If I can handle it, then it must be plug and play, right?
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Sure, but do log onto your switch (Cisco 2960 or similar) and check the interface for frame errors over the fibre.)ā¦ otherwise you might not know that you have made your home network less optimal.
With OM you can probably get away with not doing that, but with OS absolutely recommended.
Professionally it is not unusual for me to have a new OS fibre install providing a high ratio of frame errors.
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Iāve had cisco switches back from the early 2,000, but I would not make a mountain out of a molehill.
Knowing Linn and Lumin, they would not make this type of connection if they think it is problematic for the end-users? How many of us who are prepared to spend $40K for a streamer would tinker with the cisco or any managed switches with the command line interface?
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Exactlyā¦ so suggesting consumers use OS fibre I think is irresponsible as most wonāt know how to validateā¦ perhaps itās a way of getting dealers involved with home user setups, assuming they have had the training.
I have been working with fibre since the mid 90sā¦ so itās probably fair to say I have just a little experienceā¦ and I believe I have been consistent with this advice over the last decade on this forumā¦ from when I predicted that audiophile companies would get involved with fibre. I certainly wouldnāt recommend doing this with OS fibre with my customers.
If you look on the web you do see similar things as to what I have been suggesting.
Good luck with itā¦ perhaps if Linn provide an end to end solution, they already have validated the transceivers and distances.
I am undertaking a design and build of a multi million pound build currently ā¦ and fibre is only being used where distance requires it or for compatibility above 10Gbps to help utility and reliability.
From an audiophile perspective, thinking about it, OS transceivers typically use less power than OM, which means OM transceivers have the potential of causing less noise on powerlines for digital transports etc.
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I think you sound like the critiques of Steve Jobs and the likes, until the public found it otherwise 
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Sorry you think thatā¦ I am also the publicā¦ itās just I have been working with it for the last 27 years (also for the public). Anyway I give my advice and suggestions, itās totally upto you of course whether you wish to ignore it or notā¦ but may I suggest since 2006 my track record on the forum has been pretty good.
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My Lumin dealer has recommended a ADOT Audiophile FO Converter Kit for the P1, this kit comes with 1.5m of fibre with an orange coloured outer coating and you have a choice, increasing in cost on what power supply to power the converter.
It would appear from the tables on fibre previously posted that this is multimode fibre.
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The Audiophile Digital Optical Technology (ADOT) MC01 is essentially a āplug and playā solution for adding FO isolation to an audio network. The kit is designed to remove noise which interferes with the pulse edges of the network stream. Remember a bit stream can be ābit perfectā but still noisy. Removing that noise clarifies the bit stream and the effects are easy to hear. As Iāve repeatedly stated, cleaning up the network are probably the most cost effective upgrades you can currently make in a streaming based system.
The ADOT kit comprises an audio-optimised Media Convertor (built to enterprise standards, with special attention paid to the ethernet magnetics) with matching SFP adapters and 1.5m of cable. Longer cables are available if you want to use the kit as part of your house FO installation. As far as I know, the kit is marketed by the same people who market Melco and was probably initially designed to work with the Melco S100 switch.
The kit is provided with 1 of 3 possible power supplies, a consumer āuniversal power adapterā, marketing speak for a cheap-as-chips Chinese SMPS, a linear power supply of unknown (to me) origin and a custom built PLiXiR LPS with 3 stage noise reduction. From a SQ perspective, the power supply is where the good, very good or excellent performance is found.
The nice thing about this kit is that its been constructed specifically for audiophiles with better SQ at the forefront, it takes away all the matching worries and with its 3 power supply alternatives its very scalable, depending on the system its going into.
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I think thatās about it. You can do the same job for much less. I donāt think ADOT are doing anything special here apart from bundling in some higher quality PSUs further up the range.
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Hi James,
Interesting. So what hardware should I order to get the equivalent?
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Itās in one of the other threads. Iāll look it up.
Edit here you go - about halfway down.
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Linn do sayā¦
All Linn DS/DSM products support 100Base-T excluding the Klimax DSM/3 that supports 1GBase-T
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Yes, this is exactly what I said, the new linn streamer is the klimax dsm/3.
