Like all these things supposed to clean up garbage in the signal,they may or may not improve things in your setup.I have tried several USB isolators they made zero difference in my setup.
I still recall the fibre bridge i used for maybe 9 mths as a dramatic improvement, very inky black soundstage, but overtime on a practical level the spaghetti of boxes and wires led me to a more simplified route.
That said i have kept my media converter, power supplies and fibre cable ā¦ for maybe another day ā¦
Remember when looking at fibre that there are a number of factors you need to consider if you want to have a proper āplayā. Thereās the media converters them selves, and the TP link products are certainly at the cheap-n-cheerful end of the market. Then thereās the SFP module; not just the brand/quality but also 100meg or 1gig or even 10gig. Also single mode, multi mode, bi-diā¦ etcā¦ Also, and I think this has already been mentioned, thereās the fact that the power supply for the media converter might be adding to your mains and RF noise. The combination of factors is mind blowing!
And for me it was to much. I threw all the filters and fiber stuff out.
For the hardware Iām starting from the beginning again. Building a very electrically quiet music-server. Running as little (system) software as possible and just serving the bits as they are with plain cables. The only thing I tried which was a secured improvement was using dual-ethernet motherboard together with a bridging/firewalling package to connect one port directly to the streamer.
I honestly canāt say, but my suspicion is unscrupulous people/companies are preying on audiophiles or enthusiasts who donāt necessarily know any better who are swayed with fancy technical terms. There is an awful lot of rubbish (in my opinion) in this space targeted at audiophiles.
However the bottom line Ethernet is required to be galvanically isolated to be compliant and be called Ethernet (IEEE 802.3) ā¦ and typically that is achieved with isolation coupling transformersā¦just look at the componentry of any Ethernet interface.
Minimum requirements
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1500 V rms at 50 Hz to 60 Hz for 60 s
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2250 V dc for 60 s (Galvanic isolation)
I meant the full user experience.
I spent the last 9 months pursuing the idea that if the content is digital you might as well stay digital as long as possible. But then you talk with people working with Linns Exakt stuff and they tell you about network problems being an issue in a successful installation. Eventually these solutions will get there but do I want to be a paying partner in that evolution ā¦ no I dont.
I have no doubt Naim must jump into that pond sooner or later but so far theyāve stuck to āas little digital as possibleā.
And streaming over the net - why cant they promise I get the same bits as from CD? Has anybody seen any comparison on bit level what Qobuz/Tidal is actually pushing out?
The only good way to a controlled compare of 44/16 with 192/24 is to buy hires from Naim/Linn and do the sample-rate conversion yourself with known tools keeping an eye on the levels. And - no I dont hear a diff but respect to those who do.
So I buy CD and rip to my own server. I store everything in the same format to make it easier to try new servers and new server software (WAV with ID3-tags). I make sure there are no volume adjustments or upsampling going on in the music-server.
āas little network as possibleā seems like the way forward. For now.
Finally! All bits have arrived and are connected. FIM is connected between the Cisco 2960 and router.
While itās difficult to make a judgement this early regarding any benefits (or not) thereās certainly nothing wrong with what Iām hearing.
Will post again once I have had chance to thoroughly demo.
I think the āwhyā is well answered by this article:-
Lavorgna found the SQ better with the fibre patch than without, presumably because it prevented network ānoiseā from reaching the streamerā¦
Iām surprised that for something like the ND555, Naim didnāt put an SFP port on the new Network card they developed given the mileage to be gained with fiddling with Ethernet cables seen on the ND555 thread. If you want to go this way then using a high quality switch like the Cisco Catalyst with an SFP module seems to be the best approach at the streamer end.
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it was in 2016. I am not sure he still uses it with his dcs network bridge and totaldac dac. ( ?)
lumin X1 did that. Perhaps we will see more and more sfp imputs on the streamers in the futureā¦
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Possibly not FR - actually I have no idea - and I guess there are different ways to āskin a catā. But the fact that it worked well in a certain context at least suggests there is something in the theory that noise can travel round a network and adversely affect SQ, unless steps are taken to address/mitigateā¦
i had the network bridge with 2 tp link mc205 converters and fiber optic.
It worked very good. But the timing was impacted vs a good switch and quality ethernet cables.
However i enjoyed it more than 1 year. It costs quite nothing also.
Interesting to hear. I suppose itās true of many audio āsolutionsā that in attempting to solve one issue, others may be adversely affected - and one can feel like a dog chasing its tail ;-). Also (even without ātweakingā) most systems end up being a compromise of sorts - where some personal preferences in SQ are prioritised and some aspects (hopefully less important ones) are sacrificed. It is rare indeed for a system to do absolutely everything really wellā¦
you can try, it cost around 100 euros . You can improve with linear ps or ifi power each tp link. I had personally costly linear ps on it.
When in late development I asked that same questionā¦ I really donāt think it had crossed their minds - but I suspect the seed is sownā¦ so if a Statement network player ever does appear - it might have a Small Form-Factor Pluggable transceiver port or twoā¦ and the user can select twisted pair or fibre SFPs as appropraite.
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Update!
Tried a couple of cfgās, connecting the FIM between switch and Atom, between switch and router.
I also removed the Mac mini (Roon server) from the switch and connected it direct to the back of the router as I had a spare port.
For now I have settled on the FIM between switch and router. Iāll leave the Mac mini on the router. Connecting between the switch and Atom did it no favours.
Thereās nothing connected to the switch except the Atom and a couple of NAS drives that are not normally powered on, just used for backups.
Thereās definitely something going on, in a good way. Exactly what, Iām not sure.
With the Mac mini and the rest of the network now isolated from the Atom thereās certainly an uplift.
Iāll listen some more and see how it goes.
Please translate 
FIM : fibre interface module. Or FMC: fibre media converter.
Cfgās : configurations.
I donāt know whats happening but the fibre is staying.
Technically, it shouldnāt make a difference but as with all things audio, numbers mean nothing.
The setup as it stands and which I find a decent improvement to my modest system is as followsā¦
Mac mini (roon server) connected direct to router. Roon library on USB HDD connected to Mac Mini.
Router to cisco switch via fibre. Using stuff described earlier.
Switch to Atom via QED 5 mtr cable.
Theres nothing else connected to the switch except 3 NAS units which are only on when doing backups so the Atom normally has the switch to itself.
For the modest investment (less than 40 squids) it was certainly worth a try.
If you get the chance, give it a go, it may surprise you.
Irrespective of all the technical arguments why fibre shouldnāt make a difference, take my word for it ā¦ it does (in my setup).
Any ?? about my setup, please ask.