I suggest you start with high quality pro audio cables, such as Mogami 2534 RCA Male to RCA Male Neglex Quad. Very affordable, neutral, quiet. You can easily make your own, but pro suppliers offer them premade, see, e.g., here.
You need to spend a great deal more to improve on these. Plus they are sufficiently affordable you can rewire your entire system at once.
Welcome Romeo! I think Elk has an excellent suggestion in the Mogami cables. A great starting point. If you’re willing to spend a little more for (probably) better sound, I’d recommend Silnote cables which are reasonably priced and excellent sound quality. I have their XLR and Phono cables and they are excellent for the price. At the next price level, I’d look at Nordost. As for power cables, the PSA AC-12 are hard to beat. For a little less, I find the Anticables level 3 reference cords wonderful and won’t break the bank. Good luck!
Thanks for the suggestions on RCA’s. The Mogami’s certainly look very affordable and may be the ticket. Any ideas on USB cables. I will probably either need a very long run of a USB 25ft or 25ft RCA. Which would be better? Any affordable USB cable suggestions?
Rromeo923, what will the USB/RCA cable be connecting? My assumption would be the laptop to the DS Jr, in which case it would seem neither would be a good choice. From what local DS expert Ted Smith (he designed it!) has said the maximum length for a USB is somewhere in the 10-15 ft length. 25 ft would be well over this and that may result in data loss. As for the RCA connection, in general RCA connections have similar length limitations, but are more dependant upon what is sending the original signal. A good preamp may do it with minimal degradation, but a laptop? I don’t think that’s a good idea. Since the DS Jr has a Bridge II card built in I would recommend hooking the DS Jr into your network (using a hardwire connection) and using software on the laptop to control it. There are several options for the software, but I’ll leave that open until we get better confirmation of your set up, and your willingness/ability to go that route.
I definitely want to do the network bridge thing but my modem and router are nowhere near my stereo. In addition my wifi is not that great. I live in a tri-level house with lots of walls and rooms etc and wifi has always been problematic. I need to figure this out as it seems in this day and age it should not be a problem.
I would possibly using a raspberry pi but not sure that would work with the network bridge. Again issues with wifi have caused me problems going that route to date. At present it is my laptop usb out to HRT Streamer II and then long RCA to preamp.
I want to try the Direct Stream Jr as a preamp but then I have no hook up for Phono pre…Is this at all possible in anyway??
Rromeo923… I wanted to tiptoe into streaming and my established stereo is also nowhere near my router/modem. I started with a Sonos Connect just to get some wifi connectivity to my home network. As with your experience, my 2.5 and 5 GHz was spotty, especially during high use. I tried a Sonos Boost plugged directly into my router, which then creates a Sonos/dedicated wifi subnet to the Sonos next to my stereo. No more streaming dropouts. The Sonos Connect provides streaming to my DAC via SPDIF or Toslink (and analog outputs too if I wanted to use them)…AND, the Sonos Connect also provides 2 ethernet/RJ45 plugs for hard wiring such things local to my stereo such as my Direct Stream Memory Player and a DS or DSJr DAC. Using the Sonos Boost on my router puts it all my home network so that phones and tablet apps can all see and control my streaming including Tidal, Spotify, TuneIn etc.
…In addition my wifi is not that great. I live in a tri-level house with lots of walls and rooms etc and wifi has always been problematic. I need to figure this out as it seems in this day and age it should not be a problem…
Look into the newer mesh WiFi networking products for distributing multiple access points throughout your home. Personally, I went with the first-gen solution from Eero (www.eero.com) and it vastly improved our wireless experience (multi-level townhouse with lots of steel infrastructure).
Eero has since come out with second-gen products, their new Beacon form-factor is pretty neat in that it is designed to plug directly into a wall outlet to provide an access point.
Other big players have come out with similar mesh solutions, such as Netgear and Google.
Welcome to the forum, I suggest using the Cat 5/6 to connect between the DSD Jr and your computer. As mention above, its cheaper compared to the single ended RCA or USB (long run - 25 foot) and you don’t get any degradation as long as it is less than 100m (approximate). I am using JRiver MC 23 and have been using them since MC 19 and it have been good. I tried Roon but don’t really like them and they cost much more. You can then use JRemote as your front end.
If your laptop is right next to the DSD Jr, you can use a good USB cable like Curious USB.
As for interconnect, its a personal thing, go for the basic entry interconnect like the Furutech interconnect either single ended or balance (if you Amp permits). You can save the money and upgrade to a NWPC for your table and if permits get the awesome BHK250 or the Stellar series Amp.
Rromeo923, I think you’ve gotten some good feedback on the network side, so I’ll leave it at that. With respect to the phono, you would need a A/D converter. PS Audio does offer the NuWave Phono Converter (NPC) which is a phono preamp and A/D in one for $999 (was $1899 when introduced). There was a thread over a year ago about A/D that mentioned two or three stand alone A/D, don’t recall any names though. The NPC is a nice unit and I have used one when I was all digital. I recently got a BHK preamp and may consider trying other phono preamps, but that is in the future …