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I know. But it was being interpreted as a fault with the latest Linn streamer rather than a requirement.
Anyway, your post made me look at Linn Docs and just familiarise myself with a few of the requirements of the latest Klimax DS which was very useful 
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Yes, itās true for most people, but I interpreted it as a āgoodā point, a step in the right direction.
Linn is no stranger for doing innovative stuffs that are or may be controversial.
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I like āmostā of what you are saying, and I have no doubt that you are sincere in your suggestions, and I āthinkā I understand your point of view and your skepticism about the use of the optical ethernet input considering the background where you come from, I had the same skepticism myself (as always with anything that is new or innovative).
However, regarding the SQ improvement made possible by the optical ethernet (in the context of this new linn streamer and perhaps some lumin streamers), I suggest that you go to a place where they can demo it, hear it and see it for yourself, and then come back here.
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For FYI @NO-QUARTER, quoted from Lumin officially:
During the launch of X1, a dealer did a demo that compared the SQ between copper Ethernet, single mode SFP, and multi mode SFP. In that event, more visitors preferred single mode to multi mode.
I also searched for discussions at audiophilestyle.com in the past, during that time it seemed to me more people preferred single mode.
This is why our Lumin X1 web page example uses single mode SFP.
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You might mis understand what I am saying, donāt get me wrong several years ago, before fibre was vogue in some audiophile circles, I suggested the potential SQ benefits to some of the design team of a major Hi-Fi manufacturer of using fibre to eliminate common mode interference currents from Ethernet leads . My suggestion was to use SFPs so the end customer could adopt twisted pair or fibre to suit on their streamer.
My point I was making here is that not all āfibreā is the same. There is no such thing as a āoptical Ethernetā as a specific type. There are some optical Ethernet formats optimised for the home network LAN and others that are less so that could deteriorate your network in a wrong environment (albeit they will still stop common mode interference) . OM fibre is designed for LAN use which is why I was suggesting it.
My point about OS fibre is that it is not really designed for home network or regular standard speed short distance LAN use, and has more expensive and delicate terminationsā¦ Because of this in my experience itās important to validate the OS fibre is correctly terminated and functioning at install time by checking for link errors. Depending on transceivers for OS fibre you may also need optical attenuators to stop overload and data corruption.
OM fibre is typically more plug and play and I suggest more suited to consumers without diagnostic network equipment.
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Many SFPs will work with both multi-mode and single-mode cable. The SFPs that @NO-QUARTER is using are long-haul (which isnāt strictly required because I donāt expect that there will be more than 200m between his switch and streamer).
You can get problems with some LX SFPs if youāre using multi-mode rather than single-mode cable, but it usually only happens with low quality cable, and many of the newer SFPs have mitigations to limit the problems (mostly relating to signal jitter)
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Yes long haul transceivers (LX) for OS fibre is specifically where the issues may arise, as an optical attenuator may be required. As I say it will likely all work unless chronic, but you may be introducing link errors into your network, that the other protocols such as TCP in your streamer are working hard to recover from. So best check if using such setups as I say that the link is error free by checking the switchport stats.
Obviously for us engineers this is trivial, but less so for the regular Hi-Fi consumer who knows nothing of this, and why should they.
This fibre technology has not been developed with the consumer in mindā¦ it may happen if it becomes more fashionable, but unlike twisted pair is not always plug and play currently. OM fibre and transceivers is probably the most consumer friendly formats currently, but unless you have the know-how to validate I would avoid OS fibre and single mode operations.
OM fibre [1-4] is not designed for long distance, although it does of course depend on link speed. Maximum reach for OM3/4 is 550m at 10Gbps. Itās designed for LAN and infrastructure use.
If you feel you have to use OS (Single mode) fibre, I strongly advise then using short reach transceivers which are more suited to low power use for a LAN needing high bandwidth, but do avoid LX transceivers with single mode which are completely in appropriate, unless streaming to the next town!
For those who are using Cisco switches who want to check their new fibre links for errors after a fresh install, give me a shout and I can point you in the right direction to check and confirm all is ok and working optimally.
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