Blue connectors. 

[intothedragon]

42 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

Any FMC is OK. But make sure it has a SFP cage. TP link or Planet is well known brands. The $99 Mikrotik switch is nice. The Sonore OpticalModule is great. Even better is EtherRegen. Many prefer singel mode fiber. Yellow cable. Blue connectors. 

sorry, but what FMC stands for I tried google and showed me a complete different thing. Are you talking about this? I'm new to all of this. thank you 

[R1200CL]

17 minutes ago, intothedragon said:

but what FMC stands for

fiber media converter

https://sonore.us/opticalModule-Deluxe.html

 

https://uptoneaudio.com/products/etherregen

https://www.tp-link.com/us/business-networking/accessory/mc220l/

 

https://www.planet.com.tw/en/products/media-conversion/gigabit-media-converter
 

https://mikrotik.com/product/css610_8g_2s_in

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Cisco-WS-C2960G-8TC-L-Gigabit-Ethernet-Switch-2960G-1-Year-Warranty-FREE-SHiP/302433766710?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

 

Switches with both SFP/SFP+ interfaces and RJ45 (ethernet cable) will act as an FMC of cause. 
 

Example of “correct” cable. 
https://www.ebay.com/itm/3pcs-3m-10ft-LC-to-LC-UPC-Duplex-Single-Mode-PVC-3-0mm-Fiber-Optic-Patch-Cable/392275293505

 

Use SFP/SFP+ for 1310 nm singel mode fiber. 
 

Have you tested your Node in wireless mode ?

[plissken]

5 hours ago, intothedragon said:

If I want to make just an end point to connect optical on my streamer to eliminate this issue, I will need two of These converters plus the optical cables and that's it? or do I need something else?

 

I just used the $49 FS.com 1GBe FMC's on a job where the Sales Engineer didn't do an effective job of determining what connectivity was needed and these saved the day.

 

The SX 1GBe Multimode transceivers (orange OM2 or aqua blue OM3/OM4) are ~$6 at FS.com.

 

Don't worry about MM or SM fiber (aquablue vs yellow). The difference is the aqua-blue OM3 or OM4 is 10GBe at up to 300 or 400 meters respectively. Yellow SM is called OS2 and is for used for ranges longer than 300/400 meter and can scale past 10GBe

 

MM optics are less expensive than SM optics but MM cabling is a tad bit more expensive. Overall I think MM tends to be a few $'s less expensive. The cost difference really doesn't move the needle too much.

[intothedragon]

17 hours ago, plissken said:

 

I just used the $49 FS.com 1GBe FMC's on a job where the Sales Engineer didn't do an effective job of determining what connectivity was needed and these saved the day.

 

The SX 1GBe Multimode transceivers (orange OM2 or aqua blue OM3/OM4) are ~$6 at FS.com.

 

Don't worry about MM or SM fiber (aquablue vs yellow). The difference is the aqua-blue OM3 or OM4 is 10GBe at up to 300 or 400 meters respectively. Yellow SM is called OS2 and is for used for ranges longer than 300/400 meter and can scale past 10GBe

 

MM optics are less expensive than SM optics but MM cabling is a tad bit more expensive. Overall I think MM tends to be a few $'s less expensive. The cost difference really doesn't move the needle too much.

thank you. I'll dig into that since I don't know nothing about it.  This German shop looks really nice. Are their ethernet cables any good? 

[intothedragon]

21 hours ago, R1200CL said:

fiber media converter

https://sonore.us/opticalModule-Deluxe.html

 

https://uptoneaudio.com/products/etherregen

https://www.tp-link.com/us/business-networking/accessory/mc220l/

 

https://www.planet.com.tw/en/products/media-conversion/gigabit-media-converter
 

https://mikrotik.com/product/css610_8g_2s_in

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Cisco-WS-C2960G-8TC-L-Gigabit-Ethernet-Switch-2960G-1-Year-Warranty-FREE-SHiP/302433766710?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

 

Switches with both SFP/SFP+ interfaces and RJ45 (ethernet cable) will act as an FMC of cause. 
 

Example of “correct” cable. 
https://www.ebay.com/itm/3pcs-3m-10ft-LC-to-LC-UPC-Duplex-Single-Mode-PVC-3-0mm-Fiber-Optic-Patch-Cable/392275293505

 

Use SFP/SFP+ for 1310 nm singel mode fiber. 
 

