[TJ-Sully]

Hey folks,

Thought I'd share an experience from tonight..

I've been running a digital system with all Bryston electronics (and speakers) for the last 6 years or so. A few years ago, prior to signing up for Tidal/Roon, i sourced my music from an external HD connected to my BDP-1. I used the stock micro USB cable that came with the MyPassport HD. The cable seemed super chintzy but i figured a USB cable is a USB cable.

Well, i was wrong.

For fun, i recently purchased a micro USB cable from Curious Cables. Manufactured by some cool dudes down in Australia.  It cost about $150. I've had it for a few months now, but it's been sitting in it's new box in a drawer in our living room.

Tonight, I figured I'd give it a go. So I disconnected all streaming services and listened to my favorite 3 or 4 tunes directly from the HD / BDP-1 using the stock USB cable. Then switched it out for the new Curious Cable - and holy shit. I was floored. The music was more crisp and clean. There is truth to this whole digital cable business. I'm not the type to spend thousands on cables.....well...wait a minute....my Aspen speaker cables were not cheap...BUT...a couple hundred bucks for a 15cm micro USB cable is money well spent! And wanted to share this with ya.

Dumb question probably - but have others tried moderately priced USB cables and observed similar results?

TJ.

[Anonamemouse]

I did. I tried several high end cables, standard issue off-the-blister-rack cables and some inbetweens.
Fully blind tests, cables changed by my ex. Listening audience, me, a few friends, a 16 year old girl (they have the best hearing and should always be included in listening tests). After two days we decided that $15 spent on a shielded usb cable was well spent, the rest wasn't worth the money.

[zoom25]

If you want to go further with USB, you can try things like Audioquest Jitterbug in front of other devices. I've done it with flash drives, portable drives, desktop sized drive, and Wifi USB adapter. You can even use it with USB hubs and experiment powering the desktop hard drives and hubs with LPS. I had a 5V and 12V Teradak LPS.

Nowadays, I plug nothing into the USB inputs and just use the ethernet connection.

[schmidtmike76]

If you want to go further with USB, you can try things like Audioquest Jitterbug in front of other devices. I've done it with flash drives, portable drives, desktop sized drive, and Wifi USB adapter. You can even use it with USB hubs and experiment powering the desktop hard drives and hubs with LPS. I had a 5V and 12V Teradak LPS.

Nowadays, I plug nothing into the USB inputs and just use the ethernet connection.

im running roon off of my iMac in another room over wifi.  Before this I would have argued until the cows came home wired is always better.  I would have been wrong and should have listened to you sooner.  I run a cinnamon audioquest Ethernet cord from my router into my Pi and wow I really can’t be happier.  I haven’t had one lagging issues even my MQA or high res files yet.  I’m actually shocked how fast it is when I hit play from my iPad it’s literally instantl.

[CanadianMaestro]

im running roon off of my iMac in another room over wifi.  Before this I would have argued until the cows came home wired is always better.  I would have been wrong and should have listened to you sooner.  I run a cinnamon audioquest Ethernet cord from my router into my Pi and wow I really can’t be happier. 

Mike
That's still "wired" -- Ethernet cord.
"Unwired" is with a WiFi dongle, no Ethernet wire to the wall.

cheers

[schmidtmike76]

Mike
That's still "wired" -- Ethernet cord.
"Unwired" is with a WiFi dongle, no Ethernet wire to the wall.

cheers

im going to look into this thanks

[CanadianMaestro]

It's what I do with my BDP. Ethernet to wall power adaptor.  .
No dongle.

[zoom25]

There's couple of ways to have the chain set up for network use with the BDP-1/2. BDP-3 has the additional option for built-in wifi.

You can do an all wired setup where the computer (iMac running Roon for example) or NAS, along with the BDPs are wired into the network. Everything is hard wired, except for the tablet/phone used for control.

Combination of wifi and wired. I have my iMac connected wirelessly to my router, but the BDP-1 is wired by ethernet with a separate router in the room.

All Wifi -> iMac connected by Wifi, and the BDP-1 also running wirelessly with a USB Wifi adapter.

Wireless and wired can differ in stability. Wired will always win, but if your wifi is setup correctly and optimized, you'll get zero dropouts and the response will be instantaneous. Zero difference between wifi and wired for end user in response time.

Wireless vs. wired for what happens early on in the chain only matters in terms of reliability. For SQ, only the end chain that makes a connection to the BDP directly matter. Is the BDP connected with USB wifi dongle or an ethernet cable. I personally prefer the ethernet connection. It shouldn't matter whether the setup was wired throughout or there was a wifi jump somewhere. As long as the BDP itself is being fed by ethernet port, you should be good. There is one exception to this: powerline adapter. I absolutely refuse to use them because of the interference they throw off. I've had my computers and tablets pick up noise. They should be avoided. Powerline adapters perhaps might not affect an all Bryston rig, but it definitely can mess with other components.

