Article: Stability and Performance from Access Networks

[The Computer Audiophile]

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[ShawnC]

Nice review Chris, were the systems components that you used the top of the line? Or do you have options? $13299 WOW. Don't get me wrong I'd love to have something like that, unfortunately that's more than my entire system. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

HI Shawn - I completely understand. The network I own is quite a bit less expensive, but it's not as stable and fast as the 'Access' network. The components in this review aren't the top of the line by any measure, but they are also no where near the bottom. It can take some skill to design the correct package for each use case.

[Solstice380]

You have a bathroom scale on your network????  And I thought you were a rational midwesterner!

 

The article was excellent, though.  I've been able to hack through the things I've needed to on my network.   Solid not top end equipment and all the same brand helps.  I have <1msec latency on all my devices to each other over LAN and WiFi extenders, and coverage to my garage and back deck.  

[firedog]

Liked the article and found it fascinating: I didn't know there was such a thing as a network that "always works״ I've never had one, either at home or at work.

My small apartment with a max of about 15 networked devices obviously doesn't apply here, but I can say, based on previous recommendations by Chris, that I turned my ISP provided all-in-one router into an Interet modem only, and bought a quality switch and dedicated router (no modem inside).

That - and using well made Ethernet cabling (Bluejeans) - vastly improved my network speed and reliability. 

So even for someone who doesn't do something like Chris' system, just getting something better than the ISP supplied device is a good idea.

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, Solstice380 said:

 

You have a bathroom scale on your network????  And I thought you were a rational midwesterner!

 

 

Ha, tell me about it!

 

I thought it was going to help me monitor my weight and nudge me in the right direction of eating healthier. I thought wrong.

[http404]

One relatively minor change technically inclined folks can make to their home network to nudge in the direction of simplification and reliability is to start by separating the wired and wireless functionality. 

 

This can achieve several things:

 

1 - Chris rightly identified the escalating pain of managing access to today's gadgets and by separating WiFi you also separate the WiFi passwords from the router.

 

2 - You offload the WiFi processing overhead from the all in one home router to dedicated device(s)

 

3 - you gain the ability to place your access point(s) independently to improve coverage.

 

The cost need not be prohibitive, and I've found the improvement across these areas to be substantial in a 3 story 3300 sf house, using affordable Ubiquiti access points. 

 

Chances are good that most people will never need to go beyond a consumer class router, other than disabling its built in WiFi.

[mrvco]

While I've shied away from "bringing my work home with me" by using Cisco enterprise gear, through a process of trial and error in recent years (I have a bin full of routers, switches, WiFi range extenders and WAPs that have proven unreliable or otherwise wonky), I'm having excellent results from this ~$1,000 collection of non-enterprise gear with everything running cool and silent:

 

• Netgear Nighthawk Router (R7000) (1)
• ActionTec MOCA 1.1 Adapters (4)
• D-Link 5-Port Gigabit Switch (DGS-100GG) (6?)
• Netgear WAP (WAC510) (1)
• Teragrand CAT7 Ethernet Cable (from Amazon) of varying lengths (lots)

 

In addition to the wired connections in my home office (including my 2ch rig), the Nighthawk router connects to a MOCA adapter.  The MOCA network acts as wired 'backbone' to three endpoints in our house.  The router also serves as a WAP for the "east" side and for remote VPN access.  The Netgear WAC510 is connected via the MOCA network and serves as the WAP for the "west" side of the house (100% coverage on both levels w/ minimal overlap between the two WAPs).  Based on my experience with consumer-grade WiFi gear, I thought I would need a 'middle' WAP, but the WAC510 proved to be more than sufficient (to the point where I run the radios at 50% power).

 

I used to enjoy tinkering with this stuff and didn't mind some instability or wonkiness, but now that we're dependent upon an AT&T Microcell for cell coverage, have a 2yo and increased dependency on Tidal for music, the stakes are bit higher (and the "IT calls" angrier ), so this setup has removed any network instability or wonkiness that I've experienced in the past... as well as reducing the "IT calls" to nil (KNOCK ON WOOD).

[http404]

26 minutes ago, mrvco said:

the stakes are bit higher (and the "IT calls" angrier )

 

No doubt about that!  Having cut the cable TV cord about 5 years ago, network stability gained a whole new level of importance! That's also when my desire to make WiFi passwords independent of routers started to grow.

[mrvco]

1 hour ago, http404 said:

 

No doubt about that!  Having cut the cable TV cord about 5 years ago, network stability gained a whole new level of importance! That's also when my desire to make WiFi passwords independent of routers started to grow.

 

Fortunately we live in a location where Wifi poaching isn't much of an issue, so I use a tele# that friends and family all know.  I just hope my home network never gets to the point where I need to subnet.

[ChrisG]

while I know that this was a consultative process and knowledge isn't free, and a company needs to make a profit, a quick web search turns up that I can buy this hardware for a little over $5000 and install it myself just like you did.

