Optical Network Configurations

[Jud]

57 minutes ago, jabbr said:

Hey @Jud I see you have a fiberoptic USB cable, what do you think?

 

This is the only true fiber optic USB cable I know of (no end to end copper wires - power is injected at the DAC end so it will comply with USB spec). Thanks to @Superdad for the heads up.

 

What I really like about it from an objective viewpoint is that like fiber optic Ethernet, it helps eliminate any possible ground/noise loops in the system. Since the quality of the electrical power coming into the DAC's USB input in this circumstance is going to be totally dependent on the power supply doing the power injection to the cable, I got a Teddy Pardo "mini-Teddy" LPS for that purpose. (I also got one to power my DAC.)

 

My subjective impression, especially after adding the Teddy Pardo supplies, is that I like it a whole heck of a lot. Best sound I feel I've heard from my system.

[SQFIRST]

21 hours ago, jabbr said:

At this point all discussion of such noise has been theoretical and despite promises that "any day now" we are going to see data, after 10 years there hasn't been any -- for audio systems.

 

Just curios who you are referring to for this data? 

[SQFIRST]

17 hours ago, audiom3 said:

Optical HDMI cables

Tech is off topic yes but just wanted to second this. It is awesome for running any long video connections.

[R1200CL]

1 hour ago, SQFIRST said:

Tech is off topic yes but just wanted to second this. It is awesome for running any long video connections.

It’s coming. Hopefully. And done right. 
 

 

[SQFIRST]

21 hours ago, R1200CL said:

It’s coming. Hopefully. And done right. 

Interesting discussion! Thank you for sharing. 

[R1200CL]

Here some entertainment 

 

 

 

[Superdad]

10 hours ago, R1200CL said:

Here some entertainment

Yeah, in our 31 years in our home I’ve been through just about all those steps. Was the only private home in our small county to have ISDN. 

I’m topped out at the moment with 20mbps DSL, but when the phone company retrenched new copper pairs a few years ago (to replace 40 year old wire that was giving trouble) they ran orange conduit to eventually pull fiber from the curb to my house. A fiber trunk does run down our road—mainly for their own DSLAM infrastructure—but they have not yet offered it to residents. 
 

In the video the guy talks about Dennis, the grizzled phone guy who has seen it all.  A few years ago—after 4 young techs couldn’t solve a problem we were having—our county’s version of Dennis showed up. Boy did he have stories. And we reminisced about shared tech history. He fixed the problem in 20 minutes. 

[Jud]

37 minutes ago, Superdad said:

when the phone company retrenched new copper pairs a few years ago (to replace 40 year old wire that was giving trouble) they ran orange conduit to eventually pull fiber from the curb to my house

 

We've got the orange plastic tubes coming out of the ground too, in some places by homes about 15 years old, but no fiber yet.

[Iving]

Feel I should update on restoration of my system post 10G experiment - including a quasi-confession ...

Recap: Offline PC > fiber > eR > RedNet Device
NB: No internet/streaming - just plays local flac from listening position to between-the-speakers via ethernet/Dante

 

1. Spiking!
After years of trial-and-error, I had fine-tuned my system to sounding A1+, that tuning having much to do with honing Windows to bare bones necessary to play flac in foobar2000/Sox x 4 to 176.4kHz > Dante Virtual Soundcard > dedicated SFP Network Adapter > fiber > eR > RedNet D16 AES (thereafter Mutec MC3+ USB as WC/Reclocker > DAC being Dangerous Convert-2). Prior to a mobo/CPU upgrade, I had Intel i7 6700 on Z270-WS and could use Windows 10 Pro 1507. Moving to ProArt B550 Creator/5600G I was forced to move forward to Windows 10 Pro 1903. Being religiously offline, I can rationalise Settings and Windows Services without fear of external interference (from Microsoft or anybody else) - not to mention "noise" advantages of being offline and playing only local files. Anyway - about spiking - I was getting latency spikes as evident in Dante Controller and couldn't get to the bottom of them. I was convinced the problem had to do with my fiddling about with Windows having invisible repercussions. I learned a lot - exhausting just about every possibility. Then a series of hardware tests revealed that the spiking had everything to do with the PCIe AIC. Spent hours on Adapter settings - updating Driver - found MS Drivers newer than Realtek ones etc. In the end - since I last posted - I found out – and only serendipitously - that the Network Adapter card would behave after all - provided that the Driver was a very specific instance - happening to be of the same vintage as the version of Windows I am using. More specifically - Startech PEX1000SFP2 on 18362.19h1_release.190318-1202 *requires* Driver 9.1.410.2015 - and will not behave with anything else - even a close cousin such as 9.1.409.2015. It's been painful - but my system is restored and working perfectly. In fact Startech PEX1000SFP2 is the *most* stable PCIe AIC I have tested in all these recent trials – subject, as I say, to very tight Windows/Driver matching. To anyone who says I should just be online letting Windows do its thing including updating Drivers etc - I say that being offline in my chosen fashion affords me an undistracted listening style I treasure - but most of all - the SQ obtained by disciplining Windows can be heard easily downstream of fiber separating PC from Device. No question about it at all. Ground plane noise - whatever you like - fiber is a strong filter of some kind - not a perfect isolator.

