Network Acoustics - Tempus network switch

[Superdad]

Completely inappropriate for you to come into another manufacturers product thread and say they use a stock SMPS when they do not.

Oh dear. Apologies from me are in order for sure!

I am traveling and was typing on my phone:
a) I completely missed that this is the thread dedicated to the NA Tempus; I thought it was the other general audiophile switch thread.

b) I can see that my phrasing was ambiguous. I was suggesting that the JS-4 owner try it in place of the power supply that comes with the Tempus. Referred to it as “stock” meaning “standardly included”—and that is a generally accepted used of the term “stock.”
I should have phrased more clearly rather than let the hyphen carrry the weight of distinction. I wrote “SMPS-based” (which it is), and not “stock-SMPS based”—which would have implied that I know exactly what SMPS module they use, which I do not.

Again, I apologize for giving any offense to the NA fans here.
I still do hope that @RikkiPoo gives his new JS-4 a try with his Tempus and shares his impressions.

Best regards,
—Alex C.

 

[audiom3]

hey audiom3,
Is the finisar 1471 module used on Tempus switch?
If it is, is there any issue when rebooting the switch (with the 10G module inserted of cos)

Yes... Specifically, Finisar FTLX1471D3BCL, which is dual-mode (ie. 1G/10G). I use these exclusively in my LAN. The one exception being inside my Lumin U2 streamer which will not take any dual-mode transceiver...period. Only a 1G/1.25G transceiver works in the Lumin. So I use a Finisar FTLF1318P3BTL in it and obviously, a 1471 in the Tempus. I experimented with 1318s in both switch and U2 streamer but found I preferred the mis-matching transceivers.
To answer your second question, no issue at all with rebooting. I had to reboot the Tempus PSU last night due to an unrelated issue with my ISP (having a DHCP WAN IP address and VPN's 'Smart DNS' don't play well together).

 

[audiobomber]

Completely inappropriate for you to come into another manufacturers product thread and say they use a stock SMPS when they do not.

He said stock SMPS, which means it is a switch mode power supply, supplied stock with the unit, common phraseology.

Strange that when @Superdad comments in WBF, he is often attacked.

He believes the JS-4 is an improvement on the Tempus PSU.I don't see anything wrong with that. Other manufacturers frequently recommend their products without backlash.

UpTone Audio (Alex Crespi and John Swenson) have contributed more to my knowledge and experience of network audio than all other sources combined. Please check yourself.

 

[agisthos]

I have never tried a Tempus or any NA product for that matter. But my own adventures with a half dozen LPS has shown that the fast switching chips inside switches and routers need a fast psu.

What often is a great LPS on a DAC or streamer does not always translate into a great LPS for the router. Frustratingly the stock SMPS does indeed perform better than quite a few audiophile LPS I tried.

So when NA says they have built a custom SMPS for the Tempus (and the Origin) with a focus on this very specific use case, I will take them at their word, or at least consider its possible.

 

[PYP]

The Tempus comes with a 12v "Mk.2 hybrid power supply." The "Origin" PS is available in 5v and 12v versions. Is the 12v version of the Mk.2 the same as the 12v version of the Origin? Just curious...

Some cursory reading seems to indicate that the Origin provided an improvement of the Mk.1 hybrid PS, thus the Mk.2 version was implemented.

 

[audiobomber]

Frustratingly the stock SMPS does indeed perform better than quite a few audiophile LPS I tried.

Not my experience. I've tried an iFi Elite on my router, EtherRegen and DAC. I preferred a Zero-Zone LPS in each case. A Teddy Pardo MiniTeddy significantly outperformed a Zero-Zone LPS on my ER and DAC.

I've used an iFi iPower2 and iPower X in various locations; Zen Stream, ER, Silent Angel Bonn N8, Mikrotik CRS-305, TP-Link MC220L, 10GTek FMC, opticalModule Deluxe v2, various DACs and always preferred an LPS.

 

[agisthos]

Not my experience. I've tried an iFi Elite on my router, EtherRegen and DAC. I preferred a Zero-Zone LPS in each case. A Teddy Pardo MiniTeddy significantly outperformed a Zero-Zone LPS on my ER and DAC.

I've used an iFi iPower2 and iPower X in various locations; Zen Stream, ER, Silent Angel Bonn N8, Mikrotik CRS-305, TP-Link MC220L, 10GTek FMC, opticalModule Deluxe v2, various DACs and always preferred an LPS.

