Routers, how do they sound?

[maverickronin]

In fact, the mantra is “everything makes a difference”: https://www.hifiplus.com/articles/computer-audio-everything-makes-a-difference/

I decided to see what insanity I could find by googling "which isp sounds best with tidal" but the first page is completely free of laughs and/or headdesks.

I was hoping for flamewars between AT&T and Comcast fanboys or something...

 

[escksu]

Yes it can. But not under normal circumstances. 2 likely scenarios.

1. Power issue. A faulty adapter (sometimes grounding issue). This causes excessive noise to be transmitted across the network cables. I have seen it causing problems to computers so it will definitely affect audio equipment.

2. Router issue. Partially faulty router or firmware causing packet loss. IF you do a ping test, you get time out once in a while. Changing cable doesnt help. Off and on may resolve it but problem comes back after a while. I think we all do restart our routers once in a while...lol...

3. cable issue. I think this one is most common esp. for those who lay network cables in their homes. But patch cords can also cause problems but such cases are rare.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Yes it can. But not under normal circumstances. 2 likely scenarios.

It comes down to this. It doesn't have any effect on the sound unless it is defective. Works for me.

 

[escksu]

It comes down to this. It doesn't have any effect on the sound unless it is defective. Works for me.

Yes! Fully agreed!! Even switches and network cables too!!

 

[RayDunzl]

2. Router issue. Partially faulty router or firmware causing packet loss. IF you do a ping test, you get time out once in a while. Changing cable doesnt help. Off and on may resolve it but problem comes back after a while. I think we all do restart our routers once in a while...lol...

Ping is an ICMP packet, of low priority, and can be discarded if the router is busy enough for some reason to think it needs to.

Unlikely on a home net, but not impossible, and not necessarily a sign of trouble.

---

My 10 year old dual band wi-fi router locks up once a week or so, and stops talking to the PC and whatever else it should be talking to..

Can't access it so it gets power-cycled and all is well again after 30 seconds or so.

I forgive it since it was so cheap and does so much.

 

[escksu]

Ping is an ICMP packet, of low priority, and can be discarded if the router is busy enough for some reason to think it needs to.

Unlikely on a home net, but not impossible, and not necessarily a sign of trouble.

---

My 10 year old dual band wi-fi router locks up once a week or so, and stops talking to the PC and whatever else it should be talking to..

Can't access it so it gets power-cycled and all is well again after 30 seconds or so.

I forgive it since it was so cheap and does so much.

Yes, ICMP packet is low priority but if your router is so busy that it could not respond to it, something its obviously not right (esp. for home routers). Of course, the better way is to check the statistics in the router to see if there are dropped packets. Some may display CPU and memory utilisation. Wireless may have but it should not happen for wired network.

But ping timeout could be a sign of cable issue as well.

 

[mafelba]

Curious about others thoughts on routers and their impact on audio reproduction. I see people powering them with a LPS and big buck cables. Swearing over their mothers grave they can hear improvements. Anyone have any measurements to show an improvement in the waveform from the dac, or pre-amp possibly. I did a search and didn't find anything. Maybe I answered why just now.

Your thoughts please!

MAK

Routers have no effect on sound because the receiving device or software buffers the data from the router sufficiently so that latency in the conveyance of data by the router does not affect the conversion of the information into analog. Is that the impact you were thinking of?

 

[boXem]

I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I am certain that routers are the pathways to orgasmic experiences for many, many people. Or so I’ve heard...

Yeah, I saw a documentary about it, once, maybe...

 

[PSO]

Our company's main products are routers and switches. AFAIK, they just send data/network traffic by efficiently switching/labeling/routing data packets. At a high level ..

1. A router receives bits/bytes of data at an interface/port through an Ethernet/optic cable.
2. The router checks the packet's destination.
3. It refers its routing table to check which neighbor device the packet has to be sent to (and which of its ports leads to that).
4. It sends the data to the corresponding interface/port, which forwards it through an Ethernet/optic cable to the neighbor router.

I cannot understand how it can affect sound, positively or negatively.

 

[Jimbob54]

It does make me wonder, when did you Americans change the pronunciation from root to rowt?

You don't say "get your kicks on rowt 66" do you?

1926.So as not to be confused with Canadians. Much ado aboot nothing.

 

[Soniclife]

So why do people say they hear a more Orgasmic/ organic sound with the LPS and so on? Can they hear 100 angels on a pin head singing?

MAK

Start here...
https://yourbias.is/

 

[mafelba]

Our company's main products are routers and switches. AFAIK, they just send data/network traffic by efficiently switching/labeling/routing data packets. At a high level ..

1. A router receives bits/bytes of data at an interface/port through an Ethernet/optic cable.
2. The router checks the packet's destination.
3. It refers its routing table to check which neighbor device the packet has to be sent to (and which of its ports leads to that).
4. It sends the data to the corresponding interface/port, which forwards it through an Ethernet/optic cable to the neighbor router.

I cannot understand how it can affect sound, positively or negatively.

A router can affect latency to a small degree. Bandwidth can be restricted by distance. A router is a data pump which under certain circumstances can cause data to slow down at the receiving end. If the receiving end is a DAC device/software that does not buffer or does not buffer enough to deal with latency coming from the router, the sound could be altered. Even if the latency is so bad that the buffer is exhausted, sound will be affected. This is a variation of the turn off your router and see how sound is affected trick.

