Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming Help me build a Sooloos/MDMS system around my TwinStore

This stuff is designed to be hard wired and the cable is cheap. So if you can, get cat 5 cables Installed.
Electricians are great at this and can feed cables in ways you can't imagine.

I have no personal experiance of mains adapters but others will chip in.

Good luck, Chris

XLD

Hi DE,

I would try to connect the 818 (ID41) and MD600 wired as opposed to wireless if you possibly can, consider running cable outside if necessary, and for ripping on the Mac I use XLD.

Cheers

Russ

As Chris says, Sooloos is designed to be hard wired. The Sooloos audio protocol is based around the less reliable UDP protocol not TCP so any any network glitch will require Sooloos to do more work using a fairly basic error recover mechanism. Does this affect audio quality, I do not know.[fixtypo /]

So anything other than a true hard wired connection is a compromise. If you want 100% audio quality, you want hard wired.

Of the alternatives, powerline and wireless are the most obvious candidates. There are others, such as network connection similar to powerline but over coax, ie aerial/sat cable. You may have spare sat/aerial connectors in the wall, which may be suitable to use - I guess they must not be isolated sockets, but not sure.

Out of wireless/powerline, I would not trust wireless to anything important, but have been impressed by the robustness of powerline. One HHer ran his core (the most network dependant Sooloos component) connected to powerline and I think it worked without issue. However, when he moved to a different store/core, an audio improvement was apparently heard. Who knows whether this was network, hardware or placebo.

Personally I don't run anything important over anything but a hard wired connection. But my interconnection is via powerline and in the 6+ months that I have owned it, it has been nothing other than totally reliable. I have 4 powerline adaptors, two of which have mains passthrough AND mains filtering. These are notably faster endpoints than my non filtered ones.

As fore wireless, before I went to powerline, my wireless was influenced by lots of things - mostly environmental outside my control. I tried boosters and using my Sonos mesh network, but never achieved total reliability that I expected with a hardwired connection. But then I live in a long bungalow with proper brick walls (probably made with slag/iron from old furnaces) which is not ideal wireless environment.

At end of the day, it comes down to how much of a compromise you can tolerate and what your environmental factors are.

Personally, you have an 818, its not worth compromising.

Hi Ian, you do now know or you do not know? That typo completely changes your meaning.;)

Thanks for the detailed responses.

In my current house a hardwired connection between 818 and MD600 would mean running them in the same room. I am renting and am not willing to tear the place up for cables, so some degree of compromise is necessary for now. I wonder whether hearing fan noise from the MD600 would be more of a compromise than going with a powerline or other non-hardwired connection. I think I will start with the 818 and MD600 located next to each other, and will connect the MD600 to the network via powerline or wifi extender.

Am I right that the compromise here will not be with audio quality, but with potentially latency when using the iPad app for control?

Thanks
Dom

re: Mac OS X workflow for ripping, XLD is a Mac native app, but I happen to use VMWare Fusion + dBpoweramp CD ripper for my CD rips.

There is also a 'perma-beta' app called Rip, that uses AccurateRip checksums, but last time I checked, it had not been updated in years.

Hi Dom,

If your are not willing to hardwire, then I suggest:

Listening Room
818 connected to Power Line LAN adaptor #1

Other Room
Power Line LAN adaptor #2 connected to your LAN Switch ('router').
MD600 hardwired to Switch.

This I believe would be the best compromise.

Regards,
Carl

Also, choice of HDD will help the unit noise. I recently took Ronnie's advice and tried a pair of 3TB WD Red drives. These do seem to run cooler and quieter. Am testing the MD600 in the main cabinet in the living room. I only hear the fan running late at night as I turn everything off. With TV or music on then it is not a problem.

So, whilst out of room placement is best, in-room can be done. I would be tempted to ensure it was at least placed behind a chair which would block some of the fan noise.

PoIP plugs as Carl suggested will work also as long as you keep the network as simple as possible.

I would have thought the critical connection for audio quality was the one between 818 and MD600, and therefore that if I can't have an entirely hardwired setup it would be best to use the powerline connection between MD600 and LAN switch. Is it not right that the MD600-->LAN connection only comes into play during setup, metadata entry and editing, and for Control functions such as track selection, playlist manipulation etc. If so it seems less of a compromise to have the weaker connection here. Unless MD600 fan noise really is awful I think this is what I will try first, along with mitigating measures like the quieter drives that Nick suggested.
Thanks
Dom

Edit: I hadn't considered the crucial stage where newly ripped CDs are transferred from the Mac Mini I will be using to the MD600. Perhaps in the early ripping-intensive weeks I will have the MD600 hardwired to the LAN switch to ensure highest possible transfer quality of ripped files, then change to a hardwired connection between MD600 and 818 for optimal playback.

Thanks to all who offered advice. Thanks also to Reuben from the Restaurant and Rob from Meridian West London who supplied the kit, an 818 and MD600.

The MD600 sits in my study and is linked by ethernet cable to a BT Home Hub, which is in turn connected to a Netgear powerline adapter. In the listening room another Netgear unit connects to the 818, which feeds my trusty old DSP3100s. I know the setup isn't optimal from a networking perspective and that the 3100s are not up to the standard set by the rest of the kit, but frankly the improvement over discs spun on my G91 is astonishing and will keep me happy for a long time.

I have almost 900 albums I ripped and put into a TwinStore almost three years ago to the day so it was great to be able to slot the old hard drives into the MD600 and finally begin enjoying the MDMS experience. I had intended to work feverishly to add the rest of my collection over the coming weeks but I'm so overwhelmed by the sound coming out of my speakers and the ease with which I'm able to browse the collection that I've been sat on the sofa for several hours and have only added ten albums today.

Thanks again,
Dom