Ethernet "treatment"?

The final sentiment is, of course, correct. Do what you like, just don’t lose the plot. What’s the plot you may wel ask? Well that’s up to each of us to decide. Tinker away until you don’t want to any more… :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Agreed Chris, I’m at the point of your last sentence. I’m happy listening.

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Only if you care about the music more than the gear.

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Thats exactly the way I have it wired up…:+1:, preferably use telegartner connectors.

There are some people who care about both…:joy::joy:

Don’t know…but why does one DAC sound better than another? The technical answer: because.:wink:

SOtM’s interface is just as good (perhaps better) than Sonore’s…and, FWIW, I own both a sonicTransporter (i-7 model w/ Windows) and their UPNP Bridge which I use for my Linn Klimax DS.

We discontinued our Superstream Ethernet to USB box. Not because our clients who own everything else didn’t tell us it was better, but because anything involving USB is old technology now. The only reason we built it in the first place was because we wanted a reference point of the best possible way a USB based system could be made. We went through 8 generations of USB interface prototypes in our DAC until we reached the final implementation. Results were quite good. But still limited by the protocol. It doesn’t beat the MSB Select 2. So in my mind I consider the system a failure.

The Op asked about ethernet “treatments” but the posts seem to focus on ethernet cables.

My 2 cents.

I added Audioquest Cinnamon cables and the improvement over standard Cat7 cheapo cables was such that I’m not ruling out making the investment in higher end Audioquest or cables such as the JCAT or AQVOX.

I added Fibre optic isolation and the improvements are are clear. Disagree with the Op who said the TP-Link FMCs are noisy as mine are great. But perhaps it comes down to power supplies. Stock switching might add noise. I use cheap TP-Link battery power supplies as that isolates the FMCs from the mains.

Then there are LAN isolators. I added the Baaske MI1005. This is a medical grade isolator compared to the audiophile ones that kick around. I didn’t hear any noticeable difference but it was cheap on EBay and I’m sure it doesn’t do any harm. Perhaps without the Fibre optic this makes more of a difference. But YMMV… Whether the audiophile ones are better to justify the 2 or 3x the price I’m not sure.

Final element is whether any firm like the clever folks at Sonore, UpTone Audio, iFI etc will come up with an ethernet equivalent of the regenerator/reclockers that are all the range in the USB sphere. I’m no expert but have read contradictory stuff on the science/viability of doing so. But I live in hope as clearly we are still discovering what’s possible with USB and that it’s way more complicated than “bits are bits”.

In summary my advice is that Fibre Optic isolation cost just over a 100 bucks and will improve most if not all ethernet signals. A good cable should also make a real difference.

Cheers,
Alan

So many opinions, so many options.

I’ve been in this whole Ethernet/ fiber optic fur ball for a few posts. My original post on this was asking about a dedicated Ethernet port to a single endpoint, thereby eliminating switches and probably also the need for LAN isolators. Since the cost of multiple runs, one unique run per port/endpoint pairing, of audiophile Ethernet would be prohibitive (at least, for me) the discussion segued into Ethernet/fiber converters. A further branch was into fiber PCIe cards that the OS sees as simply Ethernet ports.

Very illuminating (pun intended) posts here.

:sunglasses:

Dear god. I hope these are joke posts.

Any cable that can give you a solid Gig E connection is perfectly fine. The only reason to ever run fiber is for ethernet runs over 100 meters or in EXTREMELY EMI noisy areas (think radio rooms or sitting right next to a wave guide for a satcom link).

The layer 4 (TCP) handles the buffering and makes sure that the packets are complete when they get to higher levels of the network stack. Anyone who tells you anything different is trying to sell you something that you don’t need or doesn’t understand how networking works from the physical layer all the way up to application layer.

(And yes RAAT uses TCP now - see the release notes for build 234: Roon 1.3 (Build 234) Is Live!)

Save your money. Un-shielded twisted pair cables from Cable to Go or anywhere else are perfectly fine. “Audiophile” grade cables for digital signals are snake oil.

For CD quality - Fast Ethernet is fine.
For Hi-Res - Go with Gig E.
Unless you are saturating a Gig E switch (HIGHLY unlikely), you will be fine using a switch. And there is no need for a LAN isolator.

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Dear God - I hope that one day people that want to preach theory over what I actually hear/heard will realise how condescending they are being.

I’ll repeat my advice. I upgraded a Cat7 cheapo cable to an Audioquest cinnamon and heard a difference.

Furthermore the difference was sufficient that I’m considering at some point upgrading that 100 buck Cinnamon cable with a 300-500 cable.

Theory is great but at the end of the day I and many others like me will trust my ears.

It’s hard to realize that the thought we live in educated times is not true for a great portion of mankind.
Homeopathy has still a lot of followers and audiophiles still believes there are magical components in acoustics that science can’t explain. But after the last election in the states, nothing surprised me.

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We can tune in the 23W transmitter from the Voyager probes that are 5.8 billion miles away but audio remains a mystery :joy:

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But can you trust your ears? Try this

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Probably shouldn’t be making political comments, here.

Even though I’m as much or more mystified/disgusted than you are.

:scream:

How come you know so much, or more than other people with other opinions?

Very insulting.

Agreed. Nice to keep this a politics-free zone.

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If it came across as insulting, then I apologize for that.

How come I know so much?
I have worked with networking from token ring, thick net, and 10BASE-T all the way up to carrier grade bundles of 100Gig WAN PHY. I have worked with SONET and ATM. I have worked with VLANs, VRF, and MPLS. I have designed and built local, campus, and metro area networks.

TCP is TCP. The transmission of TCP datagrams is identical regardless of payload. And with dealing with short run (<100M) ethernet runs, you will get the same packets out of a cable from Amazon Essentials or Cables to Go as you out of expensive “audiophile” grade cables.

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… “maybe” because an homeopathic doctor doesn’t only look at/just consider what/where you tell him “hurts here”? :wink:

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Apology accepted.

So, just so I understand you.

Switches do not add noise and there is no benefit to fiber optic cable, for short runs?