Just installed the ROCK on a i7. up and running fine. However, do not like the sound compared to running it off the Synology NAS. Had a Linear PS Using Plitron Transformers built for the NAS and ROUTER to keep noise down. Using Audioquest Diamond Ethernet cables between Router and NAS and Router and Vivaldi Upsampler / Network Player. ROCK seems noisier. Thinking of building a Linear PS for the ROCK. My question is regarding the playback chain. The NAS stores the music and ROCK reads the music from the NAS and sends it to the Vivaldi Upsampler. Is that correct?
This implies that I need to use a High-End ethernet cable between the ROCK and the Router as well? Has anyone experimented with this?
Plus has anyone tried to keep the ROCK in an adjoining room (but within the Wi-Fi range of the Router) to control playback via wi-fi? Idea is to get the NOISY WALL-WART switching power supply out of the playback chain.
Comments and feedback would be appreciated. Thanks!
Yes, that is correct. All music files are read and processed by the core (ROCK in your case) and then sent by the core to the playback device.
Ethernet doesn’t really work this way, but that hasn’t stopped people from experimenting. In general, due to the fundamental design of Ethernet all data is buffered and re-sent by the switch so the cables connecting upstream components to the switch are of little consequence as long as they are high quality.
In my own testing and in looking at the testing performed by a number of others the power supply on ROCK doesn’t matter unless:
You are making a direct connection from ROCK to the audio device (USB or HDMI).
You have poor isolation on the power side and noise from the wall wart gets into the system. This is typically only an issue when plugging the wall wart in adjacent to the system.
I’m going to move this over to the ROCK subforum as this topic is more appropriate there.
Thanks Andrew! Plan to plug in the 3rd Audioquest Diamond between the Rock and the Router. My System is highly sensitive and very small changes also immediately show up. With a standard Ethernet Cable and the Wal-Wart Power supply, the Synology NAS and the Router on the Linear PS beat the sound of ROCK. Both are connected using the Audioquest Diamond as well.
Do not us a conditioner as in my experience, they do stuff to the music that I do not like and prefer plugging the various components directly into the dedicated lines from the mains. Have 5 dedicated lines. The Wal-wart is plugged into one of these and it does affect the sound. The DAC is also plugged into the same power outlet. The S/N ratio goes down and it becomes WOOLY!. So I guess I will have to experiment with a basic Linear PS first and then move on to a better one.
Worst case: If nothing works, seems to me, I will stick to the current setup (Synology running Roon) and forego the DSP capability of Roon! Will keep you posted!