Interested to hear how it sounds. Big investment though…
I see a lot of issues with your suggestions. 1. That battery supply is discontinued for a reason. 2. That battery supply has switching banks which share the negative terminal. This means that when connected to the charger the AC mains noise and SMPS noise sail right through to the DC output. 3. I have replaced many of those battery supply batteries because they fail. FYI some of the early units had soldered battery connections to the main board. Also, the batteries are 60 bucks plus shipping from Korea. 4. If you feed both sides of the optical isolation scheme as you suggest with a single power supply you defeat the inherent galvanic isolation you are trying to achieve and you are better off just connecting the RJ-45 cable to the endpoint. So that means that you actually need two of those $200 discontinued power supplies. Now you are at $400 and your chances of an inevitable battery failure has gone up from 2x to 4x. Good luck what that. 5. The iFi iPower supply is also a SMPS and has noise on it’s output. I personally like the units and you could use two 5V versions with our opticalModules. However, I would also suggest that one shunt the units DC negative to AC ground to eliminate the noise from their outputs. iFi-Audio sells a device called the Groundhog for this very reason. The iFi iPower supply and the Groundhog together retail for around $100 and you need two of these. Now you are at $200. So in order to do things properly and compare them to our solution you actually need spend around $320 to $520 depending on the power supplies you go with. Two opticalModules with SFPs installed, 1M fiber cable, and two high quality linear power supplies is 623 GBP plus shipping. Yes we are a little bit more money, but we are not trying to cut corners.
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Items 1-3 are “Potential issues” and like any other fault/problem will be dealt with when they occur. Using them to make a financial case for purchasing other (your) more costly options is pure a marketing/sales ploy and does not make a useful contribution to this forum.
Just face face the facts, a decent battery will an provide extremely low noise power supply at a fraction of the price of your product.
I’ve no issue with people making their choices & paying whatever they’re happy with but tuning your case in a poor attempt to promote your own product benefits no-one and damages your credibility.
I have the iFi 9v unit and they sell in vast numbers. I got the Sotm 9v only because it was half price and also part of an exchange, so I paid very little.
The UK Sonore dealer sells with a drop down list of power supplies, from the wall wart, iFi and more expensive options. Can’t do better than that.
I was dealer for SOtM for many years and I know first hand the issues with that power supply. I’m sharing my first hand experience so others can make an informed decision. SOtM has other power supplies that make a lot more sense. You may not find that information useful, but someone else will.
I did not argue any facts about decent battery supplies. However, as soon as you put a SMPS charger on a batter power supply the nose from the SMPS power supply will sail right down to the output. That should not happen with a switching bank power supply, but it does in this case because the banks are not properly isolated. BTW the Small Green Computer linear power supply we sell with the opticalModule is less than his eBay purchase. BTW it has enough current to power two opticalModules, but we don’t recommend it for the reasons already discussed.
Martin our UK dealer is a great guy…buy with confidence.
I did indeed speak to Andrew Gillis at Votexbox about a Roon server and he offered a range of products, from own build, SonicOrbiter and other more expensive brands. He seemed a very pleasant and informative chap. Moderately hard sell, but not over the top. I also considered Roon and ended up buying Innuos.
I am still on a 1-year Roon subscription. I appreciate the Roon concept and it works for me, but I don’t use any of the filtering or upsampling stuff and I really struggle with the Qobuz search engine for classical music. I now routinely search on the Qobuz app and paste the title into Roon. It took Qobuz years to get their software to the current fantastic state and I’m happy to give Roon time to improve their embedded Qobuz. One reason for Innuos is that it allows me to host Qobuz using other uPnP services.
There is no point having a fibre optic signal path if you can’t find the music you want to play in the first place.
p.s. The main reason I looked at fibre optic is I eventually have to run a new cable to my audio system from another floor of the house and it is easier to put under the hall carpet than CAT6 cable.
Sonore don’t make claims about the sound quality of their products. They don’t play that game. Instead they put them out there and let the users decide. Of course, if there was nothing there, they wouldn’t sell more than few units. I bought one opticalModule, and the change was so great in MY system that I quickly bought a second as the transmitting end (vs a cheap TP Link). Night and day from the cheap consumer units. I plan on adding their new mid-priced power supply as soon as I can to power my microRendu 1.4.
Thing is, it seems expensive a bit expensive to ‘clean’ up one’s network, but once done it’s done - and the rewards will be heard with whatever you throw in front of it (new speakers, amp, streamer, etc). I’m not replacing any of those in my set up so the oM’s seemed like the best bet and I was blown away.
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The same reason I started this thread a few months ago. It’s been pretty much off topic for some time, nonetheless it has led to some interesting discussion.