I had the exact same experience with the iFi Elite. It was rubbish, and the stock SMPS on my Qnap NAS significantly outperformed it.
Thats not a smps vs lps issue, that's an iFi Elite issue. It was surprising to say the least.

I also have 4x iFi X, and again do not think anything of them.

And dont get me wrong, I am not saying SMPS outperforms LPS on routers. Just some of them are no good for that application. You have used 2.

 

[agisthos]

I'm a big fan of Teddy Pardo power supplies. I only recently sold my TeddyDAC, the best SigmaDelta DAC I ever had, probably because it used 11 Teddy super regulators for every part of the power stages.

I would like to see this PS and others put on the Tempus, and that would tell us how much of its performance is due to it's power supply.

 

[audiom3]

I just ordered a Teddy 12/4 for a new mini PC that houses my Roon ROCK server. I may at some point, try it on the Tempus. But it looks/sounds so damn good, I am in no rush. I think the Teddy will be a much bigger improvement to the server since it's on a laptop style SMPS.

 

[Zeins]

Network Acoustics Live Interview

Hi all,

There was an live interview conducted by Shane (Aussie audiophile) and Louis (vinyl latte) where Rob and Rich of network acoustics shared about their products and thoughts on network streaming.

 

[jasond]

Some really interesting insights

 

[PYP]

Some really interesting insights

care to summarize for those of us too lazy to listen to it all?

 

[orange55]

care to summarize for those of us too lazy to listen to it all?

Try this thread. https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/best-audiophile-switch.38881/page-75

 

[Zeins]

Summary of what I remember from the conversations, based on my interpretation:
1. They have tried to make the best optical media converter to their limit and tested it but found that there were trade offs in terms of reduced dynamics when it is introduced in their system.
2. They tested a few configurations including daisy chaining switches but concluded that the optimal setup will be a simple setup with a good network switch plus a passive filter before the streamer. This is because the less processes added to the Ethernet path, the less noise will be added to the Ethernet path.
3. They tested separate clock for the switch as well and concluded that what created the most difference is separating out the power supply for the clock and not the actual clock itself.
4. Based on their testing, they concluded that generally a well engineered lps is better for analogue application and a well engineered smps is better for digital applications.

 

[audiom3]

Well, after watching that video, I decided to experiment by removing one of my switches. I have a 10G fiber switch near my servers, a 50' run of fiber to another 10G fiber switch and then a short fiber run into the Tempus. I was excited to hear a positive change by removing the switch just before the Tempus. After removing it, I can say with 100% certainty, it was a move backwards in SQ. I couldn't listen very long at all before I inserted the 10G switch back into the network chain. With the 2nd 10G switch, distortion was greatly reduced. By distortion, I'm referring to: rolled off extension (especially noticed with cymbal decay and vocal 'air'). The midbass and lower treble were harsher and had 'bite' causing fatigue. And the worst part was sloppy, boomy-er bass. My Focus SEs play pretty low so this was super easy to not only hear, but feel. Long story short and what Richard mentored, experiment. Everyone's LAN topology and equipment are different. I have an end-to-end SM fiber connection (from NAS to Roon server to endpoint). They all have SFP/SFP+ ports. Something most people have never experimented with, or even heard - including Network Acoustics.

 

[Zeins]

Well, after watching that video, I decided to experiment by removing one of my switches. I have a 10G fiber switch near my servers, a 50' run of fiber to another 10G fiber switch and then a short fiber run into the Tempus. I was excited to hear a positive change by removing the switch just before the Tempus. After removing it, I can say with 100% certainty, it was a move backwards in SQ. I couldn't listen very long at all before I inserted the 10G switch back into the network chain. With the 2nd 10G switch, distortion was greatly reduced. By distortion, I'm referring to: rolled off extension (especially noticed with cymbal decay and vocal 'air'). The midbass and lower treble were harsher and had 'bite' causing fatigue. And the worst part was sloppy, boomy-er bass. My Focus SEs play pretty low so this was super easy to not only hear, but feel. Long story short and what Richard mentored, experiment. Everyone's LAN topology and equipment are different. I have an end-to-end SM fiber connection (from NAS to Roon server to endpoint). They all have SFP/SFP+ ports. Something most people have never experimented with, or even heard - including Network Acoustics.

i think your use environment is quite different from an average home user, hence the impact can be quite different. Also their advice is that the tempest switch be connected directly to the router used for hifi, whereas in your use case, it was connected to another switch which I think will be quite noisy since it is routing data back and forth to your servers, hence there is likely benefit for more isolation

 

[audiom3]

i think your use environment is quite different from an average home user, hence the impact can be quite different. Also their advice is that the tempest switch be connected directly to the router used for hifi, whereas in your use case, it was connected to another switch which I think will be quite noisy since it is routing data back and forth to your servers, hence there is likely benefit for more isolation

I believe that was the entire point of my post. We are all running different setups. Although a fiber network might not be the norm, the use of servers certainly is within the norm (ie. Roon). And most are still running LANs on copper. So that buffer/extra switch(s) is far more important to them.
Fiber greatly reduces (or even eliminates) 'server noise' (or switch noise) being passed into the LAN. That is the entire point of using it and one big reason you couldn't pay me to switch back to copper.

