Jump to content
IGNORED

Optical Network Configurations


Recommended Posts

So, I listened to my system with both the TP Link 5412F as optical switch, then with the Diablo 18198 (powered by the iFi linear power wallwart that comes with the iUSB...not the iPower). In both my system and sig8's the Diablo won. It is a smidgen cleaner, and has slighlty better bass impact (again, this is all weird to be "listening" to an optical switch). It even seems to add a little gain to the system (don't ask me how, but Ashok and I both heard it). He postulates that the Diablo is a winner, not only because of the ability to power it externally (with linear or battery, etc. 5V-12V) but also because it is a much more minimal piece. It is unmanaged, has no huge motherboard or software options, etc like the TP Link. Either are good options, though.

 

By the way, it's SFPs, whether 1000base-SX or 1000base-TX (RJ45, I don't own one but asked about it) do not do anything but 1000base, so running an ethernet render looking for 100base (like my Rendu, apparently) will only work via it's lone standard RJ45 ethernet port (the TP Link has 4 of them). No need to try 100base FMC's, etc. Or simply hang a copper switch off of it.

 

Gary Moore of Diablo Cable is a very good contact and provides wonderful customer service, and may even give you a discount if you register, add a switch to the shopping cart and call him. :)

 

Today I sent sig8 his Diablo back, bought me my own Diablo, and will send his TP Link back to TP Link when my Diablo arrives. Many thanks to sig8 for his generosity in this evaluation.

Link to comment
So, I listened to my system with both the TP Link 5412F as optical switch, then with the Diablo 18198 (powered by the iFi linear power wallwart that comes with the iUSB...not the iPower). In both my system and sig8's the Diablo won. It is a smidgen cleaner, and has slighlty better bass impact (again, this is all weird to be "listening" to an optical switch). It even seems to add a little gain to the system (don't ask me how, but Ashok and I both heard it). He postulates that the Diablo is a winner, not only because of the ability to power it externally (with linear or battery, etc. 5V-12V) but also because it is a much more minimal piece. It is unmanaged, has no huge motherboard or software options, etc like the TP Link. Either are good options, though.

 

By the way, it's SFPs, whether 1000base-SX or 1000base-TX (RJ45, I don't own one but asked about it) do not do anything but 1000base, so running an ethernet render looking for 100base (like my Rendu, apparently) will only work via it's lone standard RJ45 ethernet port (the TP Link has 4 of them). No need to try 100base FMC's, etc. Or simply hang a copper switch off of it.

 

Gary Moore of Diablo Cable is a very good contact and provides wonderful customer service, and may even give you a discount if you register, add a switch to the shopping cart and call him. :)

 

Today I sent sig8 his Diablo back, bought me my own Diablo, and will send his TP Link back to TP Link when my Diablo arrives. Many thanks to sig8 for his generosity in this evaluation.

You are very welcome Ted, the good thing is that both of us heard the same thing. I think EuroDriver and jabbr have been instrumental in setting us on fiber network path, it sure is well worth the investment, many times over honestly.

Link to comment
So, I listened to my system with both the TP Link 5412F as optical switch, then with the Diablo 18198 (powered by the iFi linear power wallwart that comes with the iUSB...not the iPower). In both my system and sig8's the Diablo won. It is a smidgen cleaner, and has slighlty better bass impact (again, this is all weird to be "listening" to an optical switch). It even seems to add a little gain to the system (don't ask me how, but Ashok and I both heard it). He postulates that the Diablo is a winner, not only because of the ability to power it externally (with linear or battery, etc. 5V-12V) but also because it is a much more minimal piece. It is unmanaged, has no huge motherboard or software options, etc like the TP Link. Either are good options, though.

 

By the way, it's SFPs, whether 1000base-SX or 1000base-TX (RJ45, I don't own one but asked about it) do not do anything but 1000base, so running an ethernet render looking for 100base (like my Rendu, apparently) will only work via it's lone standard RJ45 ethernet port (the TP Link has 4 of them). No need to try 100base FMC's, etc. Or simply hang a copper switch off of it.