I took the TP Links out for a few months from both of my systems (office and living room). Then recently I re-inserted them and the music seemed to come alive again, but it seemed to rob from one place to give to another (mostly in the living room). The opticalModules are on another level altogether. And I’m sure it will vary from system to system the effectiveness vs cost of them, just like everything in hifi. But I rest easily saying they are much much better than the TP Links.
Yesterday I finally removed from my system altogether this rogue, fat cheap ‘audiofool’ cable that I got once on an impulse. No matter where I put it (analog, digital, network) it made the sound boomy and worse. I salvaged the Wattgate plugs and throwing the cable away. On inspection it appears to be some sort of waterproof military spec cable. Impressive with a tech flex sheathing on it, but no matter to the sound. On that note, there’s somebody over on AS who’s getting ripped off over the custom build of an $8k server. To begin with, who needs an $8k server to dole out some music? And who would buy one from some fly by night company making ridiculous promises (some of them misspelled at that)? This hobby can be nuts and full of magical pixie dust, but imo Sonore and Uptone are definitely anchored to the sane side of it.
I’m thinking I could run the fibre optic and a flat ethernet cable side by side. Both would come out of a Cisco switch next to the modem in my office, the Cisco is powered by mains voltage, and at the other end I’d have my TPlink battery or iFi powered going to the server and the ethernet going to my access point. Everything after the TPLink is low noise and the ethernet is for general wifi, Spotify etc.
No one mentions these flat CAT7 cables, but they seem eminently practical. Probably the audiophile equivalent of wearing odd-coloured socks.
The cables are cheap (30m fibre is £35 and 30m CAT7 is £20), so can be tested running down the stairs before pulling up carpet and drilling through ceilings.
The current wiring is CAT5e running over a flat roof and it’s not a weatherproof cable either.
Totally agree! On both companies. Now… still some will complain how expensive their products are compared to “similar impact” products from Amazon or China (and without even trying them!). Nonetheless, both companies design and sell stuff that is excellent value for the money
The basis of capitalism is that if there is demand for a $10,000 paperclip, someone will supply it. I would not question what other people do with their money and how people legally part other people from their money.
Glad that the optical module works for you. I assume it has an appropriate power supply.
Personally I find all this optical stuff a bit nuts, which is why I’m not prepared to spend much money on it. The last opera ticket I bought cost quite a bit more than one of these sonore modules. They are the equivalent to a pair of tickets to the ballet. I’d rather go to the ballet, which we do, a lot. Taking one of my kids to the cricket in Manchester tomorrow - that’s the price of another Sonore gone. We all have different needs and priorities.
I have pretty modest system - for me the opticalModules was almost like going to the dealers and spending $5k more on gear. And the plus side is using the sonicorbiter bridge to play Roon to the office so I get all the good stuff I do to the microRendu in two places. I also had the cable run through the floor already. Topology is such (power):
Modem> (modded “hifi” SMPS) 25ft Cat6 > Airport Express >25ft Cat6 > TP Link MC220L w/SFPRJ45(OEM SMPS) > Cisco 2960L-16PS-TT > 2 ft Cat6> opticalModule(ifi 5V) > fiber cable > opticalModule (HDPLEX100 5V rail) > 1 meter Ghent JSSG Cat6 > microRendu 1.4 (Uptone LPS-1) > Uptone USPCB > Naim DAC V1 > Naim NAP 110 > 25ft Chord Rumor 2 > Rega RX3 speakers.
Everything plugged into lots of different circuits etc. and all ground shunted to their respective circuits except for the Naim and Cisco. The server is a NUC 7i5 with a Chinese Zerozone 12V 5amp LPS. Everything fairly modest, bought used when can, well thought out, shuffled respectively down the line when something else is added. And sounds fantastic. Well above from when I started with just the basics.
Oh, and my office system almost sounds better. Cisco>Cat 6> TP Link MC220L optical bridge (one oem smps and the other an iFi 9v)> Naim Unitiqute> Kef Ls50’s (in the basement, mounted on the posts near field - sound really tight). Wont go there VFM with opticalModules for the office though. Might add the new Sonore power supply at some point and shuffle all of the supplies downwards. But that’s about it.
You’ll have to translate “Stick it to the man!”, not a phrase I know. I presume those are two power supplies sitting on the biscuit tin, or is that a tool box or some sort of device?
I am sorry. I did not mean to directly reply to you. Stick it to the man was just a general figure of speech.
Those two black boxes are the SGC LPSs 5V that power the pair of opticalModules. They are temporarily sitting on my SOtM sPS-1000 I was using to power my TPLinks. Eventually will remove it, and repurpose it.
Interesting comments and information for a novice like me… however, how do you “shunt the DC negative to AC ground” using the iFi Groundhog?
Does it come with a connector or whatever to enable this?
The iFi Groundhog would do the trick.
Yes, thanks for that…but could you tell me how it would connect…presumably to the iFi power supply? If so, do you know if it comes with a connector to do this?