Are you saying Melco use an optical bridge in their servers ?
Thanks for the suggestion. So, if I understood this correctly, ethernet cable to switch, then another ethernet cable from switch to the LAN port of my Melco, then finally, another ethernet cable from the Player port of the Melco to the Uniti Nova.
yes
My understanding having spoken to their engineers at a trade show was that they employ optoisolation and additional electrical filtering on the Ethernet interfaces as well as providing a Direct Mode which disables the LAN interface and lets the server run standalone and have a self assigned IP address.
As they are reclocking internally and breaking the electrical link from the incoming Ethernet connection this is how they are able to achieve improvements in the sound quality by stripping out any of the unwanted noise coming in from the LAN.
Certainly when ever Iāve heard one in a demo setup itās been wired to a typical Netgear 8/16 Port Layer 2 unmanaged switch so nothing exotic in terms of switching or cabling, the logic there being that any noise that equipment is generating and received on the LAN interface of the Melco server is galvanically isolated and reclocked internally before being forwarded to the Streamer interface.
If itās an important detail you may want to confirm that with them directly of course!
Added ātheā Cisco switch between the router and system. Sensing slightly more details and music has a nice sparkle to it. Will continue to listen for a few. Great opportunity to enjoy a glass of red wine and listen to more music.
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Maybe i should dust off my fibre bridge and try again.
Incorrect, the 2960 as with all compliant 802.3 Ethernet devices DO provide galvanic isolation.
Ethernet is not inherently noisy, it is a serial link that uses balanced transmission lines. Yes tolerances in terminations, balanced links etc will produce reflections and unbalanced emissions, but that is going to be as noisy as USB or not a million miles away.
The real consideration on networks is managing the broadcast processing required by your audio network host. This can only be achieved or significantly improved by an advanced traffic filtering bridge or using a separate subnet specifically for your media server and Ethernet DAC.
This is nothing to do with physical isolation.
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Interesting. The only mention of any optical isolation was the confusion around the light pipe Ethernet interfaces which most journalists picked up as meaning optically isolated. In practice the light pipes are just the port activity LEDs which sit on the PCB and use light pipes to convey light to the small segments each side of each port rather than use ports which already contain the LEDs. Melco saw these as causing possible interference and even gave the option to turn them off via the settings menu. As you say, the player port is re-clocked internally and measures are taken to minimise network traffic on this port. All Ethernet ports are transformer coupled so galvanic isolation is already there. A very effective product anyway.
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Iāve just recognised the system. Good to see you back on the forum Tiberio !
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@james_n You may well be right on that, it was a while back and my memory isnāt pin sharp to be fair!
Subjectively, they do sound good compared to other similar products, itās always best to hear something in your own system with your own ears of course, something which is often not easy to achieve and dealers often want you to come in to their controlled environment and assume you can reach a conclusion that way.
I struggle to do that personally and I think itās where peoples curiosity stems from leading them to look for more objective tests and measurements that at least help explain exactly whatās going on under the hood.
Hereās some links which might be of interest, thereās even some measurements to look at!
James what are these measures? When I used a Melco a little time back, I could see no capability hereā¦other than what a regular switch provides on a given segment.
Is there an unquestionable winner in any hifi category?
Iāve heard and used great systems from Chord, Linn and Naim.
Enjoyed them all - no winner and definitely no losers.
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@TiberioMagadino I think in the context of the whole sentence you quote from the conclusion I made was No 
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Iām not sure Simon - I presumed it was some form of traffic management / packet filtering but youāre more au fait with this than I am !
Interesting
So the measurements show no difference irrespective of network infrastructure.
No need for Cisco routers, switches or AQ Vodka then?
Cheers Mr M - That looks like a good lunchtime read.
Yes unless someone can specifically say what is done and how it is configured, then safe to assume it does no such thing. I certainly couldnāt see any setup for this, and you would need to do on a per network/installation basis.
You missed the one he wrote about ethernet cables.
@CrystalGipsy Thereās good mileage on that site, I figured Iād let others go digging and find stuff for themselves!