Ok now I am frustrated with streaming


Help me out here please. I was really enjoying getting into streaming. Just purchased a Node 2i 2 weeks ago and have been enjoying it. Testing Tidal and Qobuz, leaning toward Qobuz. I was testing both wifi and ethernet connection. I seemed to pick up some noise and distortion on what I thought was the ethernet so I have been listening on wifi. I really enjoy finding new music on the streaming service. Tonight I was enjoying Sierra Hull because I listen to a lot of Alison Krauss. I was listening to Sierra Hull's new 25 Trips album and got to track 7 Escape and I heard a bunch of static/distortion, almost like a blown tube, except I have solid state equipment. I switched to Tidal to see if it was a problem with the Qobuz stream and same thing. Hooked up my MacBook pro to rule out a problem with the Node 2i, same thing. Now I am listening to Clapton's Unplugged and I hear the same thing. Is it my internet? I have a brand new modem, a Motorola MB7621, and a brand new Asus AC3100 router. I did a speed test and we are getting 237 mbps. My daughter was watching Netflix on a TV upstairs at the time, when she was finished I did a reboot of the cable modem and reboot of the Node 2i and then it was fine after that. I listened for about an hour after that. Is it my internet speed? Do I need to call Comcast/xfinity and up my speed package? Is it something else? Its getting frustrating and its not supposed to be like that, I am at the point where I may just send the Node back on the return policy and stick with CD's. 
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Showing 1 response by rbstehno

I used to do corporate networks starting 30 years ago and their could be a few things that you should look at:
1) you indicated that xfinity saw some errors. What were they? Could they fix them or did they mask them by upping your speed? Speed isn’t the problem, it’s the quality of your connection.
2) something simple to look at 1st on your side is you could have a bad Ethernet patch cable. We used to certify every cable that we made to ensure it was built right. Invest in a cheap network cable analyzer like the Tripp-lite network cable tester for $40 and check each of your cables. You would be surprised how many cables have issues
2) Router configuration. How many routers are you using? Do you have a bridged network or a mesh network? If you are using a few routers, are they attached by an Ethernet cable or from WiFi? Big difference in performance, you don’t want to use WiFi unless you have to.
3) you want to use a 1G internal network which requires cat5e cables or higher. I use a cat7 audioquest Ethernet cable from my wall socket to my dac, much better termination which equals better sq. 
I have been streaming (to me streaming is accessing music on a disk drive or internet) for over a dozen years without any issues. My music server is a Mac mini running Roon from a different room than my audio equipment. I have been thru many years using pure music/Audirvana  software or a dedicated music server Auralic Aries. Roon replaced all of that.

Network wise, I have a 1G private network and my house is all wired using cat6 cablIng. My internet is a 1G fiber network. My last house I had 1G fiber using cat5e cables without any issues. Even with my home wired in every room going to a 1G switch, I use 3 routers all connected together with cat6 cabling. All 3 routers are setup in a bridged configuration. Any Mac that is attached to any router will see 950Mb upload and download speeds with 3 or 4 ms latency. Tidal MQA is every bit as good and usually much better sound quality than ripped or purchased hires files as well as vinyl.