Squeeze Box Touch Optimization

JEaton · « **Reply #60 on:** 13 Aug 2010, 07:09 pm »

Quote from: mfsoa on 12 Aug 2010, 02:08 pm

Would I want to use Cat6? 6a? 5 ok? for a ~ 10 meter run from the router to the Touch?

For something permanent - in wall wiring - you'd want to use Cat6a and be as future proof as you can at this point in time.

But for a couple dollar patch cable being used on a 100 Mbps network to hook up a device that is only capable of 100 Mbps, Cat5 or 5e is just fine. If some day in the future you need to make a 10 meter run at Gbit speeds then you can buy another patch cable.

Turnandcough · « **Reply #61 on:** 13 Aug 2010, 11:58 pm »

I need about 30ft.
Is it better to get shielded or unshielded?
Price is not a factor but WAF is.
I checked Monoprice and the shielded Cat 6a only comes in 25 or 50ft non-WAF blue. For a 30 ft length of WAF white cable I would have to settle for Cat 5, Cat 5e or Cat 6

kyrill · « **Reply #62 on:** 14 Aug 2010, 01:05 pm »

shielded is the way to go for such lengths

bprice2 · « **Reply #63 on:** 14 Aug 2010, 04:09 pm »

Quote from: Turnandcough on 13 Aug 2010, 11:58 pm

I need about 30ft.
Is it better to get shielded or unshielded?
Price is not a factor but WAF is.
I checked Monoprice and the shielded Cat 6a only comes in 25 or 50ft non-WAF blue. For a 30 ft length of WAF white cable I would have to settle for Cat 5, Cat 5e or Cat 6

Soundcheck (the guy who wrote the tutorial) suggests shielded over your long run into an ethernet hub. Then, from the hub to your Touch with a short run of unshielded cable.

Addendum: The reason he gives for doing this is that long runs of shielded ethernet can create ground loop problems. The hub and unshielded wire at the last segment before connecting to the Touch apparently solves that problem.

lcrim · « **Reply #64 on:** 14 Aug 2010, 06:53 pm »

STP or FTP (foiled twisted pair) are a european thing. You can buy them here but UTP has been in use for over a century. There are considerations regarding the cross section of network cables. Cat6a (augmented) early on was considerably thicker than it is now and drove the contract electricians crazy when pulling it through conduit which was sized on the drawing for Cat5e.
I used UTP in my own house and if there is cross talk, my systems w/ Bolder analog modded Touchs' is very high resolution and the background is very black and clarity is extraordinary.
I think that we are starting to obsess over cable again. Use Cat6 or Cat6a or Cat5e and have done with it.
Sorry I said anything.

Turnandcough · « **Reply #65 on:** 15 Aug 2010, 02:30 am »

Thanks for your replies.

I think I'll give the 30 ft of Cat 6 for $3.99 for starters.
If that doesn't work I'll work my way up to the shielded/hub/unshielded combo solution.

kyrill · « **Reply #66 on:** 16 Aug 2010, 07:54 am »

Be Aware that the unshielded version WILL make you "happy" and you will not probably feel inclined to go for the shielded one as you will not hear distortions like hiss or even humm.
Only after comparing you may notice that the shielded one sounds "cleaner" more transparent, more "analogue", less "electronic" and so on.

mfsoa · « **Reply #67 on:** 22 Aug 2010, 05:49 pm »

I tried to implement the software tweaks but when I try to download the rcs.local file it says windows can't open it and do I want to find the correct program or select one from a list etc.

Is there anything I need to do to be able to download this file?

Thanks

-Mike

mfsoa · « **Reply #68 on:** 22 Aug 2010, 06:40 pm »

OK, I think I was able to apply the script -How can I tell for sure? I know I'm connected wired but how can I tell if the wireless is shut off?
Thanks again

-Mike

lcrim · « **Reply #69 on:** 22 Aug 2010, 07:08 pm »

Mike:
Go online. Google putty. Download putty.exe to your windows desktop. Launch putty. Put in the ip address of your Touch, connection type SSH, port 22.
When the black SSH box opens, you may nedd to hit enter, give it the credentials for an SSH session
account name root
password 1234
once authenticated
enter ifconfig hit enter (interface configuration)
If the wlan card is off you will see entries for eth0 and l0 (ethernet and loopback) but no wlan entry
You need to have restarted the Touch after the copy and configuration of the rcSlocal file. The OS has to restart for that file to work.

BTW-the ethernet cables are not sending music but data. They don't need shielding.

mfsoa · « **Reply #70 on:** 22 Aug 2010, 07:20 pm »

So wlan0 values like RX Packets: 0 and TX packets: 0 are what we are looking for?

lcrim · « **Reply #71 on:** 22 Aug 2010, 07:23 pm »

you should not have any entry at all for wlan, only eth0 and l0 entries.

