I was experimenting with different network setups. My SBT has all Soundcheck (thanks !!! ) tweaks, PS with Super Teddy Reg, (phantastic !!!) Buffalo 2 DAC (the best DAC ???) and IMHO good system with very good tube pre (with NOS Telefunken tubes) , diy poweramp based on Hackernap and Spendor speakers.
I tested three setups: 1. SBS Notebook with W7 (OS on SSD and second internal 1TB HD with flacs) and Touch connected directly (SBT cable is ~5m long) with good cables to the 100MBits router ports of D-Link 524UP. 2. SBS Notebbok connected to the router and close to SBT there is one small switch refreshing the signal and a short unscreened cable between small switch and SBT 3. SBS and SBT are connected to a small standalone switch and this switch is connected to the router. Between switch and SBT there is 5m Cable and the screen is "off" just before SBT. So IMHO absolutely best quality has number 3, than 1 and than 2, and there is a huge difference between 3 and 1 and a ver small between 1 and 2. I have two different switches - nice few years old Netgear FS-105 100MBits with small linear powers supply (Netgear was selling this switch with linear PS) and one new Cisco SD2005 with switched ps. With Cisco there is more space, deeper more precise bass and the music flow is better, but the sound is less pleasant and little agressive (some distortions appears ?) than with Netgear. Maybe the reason is the switched ps of Cisco, i want to try Cisco with a linear ps, when i will find or built one ... So my conclusion is - take a small nice switch, connect it to your router and than connect your SBS and SBT directly to this switch. Don't buy the cheapest one. Make your own tests, maybe it also depends on your environment, router type, etc, but using a dedicated switch for data flow between SBS and SBT seems to be the best solution. Next i want to try Cisco SD200-8 which i can borrow from my work. There is one thing which is a completely mystery for me - SBT is buffering a LOT of data. When you will disconnect the switch betwen SBS and SBT playing 24/96 files the music will play for ~10 seconds and when playing 16/44 the music will play for ~30 seconds. If so much data is buffered, why different network configuration has such an impact on sound quality ? ;) -- praganj ------------------------------------------------------------------------ praganj's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=41091 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=90824 _______________________________________________ Touch mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