Have you tested your Node in wireless mode ?

thank you very much for all the links

[intothedragon]

21 hours ago, R1200CL said:

Have you tested your Node in wireless mode ?

yes, I did and while in WIFI mode, everything is good, no clicks whatsoever. I found out today that the source of mi clicking problem is a bad wiring in the technical room, looks like the previous tenant made a mess on the jumpers trying to install an alarm system, there are to many connection on a single jumper what is overloading the system and creating the ground loop.  I need to fix asap

[plissken]

10 minutes ago, intothedragon said:

thank you. I'll dig into that since I don't know nothing about it.  This German shop looks really nice. Are their ethernet cables any good? 

Don't know about their cabling. I recommend tripplite or panduit or bjc

[intothedragon]

13 minutes ago, plissken said:

Don't know about their cabling. I recommend tripplite or panduit or bjc

Hope they ship here to the Ned. I just move to here, little bit difficult to find these shops because the name of these kind of shops are not the translated word from English. 

[intothedragon]

23 minutes ago, plissken said:

I recommend tripplite or panduit or bjc

Nice, they all have dealers here. This Tripp lite cable is more expensive than other, is it really superior quality? does it worth it for home use? 

[plissken]

21 minutes ago, intothedragon said:

Nice, they all have dealers here. This Tripp lite cable is more expensive than other, is it really superior quality? does it worth it for home use? 

Tripplite and panduit are premium patch available at Amazon or most electrician supply houses. Any where in the Ned that sells to electricians and low voltage installers. 

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.distrelec.nl/en/manufacturer/panduit/man_pnd&ved=2ahUKEwjXrY-ro9vvAhVSXK0KHcDpDD4QFjAAegQIAxAC&usg=AOvVaw31KPx6luyGtFoFgwcV-oh-

[audiobomber]

On 3/29/2021 at 12:09 PM, audiobomber said:

I just tested my three CAT7 cables. Two (Audioquest Pearl and Tera Grand) have isolated shields, the CableCreation flat cable has a connected shield. 

 

I was not able to hear ethernet cable differences in my previous setup (sMS-200 and Audiolab 8200CD). To my surprise, I was able to hear differences with the current system (exaSound Playpoint and e32). I tried various generic CAT5e, 7 and 8 cables and liked the Tera Grand best. I will continue to use one of the CAT8 cables, but I have a LAN Isolator on order. I will do another round of cable testing with and without the isolator when it arrives in May. 

Correction, the Tera Grand CAT7 cable does have a connected shield. I don't want to mislead anyone. It's still the best sounding cable I've tried in my main system, connected between my "wi-fi to ethernet" bridge and streamer, both of which have linear power supplies with ground pins. The Audioquest Pearl had the worst sound of the four cables I tried.

 

I received the eBay LAN Isolator yesterday and tried it ahead of the renderers in my main system and headphone system and between the modem and router. Results are there but underwhelming. I will keep it, but won't be buying another.

[NOMBEDES]

I don't think my wife would like a cable running from my office to my Node2 in the great room.  Someone would certainly trip over the cable.  If only I had the problems describe above.  So its das Leben.

[audiobomber]

I've been playing with a bag full of inexpensive CAt5e, 6, 6a, 7 and 8 cables; freebies, CableCreations, Monoprice, Tera Grand, Yauhody and Audioquest Pearl. I'm replacing eight patch cables in two systems with Yauhody CAT8. It is head and shoulders above these others.

 

In case anyone is looking for better quality generics, I highly recommend these. Build quality is good, and SQ is in another league vs. other cheapie competitors.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07ZNS6YCN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

 

PS Regarding @Miska's concerns re shielding, the ethernet ports in my TP-Link networking gear are not grounded.

[audiobomber]

A disturbing truth I learned from all these listening experiments is that every cable in the chain matters. My previous stance was that only the final cable, which feeds the renderer, affected SQ. I was wrong. 

 

My critical listening chain consists of NAS->Switch->Router->Wi-fi to ethernet bridge->Renderer->DAC. Changing any of the three ethernet cables in this chain had significant effects on the final SQ, as did improvements in the networking gear. 

 

For this reason, I don't have a lot of interest in changing to audiophile ethernet cables, which cost hundreds of dollars each, and may or may not be an improvement. Not saying a home demo would not change my mind, but I would not buy anything on spec.

[Miska]

On 4/29/2021 at 3:40 PM, audiobomber said:

PS Regarding @Miska's concerns re shielding, the ethernet ports in my TP-Link networking gear are not grounded.

 

Is it some plastic affair?