I did not know you have dCS, in that case Muon Pro system is the only one I will suggest to try. It will give you both a great passive filter and a great ethernet cable to eliminate noise.
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dCS? We need an expert here! @vkennedy61?
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A little late to the party…
1.) Qobuz streaming:
Your 5G internet connection is just fine for streaming. CD quality (44kHz/16-bit) will require a max. bandwith of 1.4112 Mbit/s. And even the highest available quality on Qobuz (192kHz/24-bit) will max require 9.215 Mbit/s. So your 5G connection will do this in sleep mode. No worries, you are perfectly set with your current internet connection.
2.) Data storage/server
The Sonic Transporter i5 is a good device for storing your music library. Don’t worry about the attached USB driive to it. That’s all fine. The Sonic Transporter just acts as a music storage/server device. We are still fully in the digital domain here… All good. Did you know that the Sonic Transporter has Roon Server and HQ Player installed? Just in case you might give Roon a try, you are already set.
3.) Network Player/DAC:
To my understanding, you are using a dCS device, which is some of the finest systems you can own. It also provides its own streaming player (Mosaic), which you seem to use already. But dCS also supports Roon. I think there is not much you can improve here. It’s maybe a question of taste, which interface appeals more to you: Mosaic or Roon.
What can you improve?
Good question. I think you are already using fine devices. All I can see is that there might be some potential in isolating the noisy network stuff from your DAC. Yes, the Asus Router and the TP-Link Switch as well as some other devices on this network (including the Sonic Transporter) could generate some noise. So if you could get galvanic isolation for the network connection of your dCS device, could be helpful. This way, you would block any electronic noise from the rest of the network from your Network Player/DAC. Could be done by using a different network switch or go for a fiber connection. I use the Sonore opticalRendu, but in your configuration, I would advise against any Sonore product. You have already a perfect Network Player with the dCS. No need to buy another one.
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Hi… thank you for taking the time to write your response, that’s all very helpful.
Actually you’ve also answered a question I’ve been thinking about but never asked- I’ve been reluctant to make full use of Qobuz streaming over concerns about data rates and my T-Mobile account. They do advertise it as ‘true unlimited’ but I’ve often wondered how much data is used in streaming from Qobuz and if my activity might blow a circuit at T-mobile HQ or something. So I will stream more freely from now on, thanks!
That said, I do have a lot of albums, just under 3TB on my USB drive, so I still have a lot of local music that I haven’t played in years.
On point 2, I did use Roon on the i5 when I first bought the Sonore kit a couple years back. I bought the i5 with the UltraRendu and UltraDigital for i2s into a Terminator dac, then later the 2 box Holo May dac. One of the reasons I took the plunge with dCS was to simplify the setup and have fewer boxes and linear power supplies around the place.
I liked Roon a lot and it’s far more user friendly than Mosaic, but I read over on the dCS forums that people prefer the sound via Mosaic over Roon. Now granted, most of those guys have golden ears, which I do not, so it’s possible that I wouldn’t hear any difference.
I will look closer at galvanic isolation and what that entails. Is the Muon gear galvanic isolation or is that something else? There’s seems to be a lot of positive endorsement for Muon, so that’s something else I will investigate.
Thanks!
I pound the heck out of my T-Mobile 5G device. Lots of video streaming, endless audio streaming. I have never heard a word from them about it. In my experience it is true unlimited. According to my stats, I pull down on average over 200 GB a week, measured at my router.
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Others may throw stones at me, but I have a pretty clear opinion. As long as we are operating in the digital world and the Ethernet network, there is no way to improve the signal. On the other hand, you can’t make it worse either. As long as the data is intact (not corrupt) everything is fine. If data would be corrupted, then the result would be no music. That’s the nature of TCP/IP.
But where we can notice a big difference is when the digital signal is converted to analog. That’s the magic that happens inside your dCS. However, external interference from other devices in the chain can influence the quality of the analog signal, because unlike digital data, the analog signal is sensitive to any noise. For this reason, galvanic isolation from the DAC and the possible interfering devices makes sense.
I think that dCS has already done a lot of things right in this direction (although I don’t know dCS systems well), so not much should go wrong here. Nevertheless, galvanic isolation can’t do any harm.There are various ways to achieve this. This can of course be achieved with an optical connection, as electrical interference signals are not transmitted via optical. However, it is also a complex setup and the same can also be achieved via cheaper copper Ethernet adapters. Look for “Ethernet galvanic isolation”. Examples are: “Ifi Audio LAN iSilencer” or “Pink Faun LAN isolator”. You don’t need a complete optimization of your whole network and all its devices, all that counts is the isolation from possible electrical noise of your DAC. That’s the only device in the network that matters.