 

2. 10G AIC
My experiment with a 10G AIC is reported in this thread not long since. Didn't work for me. Surprisingly a Gigabit transceiver (Startech SFP1000LXST) in the 10G AIC (Startech PEX20000SFPI) was not acceptable to the latter. Using a recommended switch (QNAP QSW-2104-2S) worked PC > 10G card > AOC > switch > SM > eR > Device - but the SQ was just not there. Definitely a few steps back. I haven't come to re-assess my judgement about that.

 

3. AOC
In my mind over recent weeks, I've blown hot and cold about AOC vs. SM. I got gobsmacked trying an el cheapo (10GTek) 7m AOC - but was in the middle of my spiking problem and too waylaid to listen for SQ earnestly. Initially I thought AOC created layers and thud I had never heard before in my system - but that it remained sounding coarse. In the past few days I've re-established my PC from scratch with – of course – Gigabit AIC. Well - the update is that - for a good price on eBay I got a couple of Cisco OEM SFP-10G-AOC3M - see pic. below. These work beautifully - and are an mistakeable advantage over SM. Clarity. Soundstage. Layers. Slam and Assertiveness - without that awkward graininess. This reinforces those on this Forum who have emphasised OEM AOC. And leaves me curious as to why AOC works so nicely in my Gigabit system over SM. I wonder whether the embedded transceivers are doing their 10G thing without the cost (whatever that was) of a 10G AIC and then the non-LPS'd switch etc that resulted in 10G disappointment previously.

 

 

Anyway - this report has been in case of interest but mostly to add final corrections to my previous observations. I am more than restored now - and feeling that there's not really anywhere to go "digital front end". Spring is coming and the feeling that I'll be able to get out walking (instead of futzing with wires) is the best feeling of all.

[SQFIRST]

Glad to see your system is back on @Iving

Your thorough write up helped to appreciate your setup and efforts. Win1507 was magical and 1903 is next best. Server 2022 is really good as well. 

Enjoy your walks and the music!

[Iving]

5 minutes ago, SQFIRST said:

Win1507 was magical and 1903 is next best. Server 2022 is really good as well.

 

I've kept i7 6700 + Z270-WS as a bench/Music Player 2. Just installed 1507 on it for the first time in ages. The simplicity of 1507 was stunning. As if half the work reining in later versions of Windows already done. Mind you gotta say the BIOS was simple too. So regrettable that everything gets more and more complicated. I can barely fathom that such "progress" favours audiophiles. All just noise of every kind. I can hardly believe what I've been thru just to play flac in one listening room. The more Windows "evolves" the more it trips over itself wherever you look. On my workstation (everyday general use) I just tried Windows 11. Hate it. Everything about it is horrible and pointless - just gets in the way. Got a Samsung PM1735 for a Windows 10 Pro installation and can dual boot now. The Samsung PM1735 is awesome. My whole flac Library, which used to take 8-12 hours to back up, I could transfer to a WD Black PCIe 4.0 M.2 in 15 minutes. Incredible. I was tempted to try the PM1735 as boot drive in my main Music Player - but couldn't persuade myself away from Optane 900p for the o/s. One of these days I'll get the i7 6700 / Z270-WS / 1507 back up and running - also with 900p as boot drive. If it sounds better than my current rig, I'll wonder what I've done with my life.

[lmitche]

On 2/28/2024 at 5:03 AM, Iving said:

Feel I should update on restoration of my system post 10G experiment - including a quasi-confession ...

