[LAU] Best practices when using jackd over a LAN.

[Len Ovens]

On Tue, 31 Oct 2017, David Woodfall wrote:

> I have been using jackd to play music from my laptop -> server -> hifi.

Have you also tried zita-njbridge?

It has been some time since I tried netjack (or zita-njbridge). At least one 
machine upgrade...

Also, you may want to look into open AVB which has jack to jack capability and 
with the right nic will allow your audio stream to have priority over other 
network traffic. But it is more to set up.

In any case, if there is more than one audio card some resampling will have to 
happen (even with AVB with most consumer AIs). In the case above, your hifi 
will have to be master I am not sure in that case why there would be a server 
in the middle, but it looks like you have the server getting it's sync from the 
hifi and then the laptop gets it's sync from that? Is the network used for 
other things besides sound? Is audio traffic prioritized? In all machines? In 
any switches?

Looking into AVB and or AES67 and the requirements for no dropout sound may be 
helpful. Netjack is designed for single hop, no other network traffic, no 
switch, audio transport. zita-njbridge is designed to handle switches and some 
other traffic a bit better. The standard streamers like icecast, etc. use long 
latency end to end (500ms or more) to avoid dropouts.

So in the end you have to choose your own priorities in sound quality and 
latency as well as how much money you want to spend and how much time setting 
it up.

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net