AUDIO over IP - REDNET 3 & 16 Review. AES67 Sets A New Standard for Computer Audio

[rb2013]

  I actually have the HDPlex 300W ATX supply for my server pc. Being able to connect directly to the various internal PC power cables and avoid having to use a DC ATX board was attractive to me.  Looks like it only uses the 1083 for the adjustable and 5v outputs.  Not sure about the other outputs though.  I am now thinking of picking up the Meiyan for my NAA which only accepts 12V input.  $200 with shipping is not bad at all.

Well that HDPLEX is a monster for current output - which some PC's need.  12A @18V!  That is tough to do for any LPS.  But it's $795. The 400W TeraDak is similarly priced.
 
The MEIYAN may not have enough juice depending on what your PC needs - certainly it would be better on the 5VDC stuff.
 
The MEIYAN is rated at 4.4A@18V.

 

[rb2013]

  Maybe I don't have it:
 
I am getting the clicks and noises again whenever my desk is moved. The sound quality sounds slightly more natural but honestly its not worth the 999 to me. I will give it more time. I bought this unit used from Andrew. The USB is a little more vibrant but less smooth. I need to give it some time before I just kick it to the curb because I move around a lot on my desk. I.e. I hit the desk when the music is playing to go along with the beats some times when I really get going and it is causing noises. I may in the end just end up with a Singxer U-1. 
 
I am wondering if when my AES cable arrives, if that will make a notable difference over Coax but still the little clicks etc are really annoying. When I reported it stopped it was because my desk didn't have any movement and I changed the latency. Now it only makes noises (or the signal hiccups) when I move the desk. 
 
Maybe I don't have the ears to really appreciate the difference
 
Maybe I don't have it set right
 
Maybe I shouldn't assess it until I have the AES cable. 
 
Maybe the Pavane itself is doesn't benefit as much from this and already sounds really good from the USB ( though the lifatec cable sounded a little better as well )
 
Maybe I need to take time to appreciate the differences. 
 
No freaking way am I gonna spend another grand to add a clock... hell no. 
 
I do notice a more effortless feel to the music where it sounds less strained and more naturally flowing but again the difference is not worth 999. . . . YET

You may have a bad Ethernet cable - try another one.  BJC makes a great $29 CAT6.  But for test purposes any CAT6 UTP would do.
 
You do make a good point on the more subtle differences may not be heard on all systems.  The AES cable should help - which SPDIF are you using - it could be losing contact as well with movement.  The AES will 'cure' that.
 
I agree you can get USB to a very high level and the SU-1 would be a good step there.  Another path is a Lynx PCIe E22 card  - about double the SU-1.

 

[rb2013]

  Have any of you folks still suffering from dropouts/latency spikes tried this?: http://www.windowscentral.com/assign-specific-processor-cores-apps-windows-10
 
I'm wondering if assigning 1-2 cores to (1) a media player and (2) Dante Virtual Soundcard might ameliorate the problem.

Good suggestions!

 

[Tboooe]

 
Well that HDPLEX is a monster for current output - which some PC's need.  12A @18V!  That is tough to do for any LPS.  But it's $795. The 400W TeraDak is similarly priced.
 
The MEIYAN may not have enough juice depending on what your PC needs - certainly it would be better on the 5VDC stuff.
 
The MEIYAN is rated at 4.4A@18V.

Sorry for not being more clear.  I meant picking up the meiyan for just my NAA PC which uses a low power i3-5015U CPU.  I will keep the HDPlex for my server which is more power hungry especially running HQP player upsampling to DSD256.
 
BTW, the HDPlex gets very very hot so that is another reason why I am looking to offload some of my system's power requirements to another linear power supply.

 

[Iving]

 
i believe the issue involves the use of a shielded Ethernet cable (Cat 6 STP, Cat 7 or 8) which defeats the inherent Ethernet GI.  Or the use of an unshielded CAT6 UTP cable. - which preserves GI - but may pick up some EMI/RFI.  From Mike's posts much earlier in this thread  - he works at a 'server farm'  - one building crammed full of EMI noisy servers, disks, power supplies and has never had an issue using a UTP there.  In one of the most intense EMI/RFI enviroments one could imagine.  The TCP/RTP protocol is inherently robust (unlike USB UAC2), with full duplex error correction and very large buffering.
 
But never underestimate us audiophiles attention to obsession about potential noise!  Me for example a 5 PART series on power supply noise.

 
The post to which this reply was made refers to upstream "timing" attributes of a system that may mitigate or exacerbate jitter - however one may measure that downstream - rather than electrical noise introduced because of interference / isolation issues.

 

[rb2013]

  I got the thing working! The latency is horrible, though. How can I fix it?

What music player - with Dante I can set Foobar to 50ms it's lowest - and that's with 192K running like a breeze.  250us on the RN3 and BURL (funny the BURL using the BK2 Dante card as the D16 does not gray out the 250us setting).

