Focusrite RedNet (AOIP Nervosa)

The quick and easy way is to not use a switch and wire point to point.
I bought a thunderbolt 2 - Ethernet adapter for the mac mini for the RN3. Worked great.

As soon as you put a Rednet on the network, you need a managed switch and a lot of patience to set things up...

 

I gotta be honest this all sounds even more of a pain than usb.

Im willing to put up with a little detail smearing for ease of use ...

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave

 

As an early adopter of AOIP and a Rednet3 etc, this approach while nowhere as easy as plugging in a USB cable, once setup, requires about the same amount of fussing as USB does, namely, not much.

And for anyone with computer networking setup skills, this isn't any more complicated, different yes, with new terms and details etc, but it's really not all that complicated.
Really what is going on is setting up a dedicated network from a computer to an ethernet to digital audio conversion box.

And at least for me, it boils down to ones priorities whether or not to jump into this end of the pool.

If SQ is at or near the top of your priorities list, AOIP is the top of the food chain, with master tapes on a 15ips playback deck potentially surpassing it.

And of course there are trade-offs, like SRF (Sample Rate Following) being an after thought, and all the added equipment that can be added as well, etc.

Still, to date, I have not heard ANYthing better, or even it's equal, in terms of the quality of the that digital audio that is delivered to the dac.
And this is with CD rips being delivered to the Yggdrasil A2 at 44.1.

And if you dive down deep into this end of the pool with mods and other enhancements, the gap widens still further.

Just a passing comment.

JJ

 

Lynx AES16e in external Thunderbolt 2 enclosure connected to Mac mini via fiber TB2 cable was in the same territory. Different pros but similar overall performance.
Easier software setup, for sure.

 

My exact set up. And thanks for the vote of confidence !

 

I have a potentially silly question. First, having a Yggdrasil 2A and a Tascam CD transport, I am honestly stunned at how it sounds via AES/EBU. I haven't been this happy with digital playback, much less CDs, ever. That said, playing back the same album with ostensibly better masters, or the same master, just falls a bit flat from Roon > Microrendu w/ Uptone PSU > Yggdrasil USB. I believe this is Gen 5 USB. In any event, I've been studying this thread and when the budget allows for the next upgrade, I think a used RN3 is probably in my future.

Silly question - could I just add a decent PCIe network card to the PC that's in my room and run that directly to the RN3? My motherboard only has one Ethernet jack so I have that plugged into the LAN. I see the RN PCIe cards are very expensive and probably not an option for me. I could add a switch in the room and hang the RN 3 off of that if it came down to it, but I do not have a managed switch anywhere in my house, not sure if that's an issue.

I appreciate all the info and feedback in this thread, and having decent networking and PC skills and hardware, I don't see this being an issue to get going either way, but just making sure I'm clear on this point.

Thank you.

 

Yes, you can.

 

Or you can buy Audinate Virtual Sound card software. No hardware is best hardware in this case. Give it a trial.

 

This doesn't exclude the PCIe Ethernet card.

@toddrhodes : you can hook the RN3 directly to the ethernet card and use the Dante Virtual Soundcard to send audio.
You don't need to set the IP, the RN3 and the PC will auto negotiate a 169.x.x.x address.

 

Is Dante really that temperamental to use without running managed switches or dedicated Ethernet cards?

 

Thanks all. When the time comes, I will first try a switch in-room to avoid extra in-PC hardware. I have a 4-port gbit switch laying around, and all other hardware in the house is gigabit, so throughput shouldn't be an issue. I'm comfortable enough with networking that it should be fine.

First I'm trying SPDIF out from my PC to Yggdrasil to see if that narrows the gap between CD and Roon files, as that will take the Rendu out of the loop. And it just occurred to me, I can sell the microrendu and Uptone for almost enough to fund the RN 3. Hmmm. I'm rambling - thank you for the clarifications everyone.

 

I remember looking into the AOIP stuff a few years ago and there just weren’t a ton of options, now I just went and checked and it seems the RedNet3 is out of stock most places, but there is a lot more availability for other Dante “endpoints” with digital outputs now.

I wonder if the magic is in AOIP or if the rednet3 was the awesome part.

https://www.audinate.com/products/devices/dante-avio#aes3
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1417856-REG/audinate_adp_aes3_au_2x2_2x2_dante_avio_aes3.html



https://www.audinate.com/products/dante-enabled/micromedia/micromedia-digimedia-dio-xlr-dc


Edit: it would seem @Garns even bought one of the Micromedia thingies, I shoulda skimmed through the thread first

 

I'm no expert but I get the impression the magic, at least for a DAC like mine (Yggdrasil 2A) is that you can "stream" PC files and avoid USB entirely, while getting the full benefit of up to 24/192 in the process and use what most feel to be the best Yggdrasil input, AES/EBU. I'm happy to be wrong, but that seems to be a big driver for this kind of solution?

 

My laptop doesn't a native ethernet port, but I do have a docking station (Thunderbolt 3) with the port. Would it work?

 

It should.

Also part of the magic of the RedNet devices are the JetPLL clocking technology, which is also featured in the Convert-2 and other pro devices.

 

It’s the dante network and the avoidance of USB that seems to be the shiney, shiney part of all this.

gefski installed an AOIP for ≈$700 complete, using the un-daes 0 (or spelling something like that).
It's sole limitation is it only reaches 96KB sample rate out.
But if you use a Yggdrasil dac it works out quite well.

And there are other simpler boxes that are dante compatible as well.

And the RN3 is massive overkill as is the D16 etc.
All we really need is 2 channels with the digital audio output flavor of choice.
That is unless you want to get way more complicated with zones and multiple play lists etc.

Just some data points to consider.

JJ