 

Gary Moore of Diablo Cable is a very good contact and provides wonderful customer service, and may even give you a discount if you register, add a switch to the shopping cart and call him. :)

 

Today I sent sig8 his Diablo back, bought me my own Diablo, and will send his TP Link back to TP Link when my Diablo arrives. Many thanks to sig8 for his generosity in this evaluation.

 

That is great. The ability to externally power the Diablo is clearly a benefit. It is very interesting that different switches may have different "sounds". That brings up the issue that different SFPs may also have different sounds, and in fact, particularly for longer cable lengths there is also the option of singlemode vs multimode. The SFPs are cheap, particularly for multimode but I've also found some singlemode SFPs that are very reasonable (2-3x price of multimode SFPs). Switching between is as easy as swapping a fiber (yellow for aqua typically) and swapping the SFPs at each end. I've got some singlemode as well and on my list of things to test.

 

Regarding the Rendu, I think the Trendnet FMC may do the trick ... its clearly possible to uplink 100base-fx to 1000base-sx and the proper media converter is what is needed. Is this the one you have coming? It would be good to know if it in fact works when plugging one end of the fiber into the switch.

 

I have a Silverstone ML03B case with an ASRock Q1900M micro-ATX board (3 pci-e slots). This case is not the smallest but has space for an upright short Ethernet NIC (I've installed an Intel dual SFP card) as well as the PPA V2 USB. I'm using a picoPSU and looking into fitting an LPS into the case which has lots and lots of extra room. I'd like to do 12V 4-5A and 5V 1-2A. I'd really like to be able to fit a couple of input chokes but space may be tight... If this gets working there's room to upgrade the system clock as well as NIC clock (both 25 mhz). I'm also trying to get it to boot over the network from my NAS but that kind of thing isn't simply plug and play ...

Custom room treatments for headphone users.

Link to comment
You are very welcome Ted, the good thing is that both of us heard the same thing. I think EuroDriver and jabbr have been instrumental in setting us on fiber network path, it sure is well worth the investment, many times over honestly.

 

Hey talk is cheap :) Miska recommended optical networking several years ago I think, and it really makes sense. Everyone's time and effort to acquire and test multiple setups and report experiences is really invaluable.

Custom room treatments for headphone users.

Link to comment

An interesting and very welcome discovery tonight, playing HQPlayer with the loaner TP Link switch in place........I can upsample DSD64 to DSD256 (with convolution) now, whereas earlier tries with the NAA setup (NAS was not yet on fiber and switch was copper D-Link connected to FMCs) produced hiccups until I turned off convolution. I gotta assume that either throughput is somehow enhanced or less noise causes HQPlayer to upsample easier?

 

Note: DSD128 to DSD256, although better than before, is still unlistenable (hiccups every few seconds) with convolution on, but it's not a big deal for me..I stay at DSD128 in that setup. In both cases I have the requisite pipeline SDM engaged.

 

And yes, with Jussi pioneering this (what else is new) Jabbr and Eurodriver are the leaders here...kudos guys! Getting more fiber in our musical diets is very good for, er, um, reducing noise? Sorry...analogy got too weird. :)

Link to comment

Impressive. These NICs can be viewed as a network coprocessor and offload network communications tasks like Ethernet serialization/deserialization from the main processor. That's to say that when a remote file is accessed the bits just show up in memory. It would be interesting to see if the optical network reduces or eliminates benefit from RAM disk.

 

Not to say that there aren't other benefits such as increased thorough put but I would guess that you wouldn't see this kind of HQPlayer performance benefit with FMCs.

 

An interesting and very welcome discovery tonight, playing HQPlayer with the loaner TP Link switch in place........I can upsample DSD64 to DSD256 (with convolution) now, whereas earlier tries with the NAA setup (NAS was not yet on fiber and switch was copper D-Link connected to FMCs) produced hiccups until I turned off convolution. I gotta assume that either throughput is somehow enhanced or less noise causes HQPlayer to upsample easier?

 

Note: DSD128 to DSD256, although better than before, is still unlistenable (hiccups every few seconds) with convolution on, but it's not a big deal for me..I stay at DSD128 in that setup. In both cases I have the requisite pipeline SDM engaged.