And, since they're a big outfit, I'm sure that they can get the hardware cheaper than I can from Amazon or CDW, so they're making some profit on the hardware.

 

Yet from the description of your experience, I'm struggling to understand what else they did for you to charge you an additional $8000. Seems like a heck of a premium given the time they spent on designing this for you and that you installed it yourself. 

[http404]

34 minutes ago, ChrisG said:

I'm struggling to understand what else they did for you to charge you an additional $8000.

 

 

While I can't address this question directly, and it's an entirely reasonable question, I believe it falls into an area where we're seeing end users struggle increasingly with a concept of value.

 

Value in relation to physical items is something that we're all more accustomed to assessing, and even in this realm I'm sure there are very few of us who've not faced friends or family ready to send us of for a stretch at the funny farm for what we spend on cables!  

 

When it comes to intangibles such as software or services, a lot of us start to struggle with the "well, I can do that myself ..." comparisons. It's true - many of us can do these things ourselves, with varying degrees of competence. Then there's the opportunity cost of the other things we might be doing with our time and decisions about bringing work home with us etc. There's also being the home IT department - a role once adopted that's very hard to escape.

 

It seems unlikely that a company offering solutions like the one reviewed is seeking highly price conscious customers (like me) and instead, is focussed on delivering very high levels of service and reliability, along with the required expertise, to a target happy to pay for it. As soon as I saw so much Cisco involved I knew I was too cheap for a solution like this! For anyone else like me, there's Ubiquiti Networks

 

 

[esldude]

Does Access offer a cable upgrade for better sound?  Done right they could raise the price another $15,000 easy.

 

+1 on the Ubiquiti gear.  Pretty nice stuff nicely priced for home network tinkering types.  I do wish their forum was more welcoming to newbies asking questions however.  Not always a friendly crowd.

[kenreau]

I'm curious if there is a status quo, or consensus, for the security/ firewall? I recall pfsense being highly regarded not too long ago.  I have Century link for a service provider.

Thx

kenreau

[eternaloptimist]

$13,000... USD.... Holy Batman!!!

I remain to be convinced that a home network needs hardware at this price point.

Wow, just wow.

 

[http404]

4 hours ago, eternaloptimist said:

$13,000... USD.... Holy Batman!!!

I remain to be convinced that a home network needs hardware at this price point.

Wow, just wow.

 

No kidding!  However, as your home network spreads its tentacles through every aspect of daily life what were once annoying issues take on a much magnified significance.  When your home office becomes more of a necessity than a convenience and if you live in a property with infrastructure that's challenging ...

 

I only see this as a growth area. The $13k end of the spectrum are the bespoke trailblazers. And lest we hold high faith in hardware manufacturers magic to create a solution, never forget that every time they create something idiot proof, nature creates a newer better idiot!

[http404]

10 hours ago, esldude said:

+1 on the Ubiquiti gear.  Pretty nice stuff nicely priced for home network tinkering types.  I do wish their forum was more welcoming to newbies asking questions however.  Not always a friendly crowd.

 

Chances are good that unless you're doing something really complex, the question has been asked before. In this respect, a careful Google search will often find what you need, and in many cases all you need to do is cut and paste within SSH.   Don't forget to save configurations before making changes and save the commands you use in a text file for future reference.

[ChrisG]

6 hours ago, eternaloptimist said:

$13,000... USD.... Holy Batman!!!

I remain to be convinced that a home network needs hardware at this price point.

Wow, just wow.

 

The hardware is available for just over $5000 from a combination of Amazon & CDW. Now this doesn't include CAT6 (or 7) cables since Chris already has his house set up, so if you need this run, the price will be higher.

 

So this is what I'm struggling with...basically the $8K difference appears to be a consultant fee which, from the description of the process, was handled primarily via questionnaires; Chris doesn't say how much time he spent actually speaking to someone. So, at $150/hour, that's 53 hours of consulting to review the questionnaire which I'm sure it didn't take anywhere near that amount of time.

 

Now if the company had installed the wiring and set everything up, I could accept the total price tag a bit more...having paid to have this work done at my house several years ago, I know that running cables behind walls without upsetting wifey is costly! 

[http404]

2 hours ago, ChrisG said:

So, at $150/hour, that's 53 hours of consulting to review the questionnaire

 

Chris made it sound as if ongoing support is included as well, though I don't recall this being called out in great detail. 

 

If a finger-in-the-air assumption of a five year life is assumed for the network to remain up to task, based on typical alarm companies monthly monitoring charges of around $35, add at least $2,275 to the calculation for ongoing support over that five years.