I haven't messed with my setup since March. The BDP-1 is wired with ethernet (combination of regular Cat5e and Cat6 UTP). No special power supplies for the router. Everything stock. The power cables for every equipment is also stock unshielded. Everything plugged into the Torus. I use the BDP-1 with Roon. I am not fond of using the Wifi USB adapter or any USB flash/hard drives for local playback with MPD. I've stopped using the USB connection altogether for both local and network playback. Single ethernet cable plugged into the BDP-1, nothing plugged into USB ports.

I've tried all the network and local combinations that are possible with the BDP and have settled for what works and sounds the best for me. I'll most probably upgrade Roon to lifetime this year and that should be the end where I don't have to worry about MPD again.

[zoom25]

Recently I was forced to update my iMac that had been running Mountain Lion to High Sierra because Roon was no longer supported on that platform. Yesterday I got the idea of finally trying bridging ethernet ports so that the iMac could talk to the router via a USB to ethernet adapter and then use the ethernet port on the iMac to connect directly to the BDP-1 with a single ethernet cable. No routers/switches in between the iMac and BDP-1. This was not possible in Mountain Lion. I've tried this in the past with my Macbook Pros and used a combination of USB-to-ethernet (10/100) and Thunderbolt-to-ethernet (gigabit) adapters and at the time the results were mixed and so I didn't invest much time into the merit of bridging. My rig at the time was a bit different as well from today (for one all those shielded power cables are gone). Although I had two manufacturers tell me that the built in native ethernet port was of a higher quality than these Thunderbolt and USB adapters, even though they all are from Broadcom. So it has been at the back of my mind for some time. However, I couldn't do anything about that since my iMac's OS didn't support bridging at that time. Additionally, all these changes are happening on the network side which is digital AND asynchronous, so it should have no impact on the end result.

Anyways, I tried it yesterday and was able to get it going and did some listening. After waking up the iMac today, it was still setup and running correctly. I didn't have to reconfigure anything. It was stable and active. I only mention this as I've tried Audirvana and DLNA before and that connection hasn't always been stable and you'd often need to setup things again, especially if using Wifi and ethernet simultaneously.

For those not aware of what I'm talking about or the supposed rationale behind bridging, here's some discussion with people's impressions and theories on what may be going on: https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/

My verdict is still out. Haven't done any AB comparisons whatsoever since putting it in bridged mode. I'm just listening and having fun. Still, can't feel as if there is this change in presentation that makes things sound more immediate and upfront with more air and sparkle around instruments and transients, appearance of enhanced clarity and a more locked in image. In my past testing I've found that all of these traits, expect one, could easily be confused based on bias. However, the single aspect of the vocals (and especially the air surrounding it) leaping out at you is becoming harder and harder to ignore. At times it almost feels suffocating given what I was used to for these past 6 months. Or this could all just be wishful thinking! Definitely a possibility.

[zoom25]

Here are some comments from Mark Jenkins of Antipodes when asked about Roon Ready and Roon Core, network protocols, and MPD/Roon/DLNA comparisons.

https://positive-feedback.com/audio-discourse/core-edge-antipodes/

[docder]

Thank you, Zoom,  for passing on this experience, and for the links. It's all very helpful in thinking through the many options of replay available once we start delving into apps, ethernet, networks and so on.

[zoom25]

You're welcome, docder.

Just a quick objective, numerical update. In the past few months I've used Roon with a typical router setup and have had to periodically restart the BDP-1 either because I was going out, or there were thunderstorms, or an Error code due to voltage spike. Whenever the BDP-1 restarts, by habit I always disable USB mount and Samba server options, leaving only Roon Ready checked under the Services Tab at the bottom of Manic Moose page.

Within an hour after booting, I find the BDP-1's CPU% come to a stable percentage with only occasional spike increases. In the past 6 months, that percentage was always around 14-15%.

In the past 3 days that I've been using the bridged ethernet configuration, I've had to restart a total of 3 times due to lightning, and an error code. As before, I disabled USB mount and Samba server each time. In all of these instances after letting the BDP-1 settle down, I've found that the CPU% is consistently at 19-20% and spikes well into high 20's and low 30's at times. I'm not sure why there's a difference all of a sudden, but it's there consistently. I'm not sure why this may be the case, but wonder if either Roon's and/or BDP-1 processes have changed in some aspect.