 

And yes, with Jussi pioneering this (what else is new) Jabbr and Eurodriver are the leaders here...kudos guys! Getting more fiber in our musical diets is very good for, er, um, reducing noise? Sorry...analogy got too weird. :)

Custom room treatments for headphone users.

Link to comment

It makes sense just purely from a lack of packets dropped. If you try wireless you get even more drop outs. Hardwired 100mbps or stick an EMU filter in between will also cause more packet loss. Fiber seems to have the least interference/packet drop (and re-ask) issue. I tried the above with a streamer setup and large DSD256 files with similar results.

 

So Ted's HQP upsampling experience makes logical sense.

Link to comment

Taking delivery of fiber patch cables, FMC's, SFP's, Mellanox fiber network card and Diablo 18198 switch later this week. All I need to get are suitable power supplies for one FMC and Diablo switch. I was thinking of the Ifi iPower but it seems only the 9v version is available for now. Looking forward to putting it all together. Exciting times! Thank you guys.

 

Colin

Link to comment
Taking delivery of fiber patch cables, FMC's, SFP's, Mellanox fiber network card and Diablo 18198 switch later this week. All I need to get are suitable power supplies for one FMC and Diablo switch. I was thinking of the Ifi iPower but it seems only the 9v version is available for now. Looking forward to putting it all together. Exciting times! Thank you guys.

 

Colin

 

9v will be fine for the Diablo switch, it can take anything from 5 to 12v. And I think FMC's can take 5 or 9v. Ted had posted picture of the user manual from the FMC. I can look up and tell you if you do not find.

 

I think MusicDirect has 9v iPower in stock.

Link to comment
9v will be fine for the Diablo switch, it can take anything from 5 to 12v. And I think FMC's can take 5 or 9v. Ted had posted picture of the user manual from the FMC. I can look up and tell you if you do not find.

 

I think MusicDirect has 9v iPower in stock.

 

Yes, they do. And I found the user manual that Ted posted, thank you.

 

Colin

Link to comment
9v will be fine for the Diablo switch, it can take anything from 5 to 12v. And I think FMC's can take 5 or 9v. Ted had posted picture of the user manual from the FMC. I can look up and tell you if you do not find.

 

I think MusicDirect has 9v iPower in stock.

 

Woo woo ... the iPower's (9v) I've had on order forever are shipping...

Custom room treatments for headphone users.

Link to comment
It makes sense just purely from a lack of packets dropped. If you try wireless you get even more drop outs. Hardwired 100mbps or stick an EMU filter in between will also cause more packet loss. Fiber seems to have the least interference/packet drop (and re-ask) issue. I tried the above with a streamer setup and large DSD256 files with similar results.

 

So Ted's HQP upsampling experience makes logical sense.

 

You can actually measure packet loss e.g. under linux:

 

$ ping -f -c 100000 <IPADDRESS>

 

 

Custom room treatments for headphone users.

Link to comment

Ordered mine early today too. Guess we all trust that they will be good. :) I can then put my iFi iUSB power supply back with the iUSB unit and sell as a complete set (assuming I like the Regen better).

Link to comment
Has anyone tried a point to point fiber connection between PCs using Windows bridging and eliminating the switch?

 

I read somewhere; HQ Player with NAA, you need to go through a switch. Can't speak for other scenarios.

Link to comment
I have HQPlayer running to an NAA without a switch today using archlinux and an sms-100/running NAA.

 

Can you elaborate on that a little bit. If it works with copper ethernet; very likely it will work with fiber as well, but you will have to have fiber cards in the PC's.

 

Some here have fiber card in HQP, and I think jabbr has fiber cards in HQP and NAA. I am looking to have fiber card in NAA as well, so far I only have it in my HQP machine.

 

Where is your music stored? How you access other network devices? Do you need dual port card(s)?

Link to comment
Has anyone tried a point to point fiber connection between PCs using Windows bridging and eliminating the switch?

 

By "Windows bridging" do you mean using windows as a router ... or linux using pfsense ?