Recap: Offline PC > fiber > eR > RedNet Device
NB: No internet/streaming - just plays local flac from listening position to between-the-speakers via ethernet/Dante

 

1. Spiking!
After years of trial-and-error, I had fine-tuned my system to sounding A1+, that tuning having much to do with honing Windows to bare bones necessary to play flac in foobar2000/Sox x 4 to 176.4kHz > Dante Virtual Soundcard > dedicated SFP Network Adapter > fiber > eR > RedNet D16 AES (thereafter Mutec MC3+ USB as WC/Reclocker > DAC being Dangerous Convert-2). Prior to a mobo/CPU upgrade, I had Intel i7 6700 on Z270-WS and could use Windows 10 Pro 1507. Moving to ProArt B550 Creator/5600G I was forced to move forward to Windows 10 Pro 1903. Being religiously offline, I can rationalise Settings and Windows Services without fear of external interference (from Microsoft or anybody else) - not to mention "noise" advantages of being offline and playing only local files. Anyway - about spiking - I was getting latency spikes as evident in Dante Controller and couldn't get to the bottom of them. I was convinced the problem had to do with my fiddling about with Windows having invisible repercussions. I learned a lot - exhausting just about every possibility. Then a series of hardware tests revealed that the spiking had everything to do with the PCIe AIC. Spent hours on Adapter settings - updating Driver - found MS Drivers newer than Realtek ones etc. In the end - since I last posted - I found out – and only serendipitously - that the Network Adapter card would behave after all - provided that the Driver was a very specific instance - happening to be of the same vintage as the version of Windows I am using. More specifically - Startech PEX1000SFP2 on 18362.19h1_release.190318-1202 *requires* Driver 9.1.410.2015 - and will not behave with anything else - even a close cousin such as 9.1.409.2015. It's been painful - but my system is restored and working perfectly. In fact Startech PEX1000SFP2 is the *most* stable PCIe AIC I have tested in all these recent trials – subject, as I say, to very tight Windows/Driver matching. To anyone who says I should just be online letting Windows do its thing including updating Drivers etc - I say that being offline in my chosen fashion affords me an undistracted listening style I treasure - but most of all - the SQ obtained by disciplining Windows can be heard easily downstream of fiber separating PC from Device. No question about it at all. Ground plane noise - whatever you like - fiber is a strong filter of some kind - not a perfect isolator.

 

2. 10G AIC
My experiment with a 10G AIC is reported in this thread not long since. Didn't work for me. Surprisingly a Gigabit transceiver (Startech SFP1000LXST) in the 10G AIC (Startech PEX20000SFPI) was not acceptable to the latter. Using a recommended switch (QNAP QSW-2104-2S) worked PC > 10G card > AOC > switch > SM > eR > Device - but the SQ was just not there. Definitely a few steps back. I haven't come to re-assess my judgement about that.

 

3. AOC
In my mind over recent weeks, I've blown hot and cold about AOC vs. SM. I got gobsmacked trying an el cheapo (10GTek) 7m AOC - but was in the middle of my spiking problem and too waylaid to listen for SQ earnestly. Initially I thought AOC created layers and thud I had never heard before in my system - but that it remained sounding coarse. In the past few days I've re-established my PC from scratch with – of course – Gigabit AIC. Well - the update is that - for a good price on eBay I got a couple of Cisco OEM SFP-10G-AOC3M - see pic. below. These work beautifully - and are an mistakeable advantage over SM. Clarity. Soundstage. Layers. Slam and Assertiveness - without that awkward graininess. This reinforces those on this Forum who have emphasised OEM AOC. And leaves me curious as to why AOC works so nicely in my Gigabit system over SM. I wonder whether the embedded transceivers are doing their 10G thing without the cost (whatever that was) of a 10G AIC and then the non-LPS'd switch etc that resulted in 10G disappointment previously.

 

 

Anyway - this report has been in case of interest but mostly to add final corrections to my previous observations. I am more than restored now - and feeling that there's not really anywhere to go "digital front end". Spring is coming and the feeling that I'll be able to get out walking (instead of futzing with wires) is the best feeling of all.

Two questions:

 

1) There is no mention of Solarflare 10G fiber nics in any recent posts. Have people tested these? Were they eliminated for some reason?

2) While I see active AOC cables, there is no mention of passive DAC cables being mentioned. Just curious why they are missing.

 

Thanks

 

 

[Iving]

2 hours ago, lmitche said:

Two questions:

 

1) There is no mention of Solarflare 10G fiber nics in any recent posts. Have people tested these? Were they eliminated for some reason?

2) While I see active AOC cables, there is no mention of passive DAC cables being mentioned. Just curious why they are missing.

 

Thanks

 

1) My only experience with Solarflare was catastrophic - see

But that was > 2 years ago and I wasn't looking for 10G - just best AIC.