 

[rb2013]

   
The post to which this reply was made refers to *non-electrical* "noise" or "signal error"; more specifically, upstream "timing" attributes of a system that may mitigate or exacerbate jitter - however one may measure that downstream.

Oh sorry  - multiple discussions going on simultaneously .
 
Well that's for the GISO discussion.

 

[rb2013]

  Sorry for not being more clear.  I meant picking up the meiyan for just my NAA PC which uses a low power i3-5015U CPU.  I will keep the HDPlex for my server which is more power hungry especially running HQP player upsampling to DSD256.
 
BTW, the HDPlex gets very very hot so that is another reason why I am looking to offload some of my system's power requirements to another linear power supply.

Another path for the PC is using a high PSRR fanless switcher - then isolating it with a dedicated PB4X4Pro.  I went this path - then used SATA and fan filters inside the server.
 
Cheaper - cooler (hate fans!) and seems to work well.
 
https://www.amazon.com/Seasonic-SS-520FL2-Fanless-Platinum-ATX12V/dp/B009VV56TO
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Elfidelity-PC-Filtering-card-SATA-Power-Noise-Filter-purify-PC-HiFi-Hard-disk-/201675597917?hash=item2ef4cd685d:g:MD0AAOSw4shX5iJq
http://artproaudio.com/power_solutions/product/pb4x4_pro/

 

[jabbr]

Have any of you folks still suffering from dropouts/latency spikes tried this?: http://www.windowscentral.com/assign-specific-processor-cores-apps-windows-10

I'm wondering if assigning 1-2 cores to (1) a media player and (2) Dante Virtual Soundcard might ameliorate the problem.

This will most likely have no effect at all or only very minor at best. The cause of dropouts is not CPU related but most likely related to the NIC-processing.
I have adjusted the parameters of my NIC and have since a very stable and low latency connection which runs over a switch.

If using a switch you need to have a managed one where you can set QoS configuration.

For the proper NIC parameters do a google search on NIC "settings for low latency applications". I once found two very good pages (1 from Microsoft) and I understand that default NIC settings are truely, truely lousy for low latency applications and understandibly so when reading about the workings of each setting and the change required.

I may have posted the links to these two pages before, but you'll have do a search yourself.


Also a cause for frequent latency spikes is when using a NAS with a large music collection, and having a player which frequently updates its library automatically. This will cause bursts of massive data exchange giving periodic high latency peaks.
Best to do the updates manually when not listening or for only a few new directories at a time.

 

[3X0]

This will most likely have no effect at all or only very minor at best. The cause of dropouts is not CPU related but most likely related to the NIC-processing
I have adjusted the parameters of my NIC and have since a very stable and low latency connection which runs over a switch.

Given that some users are having trouble with dropouts using OSX, I wonder if the problems are driven by software/OS or hardware issues.
 
I agree that CPU usage is not a likely factor, but even a NIC optimized in both hardware/software terms could be kneecapped by a motherboard with intrinsically high DPC latency.

 

[jabbr]

  Given that some users are having trouble with dropouts using OSX, I wonder if the problems are driven by software/OS or hardware issues.
 
I agree that CPU usage is not a likely factor, but even a NIC optimized in both hardware/software terms could be kneecapped by a motherboard with intrinsically high DPC latency.

Well, in the beginning I was having some drop outs using Windows, so you could argue it is not OS related 

 
I would look for the NIC settings, the defaults are sometime completely the opposite required for low latency applications, and they did help me.

 

[Iving]

https://www.audinate.com/faq/how-can-i-tune-windows-pc-best-audio-performance
IN PARTICULAR the "'Interrupt Moderation'" setting can make a fundamental difference with lo-spec PCs or laptops!
See also
https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/sections/201616569-PC-Optimisation
 
For DPC latency:
https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/articles/208360865-Troubleshooting-DPC-latency
http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml
 
And for people who just will use Apple products:
https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207546515-Optimising-your-Mac-for-Audio

 

[Tboooe]

What are your thoughts on Tx and Rx buffers in the network adapter settings?  Should they be set to max or min or somewhere in the middle?  I assume the lower the better for low latency? 

 

[kazsud]

The combination of no anti-virus, no firewall and manual installation did the trick.

Raw. Dog.

 

[jabbr]

What are your thoughts on Tx and Rx buffers in the network adapter settings?  Should they be set to max or min or somewhere in the middle?  I assume the lower the better for low latency? 

Maximum for both settings.

Read this page for the proper settings in low latency environments: https://www.tradingtechnologies.com/help/tt-system-requirements/appendix-setting-descriptions/nic-settings/


And this section about low latency from Microsoft: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj574151(v=ws.11).aspx#bkmk_low


Here the two links I posted earlier:
- http://steamcommunity.com/app/353380/discussions/0/405690850599636269/
- https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc558565(v=bts.10).aspx