Playing with fibre ethernet

the mc200 will not work with your athom. You need tp link mc110 cs converter. @obsydian tried the mc 200 with his nova and it didn’t work.
I had before two tp link mc 110 cs with my nds. The sound was nicer and more open but less prat and timing vs the cisco 2960 and good quality ethernet cables. The audioquest diamond gave the same softness and openness but with more natural and balanced sound.
However you can try, it’s very cheap.
You have also sotm ethernet isolator for the same effect as fiber optic.

I hope you don’t mind me commenting, but to me this looks like noise shaping… that is you are not significantly changing/reducing the noise power, just changing how the noise interacts with your system from a sonic/distortion perspective. The effects will likely vary on changes to your environment, and perhaps not be deterministic; ie hit and miss.

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I’ll either like it or I won’t.
If it doesn’t work out I can get a longer fibre and run it out to the shed.
Win win either way.

I’ve tried a few LAN isolators, the AR & some others but not SOtM, thankfully I was able to borrow them to try & I say thankfully as none did anything positive. Not surprising really as each LAN ethernet port has its own galvanic isolation, what does another one add (or remove).

Quite, most LAN isolators are designed to provide increased Ethernet galvanic isolation compared to the standard isolation of 1.5kV.
Their main uses are in sensitive applications, where a fault could cause danger to life, such as in certain medical use cases.

I am not sure there is too much greater than 1.5kV in our audio world apart from the HT lines in some exotic valve preamps/poweramps perhaps.

The only sign of any marginal improvement I heard when I was messing about with these isolators was when an AR-1 was hanging out the back of the BB Hub en-route to the Netgear switch. But in those days I had a BT HH3 (not one of BT’s finest) & I suspected its isolation module was not the best. It would be interesting to hear if the same change happens with my current HH6, but not if I have to pay £200 for the privilege.

Yes @frenchrooster is correct, the Atom as @Simon-in-Suffolk then pointed out was not Gigabit, so the MC110 worked, the MC 200 did not.

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I only tried the fibre bridge after the switch, at the with stock amps, then ifi ps and then even a Longdog LPS, I went back to the ifi.

Cant recall why I removed the fibre bridge, I recall for me it brought a significant noise floor improvement, that in turn helped everything else.

I would try it, cheap and I thought a hobby is supposed to be fun.

In the end i have simplified it all, queue another Innuos thread coming soon.

That was the point of my earlier post, but it seems from the info sheet that raym55 posted that his will work at 10/100 too.

The spec sheet I posted earlier says it works with 10/100/1000.
Anyways, don’t matter cos I’ll be running it between switch and router which is gigabit.

I had a Cisco switch that supported SFP modules. I also have a Lumin X1 streamer/DAC that accepts LC Fiber cables. I compared a direct LC-LC fiber connection vs. copper Ethernet between the Cisco switch and the X1. Before I had really made up my mind about going fiber, I replaced the Cisco switch with one that lacked SFP ports.
I obtained a media converter but didn’t like the idea of the cheap converter in the path. Instead, I placed a Gigafoil Ethernet filter between the new switch and the Lumin streamer. This was the answer. The Gigafoil uses fiber to filter the Ethernet network.
There is no question that the Gigafoil makes a significant difference.
I’m using Ansuz Ethernet cables in my network with the most expensive from the switch to the Gigafoil.
As a test, I put the Gigafoil and best Ethernet cables between the switch and my Naim Nova and frankly I preferred it to using a direct Ethernet connection from the switch to the X1.

The use of the Gigafoil is easily the best solution and it clearly makes a significant difference. It’s relatively expensive since it adds not only the cost of the Gigafoil, but also an additional Ethernet cable and the cost of a good LPS for the Gigafoil. In my case the cost was a bit over $1,000 not counting the cost for the extra Ethernet cable.

Placing a fiber connection before the switch doesn’t work. You need fiber before each endpoint.

I’m so happy with the Gigafoil, I’m going to put one between the switch and the Nova

Seems the V2 & V3 only works at 1000 and the V4 works at 10/100/1000.
Just as well I have V4. :joy:
Gotta be careful as there are too many options these days.

While there’s some great suggestions here, I’m not going to be spending any more than I have already quoted.
I’m only playing / experimenting to see what happens.
I have ordered all the bits, just waiting for them to arrive but there’s no more £ going into this.

Can’t see what difference which one you use as it’s not being used at the Atom end, something a few people seemed to overlook. I’ll be interested to hear your findings. I have a spare cisco ATM that I could use to bridge to the one in the hifi area using fibre instead of Ethernet. I can’t see it doing much as you still have to use Ethernet at both ends somewhere.

Galvanic isolation?

Ethernet is already galvanically isolated by design.

As @anon91915252 has said by design and specification all Ethernet socket connectors are galvanically and AC isolated. This is not only for safety reasons, but it is unlikely Ethernet would reliably work if the connectors were not galvanically isolated as circulating ground loop currents could interfere with the serial link signal voltages. The Ethernet serial link twisted pairs need to be isolated and behave as balanced transmission lines.

But why are there galvanic isolators on the market then like the Pink Faun Isolator? Is this a fable? Your answer sounds very good and believable. A lot of people here in The Netherlands are using the isolators and also use fiber for galvanic isolation, not for long distances but pure for isolation. Maybe it helps if the lan network is poor just like power conditioners will give a ‘better’ sounding result if the quality of the power network is worse. I’m only guessing cause I’m not so familiar with all the theory but I’m very curious about it.
Thanks for your reply and explanation.

Yes my thoughts as well, is that not the intent of the certain magic silver box talked about in another thread.

If you mean streaming from your own store, in my system I disagree, but of course with some other systems and setups that may be true.

If you mean streaming online across the internet, I can’t comment as I have no experience, but it of course can have other limitations outside of one’s own control, though whether you can do anything to improve I don’t know.

Who could believe its possibly snake oil sold to people willing to buy it?