[JMotzi]

Hi Chris, this is a really good article that complements well your two earlier articles on more basic networks (The Complete Guide To HiFi UPnP / DLNA Network Audio & Network Audio Refresher);  Since those past articles focused on somewhat more affordable improvements, I am glad that you focused the  current article more on what could be done with a higher level of investment.  After having made improvements based on your past articles (PFSense router/firewall, Cisco switch and Airport Extreme WAPs), I was mostly happy except that the level of performance I get from the Airport Extremes leaves some room for improvement.  It was good to read what you did here with the Ruckus wireless components and it gives me something to think about.  I do wish however that I could rely less on wireless and have more hardwire points in my house J

Regarding the point some folks have made about the cost of the latest system – (1) you already showed us 4 years ago how to set up a lesser cost system so it’s good to show something better this time – something to which we might aspire; (2) yes $13k is a lot of money but if one was running a small business from their home or building a new home, then the cost doesn’t look so bad; (3) many of us are generously paid in our professions so it is not so consistent to expect that people in other professions should get a lesser deal; (4) I am not sure I could get a bathroom remodel, a kitchen remodel or even a decent size deck made of the latest non-wood materials for $13K or less J - typically providers of those projects charge at least as much for labor/design as the raw materials.

I really enjoy these articles and always learn from them.  Thanks!

[AudioDoctor]

I may just give these guys a call, I see the local contact is right here in the Metro area, Chris.

 

I like not doing this stuff myself.

[Johnseye]

Is there any certainty whether the clocks in these devices are superior to others, and if so which come stock with the better clocks?  As we're learning the clocks in all our devices whether that's a motherboard, ethernet switch or router can have an impact on sound quality through its introduction of jitter or noise.

 

Stability is fine and good, but it can also pay to have two of the same device with one sitting in storage as a stand by in the event the one in production fails.  If this can be done instead of buying the more expensive device it may be a better route to take.  However, if a device doesn't perform as it should because it's a lesser cost piece of equipment then paying for that performance could be worth it.  There are routers and switches which don't perform as stated, while Cisco is typically very reliable.

 

The Ruckus gear is fairly common in manufacturing and warehousing.  I've considered it for our warehouses, but have stayed with Cisco for standardization.  I've never had a problem with Cisco's wireless equipment, knock on wood.  Meraki is another way to go, but I'm not keen on the subscription format.  Maybe one day I'll warm up to it, but I'm not shy about investing capital and try to avoid opex.

[Archimago]

@Johnseye

 

Who said the clock inside an ethernet switch / router makes a difference?

 

As far as I am aware, all ethernet streamers are asynchronous devices. Unless you truly have an extremely noisy network system, noise introduced into a DAC from the ethernet should really be inaudible.

 

 

[plissken]

14 hours ago, Johnseye said:

Is there any certainty whether the clocks in these devices are superior to others, and if so which come stock with the better clocks?  

 

The base line clock is going to be a 25 MHz clock. There is no 'better' and by that I mean MORE 25MHz. It's like asking which Gold Nugget is more Gold. They are all Gold. 

 

From a 24 port Cisco ESW 520 POE GBe Switch ($35 from Craigslist):

 

 

From a $65 ASRock N3150 mainboard (and that includes the 4 core CPU   ):

 

 

From a $18 Dual GBe Intel Server NIC:

 

 

Quote

As we're learning the clocks in all our devices whether that's a motherboard, ethernet switch or router can have an impact on sound quality through its introduction of jitter or noise.

 

No we aren't all learning that. Whomever is telling you this doesn't know what they are talking about.

 

Consumer computers are non-realtime devices composed of many clock domains: Ethernet, PCIe Bus, RAM , CPU, USB,  and these domains are traversed by buffers that eliminate various system clocks by maintaining a FIFO buffer. 

 

Start playback from a streamed source, pull the Ethernet cable, and most likely music will still continue to play. What does the Ethernet clock have to do with the quality of sound now coming out of your setup? 

 

 

 

 

[Johnseye]

1 minute ago, plissken said:

No we aren't all learning that. Whomever is telling you this doesn't know what they are talking about.

 

Consumer computers are non-realtime devices composed of many clock domains: Ethernet, PCIe Bus, RAM , CPU, USB,  and these domains are traversed by buffers that eliminate various system clocks by maintaining a FIFO buffer. 

 

Start playback from a streamed source, pull the Ethernet cable, and most likely music will still continue to play. What does the Ethernet clock have to do with the quality of sound now coming out of your setup? 

 

 

Excellent points and I've challenged others with the same.  There are some specific threads here I can point out if you'd like where people are reporting improved sound quality by updating their clocks.  Whether that's just a different sound that they prefer or are in fact improved through less jitter, noise, distortion, what have you is unknown.  I understand the buffer should help, but does it eliminate all timing issues?  Is there something we're missing? There are undeniably better quality clocks than others.

 

This isn't my setup as I haven't replaced the clocks.  These are reports from others doing a lot of experimenting.  It is all subjective review, but there are multiple similar reports.