Found another rabbit hole!

[Intenso]

Last week I attached a 15m cheapo ethernet cable from the router in the living room to my son's PC in his bedroom, so he can become a killer fortnite player!

Surprise, surprise I've spent this last week struggling to understand why my system went from being incredibly moving to become unbearable to listen to.

After a lot of head scratching I finally thought that maybe I should unplug the ethernet cable and voila back came the music.

Just to be sure I plugged it back in and again the sound became unbearable with a loss of bass, a hardening of the sound and high frequency distortion.

Anyway, enter the rabbit hole :)

I now find myself wondering whether replacing the routers SMPS power supply with something better may also bring some rewards.

Anyone tried this?

[struth]

Might be a damaged/faulty cable. Also how far is the router from socket can have an effect I think.
Chris (stratmangler) would be your man tho as he works with this stuff for a living.

[Jimbo]

Not all Ethernet cables are equal.

You may well indeed improve your routers capabilities with a better PSU.

[Snoopdog]

Hi Tony

I use a 7.5m MeiCord Opal ethernet cable from my router to streamer.

It is an excellent cable and has topped a lot of reviews regarding sound quality. You can get it in various lengths (mine cost £100 from MCRU).

I also replaced the SMPS on my router with a low noise linear power supply and I have also "grounded" the router via a USB socket, to an Entreq Silver Minimus grounding box.

These accessories, coupled with the use of a quality ethernet cable, reduce spurious RFI/EMI and noise to maximise the streaming experience.

Well worth investigating IMHO.

[hornucopia]

The new wonderful digital age, where phones sound worse and routers etc., need upgrading! Good post!

[dave2010]

Possibly nothing to do with the cable at all. Look at the Ethernet protocols. Actually, to be fai, let’s be clear. Are you using the internet in anyway to source or distribute your music. If not, then you are presumably looking for interference. otherwise you may have introduced jitter into your system.

[Intenso]

Possibly nothing to do with the cable at all. Look at the Ethernet protocols. Actually, to be fai, let’s be clear. Are you using the internet in anyway to source or distribute your music. If not, then you are presumably looking for interference. otherwise you may have introduced jitter into your system.

I'm using the internet to stream Tidal to my Digione Sig to DAC.

I'm begining to think I may have issues with both intereference and possibly jitter as well.

I've just switched everything off in the livingroom apart from the stereo and router and I'm now using the digione via wifi and not ethernet.

I noticed that I have been powering the router via its SMPS connected to an extension lead packed with other wall warts.

I've now connected the router to its own wall socket.

I don't know whether this in any way effects noise in the streamer.

However, doing all this has produced a nice sound without the edge that I recently noticed.

I guess I'll need to have a rethink about the big pile of wall warts powering the TV kit in the living room if this causing interference...

[scotty38]

I'm struggling to understand how the myriad power supplies suddenly become an issue when you plug an ethernet cable into the router so your son can go online for his game.

If there is anything to look at I'd look at router performance as well as bandwidth in use but even then I'm not convinced :-)

[Intenso]

I'm struggling to understand how the myriad power supplies suddenly become an issue when you plug an ethernet cable into the router so your son can go online for his game.

If there is anything to look at I'd look at router performance as well as bandwidth in use but even then I'm not convinced :-)

TBF I don't think it does as shortly after unplugging the cable I discovered that the system was till sounding sharp. I guess I convinced myself it was the cable.

However, listening to it now without everything plugged this clearly sounds better.

Unless of course its all in my head which is quite possible...

[Intenso]

Well this was a really worthwhile exercise. All I've done is move the router's power supply away from the rest of the wall warts and the extension lead and plugged it into its own wall socket. Everything else is plugged back in.

The sound of the system is much improved.

Cheap win...

Sent from my POCOPHONE F1 using Tapatalk

[dave2010]

Well this was a really worthwhile exercise. All I've done is move the router's power supply away from the rest of the wall warts and the extension lead and plugged it into its own wall socket. Everything else is plugged back in.

The sound of the system is much improved.

Cheap win...
That's interesting. I'll try to figure out why.

My hunch that you might have been streaming music seems to have been correct, in which case the router would definitely be involved more directly.

I was going to suggest using a better router - as I wrote earlier, a lot depends on what switching protocols might be active, or what priorities the router uses to route packets. Cheap - simple ones might still use contention protocols - or less well implemented ones - which could very easily screw things up.

It is also possible that your pattern of usage has changed over the last few days. If things get worse again, let us know. Similarly, if you think more can be tweaked ....