 

[kennyb123]

Fiber greatly reduces (or even eliminates) 'server noise' (or switch noise) being passed into the LAN. That is the entire point of using it and one big reason you couldn't pay me to switch back to copper.

I was recently able to ditch the 8m fiber span that was feeding my tempus (and previously an ER). Replacement was comprised of 3 of these in series with the optional treated RJ45 coupler joining them:

Discovery Veridion Ethernet cable | QSA LANEDRI

Specs: Cat6 7ft Black PoE Patch Cable, 30W, PoE+ (IEEE 802.3at), Shielded (U/FTP), 24AWG, 500MHz, Solid Pure Bare Copper, Shielded RJ45, Ethernet Cable. Length: 2m (7 FT) Optional RJ45 coupler: The longer the Discovery Veridion Ethernet cables, the greater the impact on performance. To extend...

www.qsa-lanedri.com

I was expecting 4 of these as that would have allowed me to use only Veridions between the wall jack and tempus. The 4th won’t ship until next week so I have an untreated Cable Matters cable leading things off. Even so the improvement over fiber has been obvious, with reduced grain and increased openness being the most obvious. Once the 4th cable arrives and burns in, I will do some comparisons to tease out more of the differences.

Fiber implementations can vary quite a bit. I was using Finisar FTLF1324P2BTL-MC SFPs, which were the most transparent of the half-dozen or so SFPs that I tried. The upstream FMC was the original Sonore opticalModule fed by an inexpensive linear supply. My fiber span seemed to disappear once the opticalModule was swapped in so I figured I was done as far as that goes. But that changed after being gobsmacked from hearing an earlier (and more expensive) run of QSA Lanedri Ethernet cable.

This is my long winded way of saying that it’s never a bad idea to reevaluate previous choices we made - especially after we’ve made moves that lowered noise. What might have seemed to previously lower noise may now stand out as something that contributes its own noise that we are just now able to notice.

 

[Zeins]

Just wanted to share abit more on my journey with regards to fiber, it definitely was beneficial to my streaming setup when I kickstarted my hifi journey 2 years ago.

I started off my streaming journey with 2xAsus router and normal cat 6 lan cables. I then added in the Bonn nx network switch, clock and Ediscreation fiberbox 2 extreme.

Back then adding in the Ediscreation fiberbox 2 definitely help to lower noise floor and allow me to hear more details. The Ediscreation converts copper lan to fiber and then back to copper lan out. The fiberbox 2 was used before the Bonn nx switch.

2 years down the streaming path, I performed following changes to my system gradually:
(A) started to use quality network lan cables such as those from way cables.
(B) implemented vlans and optimized my asus router setup.
(C) swap all the smps that came in the box with the asus router with quality LPS such as silent angel forester f2 and forester fx.

After watching the interview video, I decided to take out the fiberbox 2 extreme from my setup and indeed dynamics was improved and the music has more body.

What I think has happened is that I had isolated network activity and reduced noise floor substantially hence the fiberbox was no longer needed

 

[Devil Horns]

Is the Tempus the right choice if I plan to use it with fibre? I ask as I'll be getting the Esoteric N1 streamer/DAC soon and they are at pains pointing out the unit's SFP connection, implying it's the best way to use it over ethernet:

Now I currently have an Eno 2 filter with matching Eno 2 ethernet cables plugged into a modest LHY switch and am a fan of what Network Acoustics bring to the table but I'll admit I'm tempted by Melco/Dela as their switches seem built with SFP in mind and are often partnered with Esoteric at trade shows.

Also, I would plan to use it with the Melco C1 SPF+ direct attach network cable. My thinking would be router > LHY switch > Eno 2 > Tempus > Melco C1 SFP > Esoteric N1.

Network Acoustics seem to favor ethernet over fibre so would the Tempus be a waste and instead go with Melco/Dela?

Cheers.