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OK, thanks. I ordered an iFi iSilencer that should be here tomorrow. If I get through this whole ‘Network Upgrade’ and I’m only out $89, I will be quite pleased 
I was watching a few YouTubes last nite and spent an hour on Hans Beekhuyzen’s channel. He’s reviewed a few Network/Ethernet devices including the Muon, and several others. He says that with his high-end network player, there’s very little improvement using these devices, but that they do shine with less expensive gear which presumably does not have the same ‘gateway’ protections inherent in their designs.
So as you’ve said in a couple of posts above, it may be unlikely that the dCS gear will benefit to any large extent from this type of equipment. So my plan is: 1 - try the little iFi unit. 2 - Keep an eye open for a Muon Pro on the used marketplaces. I expect a long wait but I feel less antsy about it knowing what I know now. I will try the Muon at some point then just resell it if it doesn’t provide any noticeable improvement.
So at this point, I’m happy to say ‘case closed’ (unless anyone else has something to add), and to thank all who have helped!
Cheers!
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That sound reasonable.
I think it is important to understand how data is being transmitted in an Ethernet environment using TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol). In TCP/IP, data is not sent as a single continuous stream but rather as smaller packets. This approach offers several advantages in terms of efficiency, reliability, and flexibility in network communication.
Here’s how it works:
1. Packetization: When data is to be transmitted over a network using TCP/IP, it is broken down into smaller units called packets. These packets typically consist of a header containing control information and a payload containing a portion of the data being transmitted.
2. Routing: Once the data is packetized, each packet is sent individually into the network. These packets can take different routes through the network to reach their destination. This flexibility in routing allows for better utilization of network resources and helps in load balancing across different network paths.
3. Independent Transmission: Since each packet is sent independently, they can arrive at the destination out of order. However, TCP/IP includes mechanisms to reorder the packets upon arrival so that the original data stream can be reconstructed correctly.
4. Error Handling: TCP/IP also includes error detection and correction mechanisms to ensure the reliability of data transmission. If a packet is lost or corrupted during transmission, TCP/IP can request retransmission of the lost packet or perform error correction to recover the original data.
5. Flow Control: TCP/IP includes flow control mechanisms to regulate the rate of data transmission based on the receiving device’s capacity. This helps prevent congestion in the network and ensures efficient data delivery.
6. Acknowledgment: TCP/IP uses acknowledgments to confirm the receipt of packets. When a packet is received successfully, the receiving device sends an acknowledgment back to the sender. If the sender does not receive an acknowledgment within a specified time frame, it assumes that the packet was lost and retransmits it.
Why is this important to know? If you understand this concept, it also becomes clear that nothing can change the data itself (or improve the quality), without corrupting the data completely. Result: You hear music or no music at all. Not degraded music. That’s not possible.
Also, any re-clocking device has no impact on the TCP/IP data packets. Data will anyway take different routes and arrive in random order and will then be put in order at the TCP receiving device (your dCS Network Player). The dCS in your system converts the data from digital to an analog signal. This is where clocking becomes an important factor. But only at this point. What a network player typically does is to buffer data in its internal memory, to deal with any network related issues (like bad connection, timeouts etc.). Keep in mind that a track in CD quality requires as a theoretical maximum a bandwith of 1.4112 Mbit/s. However, in reality this bandwith will typically not used constantly. I guess that in average the bandwith of a song in CD quality might be well below 1 Mbit/s. In a Gbit Network environment, your Network Player has a bandwith capability that is by a factor 1’000 higher. Meaning that a complete song title could be completely buffered within a fraction of a second. So your Network Player basically reads data from memory.
So digital data itself cannot be altered by interference. But electronic noise from other connected devices in the network can travel through copper wired connections (as typically used in Ethernet). It has no influence on the digital data, but could interfere with your DAC when converting the data into analog signals. Or even afterwards when the analog signal is passed on to a pre/power amplifier. So it’s really about the physical connection of your DAC. I guess, that dCS has already taken care about this type of issue. But in any case, galvanic isolation in front of your DAC can stop any potential electrical noise. Any device that provides galvanic isolation will perfectly deal with this problem. No need to optimize further on this topic. So if you use a device like the IFi iSilencer already, any other network optimization will not have any further effect.
Just my 5 cents.
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