I want to isolate my system from analog noise as best as possible.
My idea was to run fiber optic cable from my ethernet switch with an sfp slot directly to a raspberry pi that would act as a NAA for my HQPlayer. DAC would be connected directly to the raspberry pi through USB.
This way my Roon core, hqplayer and raspberry pi NAA would all be isolated and connected through my local network.
My question is, is there anyway to connect fiber optic cable directly to the raspberry pi? I know i could use fiber media converter between the ethernet switch and raspberry pi to make it where ethernet would be going in to the raspberry pi but that defeats the purpose of the analog noise isolation.
Im trying to mimic what the sonore opticalRendu does but in a raspberry pi form since the opticalRendu is a ridiculous $1,700
Firstly, the Raspberry Pi does not have an SFP(+) connector so you would need to add a bridge device which in turn would be connected to the Pi by normal ethernet. Thus you are not really achieving anything.
Secondly, ethernet with CAT5(e) or CAT6(a) cables is already galvanically isolated so there is no point. You would only be increasing the link complexity and thus increasing the chances that it will fail.
At the risk of this descending into another LPS vs SMPS thread:
In the particular case of the Raspberry Pi connected to a switch by Ethernet and a DAC by USB, I would say that in any well controlled comparison test you would not be able to tell the difference between any set of power supplies that are ‘good enough’ to get the Pi to function reliably - including some that, by any standards, may be barely above ‘atrocious’.
There is a sound reason for this statement. Like nearly all computing devices, the Raspberry Pi does not directly use the power rail supplied by the external power supply. Instead it regulates this power supply rail down to the voltage(s) required. This regulation is usually done using a high frequency switching technique and thus the qualities of the power supply to the processor, memory, storage and IO of the Raspberry Pi is largely independent of the quality of the external power supply being used and is much more related to the nature of the voltage regulators (and supporting components) on the Raspberry Pi board itself.
You would need to go for PCIe SFP network interface connected to PI. I’m running simmilar setup with RPi5, but not with SFP, but rather dual-port server NIC from Intel.
However my experience is that actually very good ethernet switch will help RPi sound noticeably better than having PI disconnected from network and playing just from RAM - i’m not sure why, i suspect the switch helps to drain noise from PI, but it’s just because I could not think of other explanation.
Just to add in my setup i’m using DDC between RPi and DAC. Whole digital chain is powered by supercapacitor LPSes (which just by themselves improved sound a lot) and there is also optical isolation of ethernet (EtherRegen) upfront the mentioned audiophile switch. I’ve lived years just with the optical isolation and it helped a lot , but adding that swtich changed my view onto just pure optical isolation via SFP
It’s the best, most effective and economic solution to use a true USB isolator between the RPi and your DAC, of course!
I think it really makes sense only, if you’re hearing any sort of unrelated to the music noises.
Don’t buy into the fear, uncertainty and doubt, sown by anecdotal, unsubstantiated reports of questionable audiophile tweaks.
Owning both a Topping HS02 and Intona USB2, I can vouch for the HS02 working transparently with an RPi 5.
Specifically, I’m running Raspberry Pi OS 64bit bookworm desktop with LyrionMusicServer and CamillaDSP, nowadays.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t resolve the issue that my SMSL M300MkII DAC, being connected through the Intona, is seen as an USB device but not outputting anything.
Don’t worry about it. I’ve brought a -120 dBFS signal up to audibility streamed from a PoE (SMPS) powered RPi4B running RoPieee into a Benchmark Media stack.
Claims of noise over ethernet are misunderstood and wildly exaggerated.
Ethernet is galvanically (transformer) isolated at every interface unless you defeat it by using a shielded cable.
There’s a lot of nonsense talked up about ethernet by people who don’t understand it.
99.9% of the effort in an audio system should go into your room and speakers.
- i’m not sure why, i suspect the switch helps to drain noise from PI, but it’s just because I could not think of other explanation.