I am considering making a connection from my router to the man-cave using an optical link i.e. Ethernet - converter - optical - converter - Ethernet. has anyone tried this, got any recommended hardware, cabling etc., that doesn’t require a second mortgage & importantly is reliable?
Why would you do this? In the end it’s still Ethernet. Is your run longer than 100 meters?
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I looked into this, briefly.
Probably any converters on Amazon will be sufficient. You don’t need some $1300 device.
I do think that the PS on the receiving converter is the most important.
Some people believe that process of converting to light eliminates noise in the signal.
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Search FMC in different forums.
Here’s one of threads.
MC210CS is quite common in these setup and should be relatively inexpensive. Note that old versions of TP-Link 1000Mbps gigabit FMC were not compatible with 100Mbps Ethernet.
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i did the much the same - tremendous bump in SQ… this can be done for approx $50 with the following equipment which i bought from fiberStore (fs.com). highly recommended and if needed you can have them confirm compatibility of all the pieces by contacting their support.
media converter - FS 2 x Unmanaged 10/100/1000Base-T RJ45 to SFP GbE
SFP transceiver - FS 2 x 1000BASE-LX/LH 1310nm 20km DOM SFP module
fiber cable - FS LC/UPC duplex OS2 Single Mode PVC 2.0mm
if interested, you can see my exact implementation here:
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Wi-fi is not reliable (there’s no viable cable route but I could get away with a thin cable in wall cavities) & I like tinkering 
Thank you, I have some reading to do 
Many thanks, I’ll check this out once the day job is behind me, 6:00 pm.
It probably should be reinforced that the advantage of this setup is complete galvanic isolation between units which eliminates noise that can be injected when they aren’t. It has nothing to do with the bits being transmitted btw. Whether that improves SQ will depend on your equipment - your endpoint setup may or may not have its own galvanic isolation approach which would minimize or eliminate any SQ improvement you get by doing this. I have improved sound SQ in my setup going to fiber in key listening areas so highly recommend seeing if it does in yours but YMMV.
Given this, as long as your current copper wiring is good (meaning it’s quality cable over a reasonable run length), you do not need a long fiber run and the expense of running it in your house through walls - unless you want to also go all in and upgrade to a fiber switch and/or add an optical rendu at the endpoint. If not, I’d keep your existing wired run to your man cave and then use the recommended media converters to do a copper —> fiber —> short optical cable —> fiber —> copper setup in the cave. That’s all you need to get galvanic isolation and will reduce expense. I’d also recommend a decent LPS to power at least the last media converter box to ensure your not injecting noise back into the last copper connection.
Good luck!
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There seemed to be a fad for using a fibre section between two media converters a year or two ago, most commonly using TPLink converters. I’m not entirely convinced, but for reasons unrelated to HiFi sound quality, I do use fibre optic cables for my LAN. I use Cisco Catalyst 2960 switches, with fibre optic cables connected to the SFP ports. These are solid, commercial grade switches, and have very low levels of electrical noise, and they are very cheap if you look around for used ones. Mine have worked flawlessly for a couple of years now.
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I am certainly not schooled in the effects of “signal noise”, so pardon the following naive questions:
- If there is such a thing as “signal noise”, is there a widely accepted and valid measure of it?
- How would one ever make an enlightened decision about noise reduction kits without such a measurement?
- Is it convenient to the “noise reduction industry” to leave such pesky matters as measurement undefined?
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Dunno, not sure why people believe what they do.
Maybe ask here -
or here -
I don’t know where the term signal noise came from relative to this topic. In this discussion, the signal is the bits coming down the Ethernet cable and they are not affected by anything in this discussion. In this discussion, in the way I understand it, is that noise can be injected in the ground shield of internet cables from nearby audio devices, power supplies, etc that are radiating energy and that can supply an unwanted voltage to your dac or endpoint which can affect SQ if not properly rejected by its internal design. This is why LUMIN is going to optical connectors in their devices and Sonore is doing the same with their optical rendu and signature rendu se. You might ask @wklie or @Jesus_Rodriguez why they chose to go this route in their company’s devices as it would make no sense to go add this expense if it didn’t matter. They both believe that galvanic isolation is important. I have no doubt that fiber connections will become standard options on most high end audio devices down the road.
So what is being discussed here is getting the same benefit if your endpoint doesn’t have an optical connection. But to answer the question on “why I believe what I believe” is that in my case I tried it and got SQ improvements in two different setups. And that is the ultimate proof IMHO. Of course YMMV based on your setup and your device’s design.
Based on subjective listening results our dealer reported, a decent (e.g. Cisco) SFP switch is preferred to the FMC, such as the one I posted elsewhere, which used to be sold under $99 in the past (one may simply use a SFP switch as a more expensive FMC without changing everything else to fiber):
Likewise, native optical network in a streamer is much preferred to FMC due to the power supply and other considerations.
Simpler and probably more effective to put this in one’s chain -
Yes, that should do the trick. Fewer items in the chain.
Even if you don’t use USB?
(why anyway? Isn’t the damage done by then?)
Won’t work if you don’t use USB.
On the other hand, I don’t understand the argument that using fiber gives galvanic isolation when one has to convert back at the other end.
In practice you’re just removing the electrically conductive path, the fibre carries no copper conductor between the converters.