Drivers aside, my understanding is they (Solarflare AICs) get hot. Therefore cooling a serious challenge. Others are best placed to report 10G interest wrt Solarflare ... if people have tried them with 10G in mind that is.

 

2) Made of copper thus presumed not having same isolation property/potential as fiber.

[audiom3]

I decided to try one of the LHY SW-6 switches in my setup.  My intent was to remove 4-5 FMCs on linear power supplies and use the LHY as a multi-device FMC.  That alone would make me happy due to space issues.  I run a fiber optic LAN already, so input into the SFP cage was natural and then I have (5) 1G ethernet ports for my devices (OLED, ShieldTV, Zidoo UHD3000, Roku, etc). I use the Zidoo for my 5.1 rips from my NAS as well as movies and concert videos.  Most, but not all, of my listening was done through the Zidoo and my ShieldTV which is on a Sonore LPS unit with a custom cable/adapter made by myself.

What I didn't expect from this switch was much difference in terms of a SQ improvement.  High hopes but low expectations, right?  I've done many things - and returned/sold far more things, in my setup but this LHY switch has been one of the best devices/tweaks that I've stumbled across.  This includes an ER and a Sonore OM, although I never hooked up an A/V device to them due to their bandwidth/speed limitations.  I won't go much into a review since it is on topic to a degree (FO switch) but kind of off topic too.  I will just say it's like I added several speakers off to the sides, behind me, above me, etc.  And the vocals through my center are even more natural sounding than before, which I already thought was pretty damn good.  I just don't understand how this switch made such a big impact on in my room/setup.  Very satisfied.

[lmitche]

On 3/8/2024 at 12:12 PM, Iving said:

 

1) My only experience with Solarflare was catastrophic - see

But that was > 2 years ago and I wasn't looking for 10G - just best AIC.

Drivers aside, my understanding is they (Solarflare AICs) get hot. Therefore cooling a serious challenge. Others are best placed to report 10G interest wrt Solarflare ... if people have tried them with 10G in mind that is.

 

2) Made of copper thus presumed not having same isolation property/potential as fiber.

Hi Iving,

 

1) Thanks for your response. I am delighted with the SQ of the Solarflare 8xxx NIC here with SMF. Adding a 40mm Noctua fan took care of the heat issue and doesn't degrade SQ with external power. Running on Linux, there are no drivers to install either. Nevertheless, I'll compare with the Startech SFP+ NIC and report when done.

 

2) Yes, copper does not isolate, so I am testing with two serially connected fiber switches, the second with fiber to the first, and the server connected to the second via a copper 30 awg passive DAC cable. I'll give it a few weeks to breakin.

[jabbr]

On 3/8/2024 at 9:41 AM, lmitche said:

Two questions:

 

1) There is no mention of Solarflare 10G fiber nics in any recent posts. Have people tested these? Were they eliminated for some reason?

2) While I see active AOC cables, there is no mention of passive DAC cables being mentioned. Just curious why they are missing.

 

Thanks

 

 

1) Solarflare NICs are terrific, arguably the lowest latency 10G NICs as well as supporting the PTP if this can help.

 

Now part of Xilinx -> AMD

2) passive DAC cables aren't fiberoptic, rather copper

[jabbr]

On 3/8/2024 at 12:12 PM, Iving said:

 

1) My only experience with Solarflare was catastrophic - see

But that was > 2 years ago and I wasn't looking for 10G - just best AIC.

Drivers aside, my understanding is they (Solarflare AICs) get hot. Therefore cooling a serious challenge. Others are best placed to report 10G interest wrt Solarflare ... if people have tried them with 10G in mind that is.

 

Solarflare only has drivers for server versions of Windows. They were not intended to be used on desktop machines. They were successfully marketed at the trading community for which trade execution speed is critical hence their low latency. So you couldn't find a driver for your Windows OS. 

 

X2 Series Ethernet Adapters (xilinx.com)

 

It is true that lots of fiberoptic equipment isn't intended to be used in the client/desktop environment and there are consequently more incompatibilities than with desktop products which are more intended to be plug and play. This is the reason for this thread: to document what works with what. 

 

I have successfully used Solarflare NICs with Linux. I have found that a number of the server NICs of that generation ran hot and need good cooling. One of the advantages of the Intel fiberoptic NICs is that they list wattage and you can typically figure out how hot a card will get by the number of watts it uses. 