Did you make the file executable? check marks in boxes and restart the Touch?

mfsoa · « **Reply #72 on:** 22 Aug 2010, 07:42 pm »

OK got it now, thanks

kyrill · « **Reply #73 on:** 23 Aug 2010, 08:13 am »

Quote from: lcrim on 22 Aug 2010, 07:08 pm

Mike:
Go online. Google putty. Dow.......e to work.

BTW-the ethernet cables are not sending music but data. They don't need shielding.

Hmm dont be too sure about that
BER ( bit error rate) ALWAYS happens even shielded (!) when the the digital stream is under influence of a field of electromagnetic waves.
What concerns me more is that is easily measurable and measurable distortion can be heard by the ear brain system often before there are reliable measurement data. And although in some cases BER can be very small, Bit error correction is a crime in a a very transparent system, to be avoided like the plague

JEaton · « **Reply #74 on:** 23 Aug 2010, 08:56 am »

Quote from: kyrill on 23 Aug 2010, 08:13 am

Hmm dont be too sure about that
BER ( bit error rate) ALWAYS happens even shielded (!) when the the digital stream is under influence of a field of electromagnetic waves.
What concerns me more is that is easily measurable and measurable distortion can be heard by the ear brain system often before there are reliable measurement data. And although in some cases BER can be very small, Bit error correction is a crime in a a very transparent system, to be avoided like the plague

Nonsense.

I'm not sure whether Ethernet uses error correction, but I'm positive that any error correction scheme used would be via ECC using parity bits and will be bit-perfect. When corrections cannot be made, packets are retransmitted.

Keep in mind that the Squeezebox only uses 100 Mbit Ethernet, not 1 Gbit, not 10 Gbit. Absolutely no need for Category 7 cabling. Use unshielded cabling, which is much easier to install properly.

kyrill · « **Reply #75 on:** 23 Aug 2010, 10:00 am »

I am not (anymore) seduced for this kind of discussions that digital bits are prefect copies etc and therefore should sound the same. This is true enough
for stored data not at all for listening to streams

You would probably also say that it is nonsens to make heavy cd transports/dacs with anti resonance and damping feet underneath and so on. Becoz of the error correction they should all sound the same , no?

lcrim · « **Reply #76 on:** 23 Aug 2010, 10:40 am »

The packets are not digital bits but ethernet packets. The packets are asembled and decoded at the SqueezeBox. Data not a digital bitstream is being sent and received. Our dialogue right now would not be possible, if your statement were correct.

ctviggen · « **Reply #77 on:** 23 Aug 2010, 11:16 am »

Quote from: JEaton on 23 Aug 2010, 08:56 am

Nonsense.

I'm not sure whether Ethernet uses error correction, but I'm positive that any error correction scheme used would be via ECC using parity bits and will be bit-perfect. When corrections cannot be made, packets are retransmitted.

Keep in mind that the Squeezebox only uses 100 Mbit Ethernet, not 1 Gbit, not 10 Gbit. Absolutely no need for Category 7 cabling. Use unshielded cabling, which is much easier to install properly.

Ethernet uses the following:

"The popular and IEEE-recommended CRC-32 polynomial, used by Ethernet, FDDI and others, is the generating polynomial of a Hamming code and, far from being arbitrarily chosen, was selected for its error detection performance.[13] "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_redundancy_check

Even if there's a CRC-32, certain combinations of errors can create a valid code, which means that errors can exist but the errors cannot be found. How often would this occur? I looked for data of this, but can't find any.

As for 100Mbit, my network at home is primarily 100 Mbit. Yesterday, I was serving FLAC music to two different Squeezeboxes (from my server), while transferring a TV show from my ReplayTV DVR to my server drive, while watching a TV show (tennis) (480i) on my server. All of that simultaneously over a cat 5e wire.

Quiet Earth · « **Reply #78 on:** 24 Aug 2010, 03:14 am »

Hey guys. Great thread and I'm learning new stuff.

I use the Duet (not the Touch) with an i-Mac, and all of my music is ripped as AIFF files. I'm still using mine wireless because that's really why I bought it in the first place. I disabled FLAC as suggested while keeping AIFF native. I could indeed hear a difference in sound when I disabled FLAC. What I heard though was more of an assertive and defined high end. With FLAC disabled, cymbals still sound like big metal discs as they decay into silence instead of what I would normally hear as turning into paper before fading to silence. The sense of air and space seems better in some cases, but at other times the highs seem more aggressive. In short, I haven't decided if this is a real improvement or just a change.

There is an irritating problem that comes along with this tweak on my system. At the end of every song there is a single loud clicking noise like someone is turning something off just before the next song starts. I can't stand listening to that noise anymore so back to AIFF=native and FLAC=flac/sox for now.

Oh, and I didn't try any of the other script ideas yet because I didn't know if they only applied to the Touch. Thanks for sharing though, it was a fun experiment.

shadowlight · « **Reply #79 on:** 22 Dec 2010, 02:18 am »

Anyone have a copy of the mods mentioned in the OP that they would like to share. Went to the site but the old mods have been pulled down and the new ones are not listed and could not figure out how to contact Klaus to request the original mods.
Thanks