Quick question: Will the “web browser based configuration for networking setup” (in Roon Optimized Core Kit) provide the possibility to bridge two ethernet ports?
For example:
(1) If you have a machine with 2 ethernet ports
(2) A machine with one ethernet port and you add an usb-to-ethernet port
I’m testing option (2) at the moment with my iMac (running Roon Core) and the SQ is greatly improved
Bridge the network interfaces? You want the traffic split so you can have more than a gigabit of data throughput? This is not something we would support in ROCK.
Respectfully taking your word that there is indeed a noticeable SQ difference, I have to say that the difference must be unrelated to your bridging.
This should be taken with a caveat that I am totally unfamiliar with what you are streaming, what your network looks like, and what hardware you are using.
However, everything I know about how bridged networking works tells me that it should be more noisy, more complicated, and more prone to error. Not only should it not make an improvement, it might even decrease the purity of signal.
UPDATE: please read @AndersVinberg’s post below… He explains that while I interpreted the network bridging as it applies to interfaces, the article mentioned does not use it in that manner, instead it uses it to mean that you are just using your OS as a router between 2 LANs. This is standard networking setups, ROCK will support it, and might have the desired effect because it will reduce network components.
If you not supporting bridging of ethernet ports that’s fine by me, I just wanted to check.
I’ve no clue as why the sound improves with bridging. I just read the thread A novel way to massively improve the SQ of the sMS-200 and microRendu
I only tried since the bridging is easy to do on a iMac.
If I decide not to go the bridging route I’m be for sure looking into ROCK and using it on PC that is sanctioned by you,
Hm…
Attempting to test this on my SonicTransporter i5. Just use another SSD.
I hope the ROCK will support bridging two LAN ports as is seems that will raise the SQ:
Massively? I can imagine that redundancy or load balancing might help with systems that have lots of network traffic to the NAS, but don’t really see that happening with ROCK…
ROCK will support RoonServer and standard networking. If you want anything further then you’ll need to use another OS.
I think you’re wrong 
If I understood this article right (questionable, found it fuzzy) he is not talking about splitting traffic over two channels. Not that kind of bridging.
I think he wants to get rid of network devices like switches, because of a concern about noise from power supplies, so he connects a server to an endpoint directly, without being on a network. This means those connections do not have access to DHCP, need static IP addresses. But this means he can’t access that endpoint from a browser or another software tool, for management purposes. So if the server had another network connection, and if it supports bridging those two networks, he can reach the endpoint from a browser on the regular network, jumping through the bridge in the server.
On Windows, this is trivial. I did exactly this for my Roon server and my Meridian 818. The Roon server’s other connection was wifi, built into the NUC; contrary to claims in that article, you can bridge wifi and Ethernet. Worked like a charm. I didn’t notice any audible changes, let alone massive. But it was trivial to do. On Windows.
@Jaspal_Kallar, @R1200CL – if indeed you do mean what @AndersVinberg stated above, then it will work just fine. Plop in a second NIC and set it to static IP. Then setup your endpoint with another static IP as well and connect them.
But that’s not bridging it, is it?
@Marcelo, correct.
There is a technical term “bridging network interfaces” which clearly established, and does not mean what these guys are suggesting. They are just suggesting using your device as a router between 2 LANs, which I can see them using the word “bridge” to describe, but only with the common usage of the word bridge meaning “to connect two things” – in this case, 2 LANs.
Unless you are using optical isolators for that other LAN, I’m not sure what benefit this would provide. You aren’t electrically isolating anything by doing this.
@danny, my end point (SoTM SMS-200) can not be assigned a static ip address (at the moment) but it’s rumoured that this may change with future s/w updates and thus your suggestions above would certainly interest me, if that was to occur.
I’m not going to run a DHCP server on ROCK – so this’ll have to wait until SoTM fixes their networking configuration.
deleted see below
Yes, but unfortunately if you want to know the truth about what sounds best you have to try it for yourself and never, ever, rely merely on “what makes sense”. Often what sounds better does not make any sense from a theoretical point of view. So what if we don’t get the reason? The things that have had the greatest impact on my system over the years make engineers laugh with contempt (though, later, in some cases, cold sweats). In any case, this issue with bridging two LAN’s makes a huge difference in my system and many others have attested the same results. You guys should look into it carefully. It’s not only me saying.
I want to hop in this thread and define a few network terms. A few networking terms are being used incorrectly in this thread.
Bonding - This is using 2 or more network interface in parallel to increate bandwidth. If you bond two 1Gb network interfaces you get 2 Gb of speed. Both the host and the your switch must support bonding and be configured for it. So you need a “smart” switch for this to work.
Routing - a router routes packets from one network to another. You need different IP ranges on each network so the router knows what IPs belong on each network. You can set up routing on a Linux box.
Bridging - bridging is connecting two networks that have the same IP range. Devices on each side of the bridge seem to be on the same network. This is common in WiFi networks where the wifi devices seem to be on the same network as the wired devices. You can bridge two Ethernet interfaces. The devices on each side seems to be on the same network. The “bridge” uses a MAC address table to remember what interface to send the packets for each computer on the network.
In this thread all three of these things have been talked about using the word “bridge”. Bridging is only what is described above.
I agree with what @Marcelo wrote.
I don’t have much more to add apart I’m completely okay with ROCK not having ‘bridging’ of LANs but why not put any *theories’ aside. and try it out? You may be pleasantly surprised.
To all those waiting for ROCK, plans to use bridged interfaces, and has a NUC6i5SY or something similar, here’s a stop-gap solution while waiting for ROCK:
I’m currently running this on a fanless NUC6i5SY and it sounds great!
Following up to Andrew’s clarification, does ROCK support the routing of IP packets when the WiFi and the Ethernet interfaces have been manually configured with IP addresses in different ranges? Does ROCK support bridging the IP packets when the WiFI and the Ethernet interface have been manually configured with IP ranges sitting on the same network?
I can only reply with 2 different ethernet interfaces. If WiFi was successfully installed in ROCK, I do not see any reason why it will not apply just the same. So to answer your question, bearing in mind that these are ethernet interfaces…
Yes
No