[jabbr]

On 3/8/2024 at 1:34 PM, audiom3 said:

I decided to try one of the LHY SW-6 switches in my setup.  My intent was to remove 4-5 FMCs on linear power supplies and use the LHY as a multi-device FMC.  That alone would make me happy due to space issues.  I run a fiber optic LAN already, so input into the SFP cage was natural and then I have (5) 1G ethernet ports for my devices (OLED, ShieldTV, Zidoo UHD3000, Roku, etc). I use the Zidoo for my 5.1 rips from my NAS as well as movies and concert videos.  Most, but not all, of my listening was done through the Zidoo and my ShieldTV which is on a Sonore LPS unit with a custom cable/adapter made by myself.

What I didn't expect from this switch was much difference in terms of a SQ improvement.  High hopes but low expectations, right?  I've done many things - and returned/sold far more things, in my setup but this LHY switch has been one of the best devices/tweaks that I've stumbled across.  This includes an ER and a Sonore OM, although I never hooked up an A/V device to them due to their bandwidth/speed limitations.  I won't go much into a review since it is on topic to a degree (FO switch) but kind of off topic too.  I will just say it's like I added several speakers off to the sides, behind me, above me, etc.  And the vocals through my center are even more natural sounding than before, which I already thought was pretty damn good.  I just don't understand how this switch made such a big impact on in my room/setup.  Very satisfied.

 

Yes FMCs are simply very minimal switches with one copper RJ-45 and one SFP port. Using a switch with more ports is typically more cost effective.

[R1200CL]

There’s a new firmware update for the Mikrotik CSS610-8G-2S+IN switch that many of us have. 
I haven’t tested yet, but force speed was one improvement. Instead of auto negotiating. 
 Most interesting to test if 10GB SFP modules now can be set to 1GB. This didn’t work well before. 

What's new in v2.18:

*) added option to set forced 2.5G for SFP+ ports;
*) css610: added a distinct "Health" menu;
*) css610pi: updated PoE firmware;
*) fixed multicast forwarding after disabling IGMP snooping;
*) fixed SNMP ifSpeed OID reporting in certain cases;
*) ftc11xg: fixed DHCP packet forwarding;
*) limit the number of displayed GUI "Hosts" entries up to 512;
*) improved SwOS Lite web interface stability and responsiveness;

 

 

[Superdad]

4 hours ago, jabbr said:

Yes FMCs are simply very minimal switches with one copper RJ-45 and one SFP port. Using a switch with more ports is typically more cost effective.

 

Well some FMCs are built with just a single fiber(SGMII)>UTP transceiver chip--and not even a small Ethernet switch chip. So you really can't call them "2-port switches."

But it's not a great idea to do that. (Loss of support for pause-packets, and other issues of auto-negotiation; the first version of the Sonore opticalModule--the small one, not the "Deluxe" versions in the larger case--was done with only a transceiver chip and no switch chip.)

[the_bat]

Do you know which of the common FMCs do use a switch chip?

 

Thanks

 

Alan

[jabbr]

Posting these articles intermittently as the future of optical networking. This has **nothing** to do with home audio. Intel has previously demonstrated but looks like Broadcom has taken the lead in implementation. The metal DAC cables (direct QSFP to QSFP) and QSFP ports may go away to be replaced by optical to optical, presumably single mode fiber direct from chip to chip. I'd assume the fully optical chip could plug into a QSFP port on a remote device...

 

Broadcom Now Sampling 51.2T Co-Packaged Optics Switch (servethehome.com)

[The Computer Audiophile]

30 minutes ago, jabbr said:

Posting these articles intermittently as the future of optical networking. This has **nothing** to do with home audio. Intel has previously demonstrated but looks like Broadcom has taken the lead in implementation. The metal DAC cables (direct QSFP to QSFP) and QSFP ports may go away to be replaced by optical to optical, presumably single mode fiber direct from chip to chip. I'd assume the fully optical chip could plug into a QSFP port on a remote device...

 

Broadcom Now Sampling 51.2T Co-Packaged Optics Switch (servethehome.com)

Love it @jabbr

[TRHH]

On 3/11/2024 at 11:32 PM, R1200CL said:

There’s a new firmware update for the Mikrotik CSS610-8G-2S+IN switch that many of us have. 

 

I need a new switch. Does Finisar FTLF1318P3BTL work with Mikrotik CSS610-8G-2S+IN?

 

THX

 

Torben

[pl_svn]

18 minutes ago, TRHH said:

Does Finisar FTLF1318P3BTL work with Mikrotik CSS610-8G-2S+IN?

 

yes: that's what I'm using in both my Lumin U2 and Mikrotik CSS610-8G-2S+IN switch 🙂