 

[GeorgeWalk]

Yes it can. But not under normal circumstances. 2 likely scenarios.

1. Power issue. A faulty adapter (sometimes grounding issue). This causes excessive noise to be transmitted across the network cables. I have seen it causing problems to computers so it will definitely affect audio equipment.

2. Router issue. Partially faulty router or firmware causing packet loss. IF you do a ping test, you get time out once in a while. Changing cable doesnt help. Off and on may resolve it but problem comes back after a while. I think we all do restart our routers once in a while...lol...

3. cable issue. I think this one is most common esp. for those who lay network cables in their homes. But patch cords can also cause problems but such cases are rare.

I had issue #3. Occasionally playback over the network would stop or stutter. I tried for a year to find it. I noticed the problem more when a contractor was working in the house. When they were doing a lot of hammering the problem was worse. There was a network switch on a shelf in the room next to where they working. After a lot of experiments (replaced switch, swapping cables,...) found a cable with a bad/intermittent connector.

 

[mafelba]

I had issue #3. Occasionally playback over the network would stop or stutter. I tried for a year to find it. I noticed the problem more when a contractor was working in the house. When they were doing a lot of hammering the problem was worse. There was a network switch on a shelf in the room next to where they working. After a lot of experiments (replaced switch, swapping cables,...) found a cable with a bad/intermittent connector.

And think of the many times when sound is degraded but not apparent to our ears necessarily to come off as "intermittent".

 

[mansr]

A router can affect latency to a small degree. Bandwidth can be restricted by distance. A router is a data pump which under certain circumstances can cause data to slow down at the receiving end. If the receiving end is a DAC device/software that does not buffer or does not buffer enough to deal with latency coming from the router, the sound could be altered. Even if the latency is so bad that the buffer is exhausted, sound will be affected. This is a variation of the turn off your router and see how sound is affected trick.

You seem to have confused latency with jitter. Latency in itself is never an issue for music playback. The music we listen to has generally been recorded at least a few months prior, if not years or decades. A few more milliseconds won't make a difference. When streaming, the receiver needs to have a sufficient buffer size to handle variations in latency, aka jitter. Due to randomly changing network conditions, there will be occasional latency spikes, meaning the data stream will be interrupted for 100 ms or so, sometimes more. To avoid glitches in playback when this happens, the receiver must have a buffer holding a second or more of audio data. The minimum buffer size required depends on the worst-case variation in latency (and the bandwidth utilisation). The absolute latency does not matter. A ridiculously high latency would be noticeable only as a delay when playback is first initiated.

 

[tw99]

A router can affect latency to a small degree. Bandwidth can be restricted by distance. A router is a data pump which under certain circumstances can cause data to slow down at the receiving end. If the receiving end is a DAC device/software that does not buffer or does not buffer enough to deal with latency coming from the router, the sound could be altered. Even if the latency is so bad that the buffer is exhausted, sound will be affected. This is a variation of the turn off your router and see how sound is affected trick.

In that case you'll just get a dropout, rather than the "deeper bass", "organic sound", "huge soundstage" that various audiophiles will claim for using a Special Audiophile Router.

99.9999% of the time, routers and switches just work. They do not affect sound quality in any way, other than in the .0001% of cases where if enough data gets dropped, you'd hear a glitch.

 

[EdW]

You seem to have confused latency with jitter. Latency in itself is never an issue for music playback. The music we listen to has generally been recorded at least a few months prior, if not years or decades. A few more milliseconds won't make a difference. When streaming, the receiver needs to have a sufficient buffer size to handle variations in latency, aka jitter. Due to randomly changing network conditions, there will be occasional latency spikes, meaning the data stream will be interrupted for 100 ms or so, sometimes more. To avoid glitches in playback when this happens, the receiver must have a buffer holding a second or more of audio data. The minimum buffer size required depends on the worst-case variation in latency (and the bandwidth utilisation). The absolute latency does not matter. A ridiculously high latency would be noticeable only as a delay when playback is first initiated.

Agreed. Some time ago, as an experiment, I unplugged the Ethernet cable to my Raspberry Pi4 streamer. The music continued for 10 seconds or more. I hadn’t even specified a huge buffer in the RPi.

 

[Jinjuku]

Remember a few key things:

1. Ethernet is based on a 25MHz clock for RJE Copper interconnects. Show of hands of audiophiles who can hear 25MHz would be interesting
2. UTP cabling is pretty much noise immune to 30MHz
3. Buffers in your end point player will store anything from 1000ms to an hours worth of data. With JRiver I can buffer an entire album in ~2 seconds on my 10GBe fiber network, remove the cable and play the album in entirety.

I now have increased my standing offer of my $8000 to anyones $1000 and loser pays travel expenses that can hear a differences between routers. I've the ability to setup static ECMP (equal cost multi path) networking.

I can be PM'd for any interested party for details. Here is a video showing how such an evaluation setup could work:

 

[weasels]

I have tested them and they don't. Our imagination is quite strong. If I told an audiophile a different sock they wear would make their audio sound better, they would do that and indeed "hear" a difference. That is no evidence then of sound waves changing from their systems.

When my kids were in middle school orchestra their sound could have been improved by stuffing those socks in my ears. Giving an 11 year old a bassoon should be considered child abuse.

 

[wwenze]

I have a router that can improve the quality of bank account transactions

Specifically, if you buy it, it transfers money from your account to mine hence improving the quality of your account.