Sonore opticalRendu

Thanks Jesus - I’d rather not get into public naming but I’ll stress that I’ve always found Sonore to give me great advice. In this case, I don’t know if it would be better to have a longer run of fiber but it sure sounds good with a short run.

One thing I will say, comparing mR to oR, is that the packaging has deteriorated noticeably. Never a brand to over-design fancy packaging, the original mR at least came in a box with a semblance of padding and looked like a non-generic box. My new oR came in the most basic, generic brown box with bubble-wrap protection. Very homespun indeed, for a $1000 piece of consumer electronics. Yes I know we’d rather they spend their dollars on R&D than packaging yada yada, but this is a little extreme. See the photo of mR compared with oR

IMG_0802 copy|640x480

Those are just shipping boxes meant to be discarded so don’t expect us to spend anymore on them than we have to. Adding a product box just increases cost and increases our carbon footprint. BTW only the signatureRendu has a fancy shipping box but out of necessity more than anything else.

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John Swenson the designer of the Rendu series did tests on various switches and it was easy to show that common mode noise from some switches sailed right into an endpoint over the network. Long story short the noise was coming from the switches power supply. This is why you see some people using a linear power supply on a switch. You are right to think it should not happen yet it does. FYI the RJ45 input on the Rendu uses an ethernet port with very very good magnetos…better than most commodity switches, etc. The opticalRendu has 100% galvanic isolation taking the guess work out of the equation.

Ok remedial question
Is the switch the same as a router ?
And if so sounds like a upgraded cost effective power supply is a good idea
I currently use ultra rendu via vodka (short vodka between modem & router as well) fed by a nucleus
Please confirm

Switches and routers are different devices carrying out different functions:

I wouldn’t worry about power supplies on networking equipment. Galvanic isolation is designed into the hardware and any very, very low level power supply noise should be rejected by a well designed DAC. The noise levels are so far below the threshold of audibility, they’re not worth worrying about.

If you haven’t already, invest some money in room correction - it makes a difference orders of magnitude more than any component in the hi-fi chain.

I’m not a nervous switch user because I’m using a fiber optically isolated Renderer:) You can try different power supplies or some of the grounding tricks discussed on the various posts on the subject.

If you wan to read more about this subject you can look at some posts from John Swenson who worked for a major silicone chip firm (LSI Logic/Avago/Broadcom).

Section 2 - Leakage Current here:

and this post on network leakage here:

I’m not against a descending opinion. The information is out there on both sides of the equation and people can decide for themselves. Getting back to our products…we try to design and makes products that work well in a wide verity of circumstances. However, people still deploy all sorts of products before and after ours and it matters not what I say. I personally have a very simple system with router, fiber converter, renderer, and DAC.

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Hi everyone, I am facing some issues with Roon in detecting the opticalRENDU in my system.

I have a Mac Mini serving as a Roon core previously having a direct cat 7 network cable to the internet service provider router. Recently, I have purchased a network switch which was advised by the retailer to connect it after the wireless router. Hence, after connecting the network switch as described below, Roon does not detect the opticalRENDU anymore.

Previous: Mac mini, etherREGEN + opticalRENDU, wireless router → Internet Service Provider Router
Roon detects the opticalRENDU
Now: Mac mini, etherREGEN + opticalRENDU, TV, media box → switch → wireless router → Internet Service Provider Router
Roon does not detect opticalRENDU

Is it necessary that the Roon core must connect directly to the internet service provider router for opticalRENDU to be detected?

I realised that if I connect both the switch and Wireless Router directly to the Internet Service Provider Router and the mac mini, etherREGEN+opticalRENDU, TV. media box are connected to the switch, Roon detects the opticalRENDU.

Any advise is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

symon

All you need to connect the opticalRendu to your network is a simple fiber media converter. For example: we sell a fiber media converter called the opticalModule to convert cable ethernet to fiber ethernet. You can refer to our website for information on optical networking: Sonore - systemOptique

Are you sure that you are going into the A side and not the 10/100 B-side of the etherRegen from your upstream switches? Also, I’m with Jesus and would lose the switch the retailer recommended (better yet return it) because if you have an etherRegen then it’s doing what you need to do - unless you actually need another switch to plug more devices in. Sounds like you got sold something that either you don’t need or doesn’t work (and are you sure that new switch isn’t 10/100 out, like the old Cisco’s, which would be an issue?).

I have an etherRegen (eR) that I go B=>A to my opticalRendu (oR), separate LPS to both. That’s not the best way for eR but the only way if you have an oR and that John Swenson recommends.
But have anyone tested to go A=>B on eR and use an oM Deluxe between the eR and oR.
Will it make the soundquality get worse?

It will just make it silly:)

You are going B side to A side because you don’t have a choice. It’s optically isolated and you can’t do it a “better way” because fiber gives you 100% galvanic isolation.

Symon, I misread your post initially. Everything works fine until you connect your switch.

Why was the switch recommended? Did you need more ports to connect devices to your wireless router, or did the retailer advise that there would be some sonic advantage?

The switch shouldn’t affect things in this way unless it’s broken, or unless one or more of the cables connecting to the switch is defective. Even if it was a 10/100 switch, it would auto-negotiate with the other (presumably) Gbit ports to 100Mb/s.

Thank you to everyone who has chipped in trying to help. Being someone with limited knowledge in this field, I really appreciate all the help rendered.

However, after digesting everything and speaking to the people from the ISP, I have found some answers to the issues I have raised out in my previous post. In summary, the main issue is that I did not set to bridge mode of the ISP router.

Due to the location I am in (Shanghai, China), to set to bridge mode, there will be a downgrade of my Internet (contract is 1GB, upon doing bridge mode, it will be capped at 500MB instead). Not sure if this happens elsewhere in the world. As such, I choose not to do the bridge mode.

With regards to my eR connection, it is connected to the ISP route via cat 7 cable into B side of the eR. Below is the connections for reference:
ISP router (wifi disabled)

  • H3C mini S5G-U switch (10/100/1000 base-T): IPTV, TV, Mac mini, eR+oR
  • H3C BX54 wireless router

Why did I added the switch?
Firstly, to provide better coverage to the bedroom and the limited space on the TV console, I have to move the H3C BX54 away to a more centralised location to provide a more even coverage to the house.
Secondly, H3C BX54 has only 3 ports. Having 4 ports will give more convenience to have all 4 items connected simultaneously (Mac mini, eR+oR, IPTV, TV).

In summary, so long connections are made directly to the ISP router (with or without the switch), oR will be detected.

One port on switch to internet router. The rest of devices to switch. The retailer might know better than us my experience is strictly in Canada and US. Thought in this scenario I have the sfp in my switch, unifi us 8-150w. The poe could be used for doorbel camera. Better access point. My network has grown to 62 devices. Maybe 63 is OpticalRendu
:wink: just waiting for good sale.

Question for all the opticalRendu users: do you leave it on 24/7? Also: what power supply do you recommend?

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I leave it on 24/7. I use the Sonore 7V Linear Power Supply.

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Thanks. Does your oR not get quite hot? I’m currently using the SBooster (6.5V) power supply and the oR is fairly hot. A stark contrast from the SoTM SMS-200Ultra Neo (which is barely warm when played).

In fact, I just checked using a infrared thermometer: my oR is at 117.6F while playing!