thanks - yeah as always happens I realised what the solution was straight after posting!
Update
I’m very happy to announce that today we starting shipping the opticalModule. By Monday all back order units will have been shipped. We also have inventory ready for new sales so order with confidence. Enjoy!
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Just received my opticalRendu today and it’s sounding really, really good, a big improvement on the micro. Streaming via UPnP into a Naim NDS it gives me more of everything thats good in audio. Job well done Sonore team.
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Actually, you don’t need the expensive Optical Module.
Just buy 2x FMC optical Modules + 1m of Fibre Optic cable from Sonore.
Then buy 2x Trendnet Ethernet to Optical adapters from Amazon for $29.99 each.
Total cost is $130 to add Optical Galvanic Isolation to ANY streamer 
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LOL! That was exactly what I had for a while. Replaced them last week with opticalModules. As usual, there are always different routes to the same destination
Seems a rather expensive way to achieve Galvanic Isolation.
You’re not going to tell me that $900 sounds better? 
Why do you need 2X of the Trendnet? Isn’t it copper ethernet in, fiber ethernet out?
So you would go: copper ethernet router or switch>Trendnet with adapter>fibre optidc cable>opticalRendu?
Or am I really not understanding how it works?
Well he is not saying that is sounds the same or worse:)
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There are three general scenarios and for fiber isolation of two cable Ethernet devices you need two fiber media converters. If you use the opticalRendu as your endpoint you only need one fiber media converter. If your router of switch has fiber output then you don’t need a fiber media converter with an opticalRendu.
This link might help explain things.
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A cheap FMC works good if you need one before the fiber, but everything after the fiber matters. In my previous setup, I had a similar TP-Link FMC after the fiber that I tweaked with a linear voltage regulator and running it on battery, and it made a clear improvement.
I haven’t tested opticalModule, but I am pretty sure you will get an improvement in SQ by using it after the fiber, compared to cheap switched FMCs. Not so sure opticalModule will improve the SQ if placed before the fiber though.
There is one way to know for you: try it. Anything else it’s just talk / theory
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@Magnus
Hmm, not sure I understand why that makes any difference.
Fibre is 0s and 1s.
If Sonore built an optical input into a bog standard UltraRendu I doubt it would sound different to a cheap FMC in front of an Ethernet UltraRendu, but as @thyname says, until you try it, it’s just talk
Let me help you understand this a bit better and how it works:
The purpose of having fiber isolation in your line is to avoid electrical noise passing through copper lines (regular Ethernet cables), from your router, switch, the rest of the electrical circuit in your house, to your audio, as fiber transmission is just light, no electrical signal.
Then, you need some type of converter, in this case an FMC, to convert the signal back to “Ethernet” for your audio. In theory, that’s where a new set of issues comes in play, as that FMC, can insert its own junk back to your audio system, depending on its implementation, quality of parts and power supply. Things like electrical noise, jitter, timing errors, etc. Therefore, things like opticalModule, or the upcoming etherRegen switch from UpTone (same designer, John Swenson) claim to avoid, reduce, or eliminate these issues associated with “regular”, consumer market FMCs that were not built specifically for Audio.
There is a lot of white papers and posts from John Swenson on this very topic. @vortecjr has shared them before, or you can just Google him. Again, I am just throwing this stuff out there in case you are interested. You can very well decide to ignore them, and be happy with what you have. Which is perfectly fine. It’s all about how far we are willing to go, how important (or not important) these things are to us, the budget, and things like that.
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quick question on the middle configuration with this implementation…
[transport + ROCK] --> existing fiber --> [opticalRendu] --> usb cable --> [t+a dac 8 dsd]
what will be the ultimate roon endpoint: the opticalRendu or the dac? …or more specifically, in the context of RAAT, which device owns the clock and, thereby, pulls the audio data from the roon player?
note: the t+a dac 8 dsd is a roon tested device
I have been very happy with the improvement I obtained by replacing a long run of ethernet with optical cable in my set-up. Seems much quieter. Easily less than $500 with a LPS.
Wireless Router—ethernet—>TrendNet switch with optical out–> 35’ of optical cable—> opticalModule—> .75m of ethernet --> dCS Upsampler
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We didn’t just make a bog standard ultraRendu with an optical input. The ultraRendu and the opticalRendu are similar, but also very different in circuit design. Anyway, if you connect a FMC to a ultraRendu remember that you are now hard wired power supply ground and all into the ultraRendu via copper cables.
Let me say that there are various oscillators in play here and some have nothing to do with the other except as John has talked about in his white papers. There are two audio oscillators in your DAC for analog conversion. There is a oscillator in your DAC for the digital input. There are two different oscillators in the opticalRendu for USB/CPU and network. There is are oscillator in your other network gear. There are oscillators in your computer.
Thats is a nice combination. Enjoy!
You misunderstand me.
What I meant to say is that if you took a bog standard UR and fitted an optical input to it, I doubt that would sound much different than a bog standard Ethernet UR fed with an Optical Galvanic Isolation part of the cheap variety I mentioned previously.
I didn’t mean to imply that an OpticalRendu is just a UltraRendu with an optical input fitted.
I know the hardware has been improved.
I know it requires 2A so it cannot be the same circuit.