I keep my router in a room upstairs. It is very far from my audio system and I use wireless to access much digital music. I have a cd player and DAC when I listen to CDs. I have power strips (hospital grade) and low noise which are pretty far from my components. This setup is the best I have found for sound. I have zero power conditioning, but my room is acoustically ideal for the type of music I have and speakers I use.
Move router far from hifi components?
I just finished reading Hans Beekhuyzen's Kindle book on file based audio. This is what he said about where your router should go.
"Like cell phones, Wi-Fi uses radio frequencies that might cause interference in your stereo. Try to keep the Wi-Fi access point as far as possible from the hifiequipment and always use well shielded audio, power and network cables on your hifi. If Wi-Fi is your only choice, you’d rather hope you’re in an area that has little Wi-Fi traffic."
i don't think I have heard about this before and was wondering if this really makes a difference. I'm tempted to move my router and modem to another room to test but wanted to poll everyone to see if they have done this.
"Like cell phones, Wi-Fi uses radio frequencies that might cause interference in your stereo. Try to keep the Wi-Fi access point as far as possible from the hifiequipment and always use well shielded audio, power and network cables on your hifi. If Wi-Fi is your only choice, you’d rather hope you’re in an area that has little Wi-Fi traffic."
i don't think I have heard about this before and was wondering if this really makes a difference. I'm tempted to move my router and modem to another room to test but wanted to poll everyone to see if they have done this.
- ...
- 35 posts total
To Randy's point, I keep my computer audio front end and router/modem electrically isolated from and around 10+ feet away from my analog gear using 20' long XLR IC's from DAC to preamp. I got better sound using wireless than from a long Ethernet cable. Can't really buy that with all of the RF from phones/wireless devices shooting through the air that the location of the router/modem (to avoid RF noise) is that critical. As stated before, it is more likely the noisy power supplies in consumer computer-related gear that creates the sonic issues and that can be managed. YMMV. Dave |
I have considered that, jmw. Dunno at this point if I will go that far or if that will help substantially. I started with simply making sure that the noisy switching power supplies and their accompanying DC cords are routed carefully away from all other cables/gear as much as possible. Second, plugging those noisy power supplies into a receptacle fed by an isolated dedicated AC line (at least not shared with the rest of my audio gear). Third, covering those power supplies and DC cords with EMI/RF shielding fabric I bought through Amazon (cheap). Thinking next step may be adding RF/EMI absorbing material inside of my DAC to reduce penetration and eliminate internally generated noise from bouncing around inside: http://kgs-ind.com/wp-content/uploads/products/pdf/Absorber_Flyer-IM-02.pdf Toying with the idea of adding SR Tranquility base(s) to create a field of protection around the most sensitive components, but now just using Shakti stones on top of DAC and its external power supply. Dave |
- 35 posts total