 

Don't see why you couldn't do this if you can in copper but I have no interest. I can't see how a PC (for bridge) would likely be quieter than, for example, a Diablo switch with LPS. The downside of using sms-100 as NAA is that you need to have a copper ethernet connection.

 

For me, just moving to optical has swamped any differences between various LPS e.g. Anker vs iPower etc. What I am trying to get working is eliminating the SSD on the NAA entirely but that is taking a bit of work for various reasons.

Custom room treatments for headphone users.

Link to comment
Can you elaborate on that a little bit. If it works with copper ethernet; very likely it will work with fiber as well, but you will have to have fiber cards in the PC's.

 

Some here have fiber card in HQP, and I think jabbr has fiber cards in HQP and NAA. I am looking to have fiber card in NAA as well, so far I only have it in my HQP machine.

 

Where is your music stored? How you access other network devices? Do you need dual port card(s)?

 

Windows NIC bridging support started in Windows XP and works in all versions up to and including the Windows 10 preview. It is an implementation of the IEEE 802.1D standard. My server alternates between running minimserver or HQP and has two copper NICs, configured as a bridge with one static ip. One NIC goes to a wireless router and the other NIC to the SMS-100. The router side is isolated with a EMOsystems ethernet isolation transformer. The SMS-100 side uses a copper connection to a FMC with fiber to another FMC then copper into the SMS-100. Bridging places the two NICs into "promiscuous" mode where packets are accepted from any source regardless of the destination. With this mechanism, packets addressed to the SMS-100, or the music server, are routed appropriately. This network is configured as a separate subnet from the rest of the house, so any generated traffic comes only from music reproduction activities.

 

The replacement of a physical switch with this virtual switch configuration yielded a significant increase in sound quality.

 

I am thinking about replacing the SMS-100 and the two FMCs with a fiber NIC in the server and a newly built machine to run NAA also using a fiber NIC. This is why I asked if anyone had tried a switch-less config with fiber nics.

 

------

FYI - the Windows server above connects to a USB 3.0 (UASP) enclosure with a 4tb WD red drive for music storage. The enclosure is connected via a Corning cable and is powered by an LPS. This server boots from an Samsung SSD also externally powered with an LPS and connected using an efidelity sata filter.

Pareto Audio aka nuckleheadaudio

Link to comment

The short answer is that yes you can do this. No I haven't tried.

 

Realize however that:

 

1) a FMC is a very simple switch

2) routers are not fundamentally different than computers -- you could get NIC cards with 4 Ethernet connections and put a bunch of these cards into a PC and run pfsense and make your own router.

So you can make your own router yes.

 

Why not? Well your own router will be bandwidth limited by the speed to the PCIe bus. And you still have all the noise of the computer.

 

So consider either an "FMC" with 2 SFP ports or the Diablo switch both of which are LPS capable. Don't look at the optical switch as a bad thing. It's more like the USB Regen.

 

In any case there are many many things to try.

Custom room treatments for headphone users.

Link to comment

A couple of other points:

 

The reason to go optical is to avoid the need for other Ethernet isolation devices -- just put your wireless router behind an FMC and you have complete isolation

 

The second (and what was confusing me) is that you have a physical subnet not a virtual subnet-- virtual subnets are created on managed switches.

 

I'm assuming that you don't have a bunch of other devices on your network accessing your NAS -- you don't want a video stream flowing through your PC while you are listening to music.

Custom room treatments for headphone users.

Link to comment

lmitche:

 

Thank you for your response. I understand what you are doing, but do not have enough experience to see if that will be better than what we are doing with a fiber switch as jabbr explained. Let us know how it goes, but I think we all agree that converting from copper to fiber LAN has provided a big step forward.

 

jabbr:

 

I read somewhere you are trying to add a dual port fiber NIC in NAA, is that for network booting? What is the model number for that NIC. I see a few on ebay.

Link to comment

So we have excellent sonic results with FMCs as well as fiberoptic switches. There is no fundamental difference between the two. In the same way that the USB Regen is a USB hub with one input and one output, the FMC is an Ethernet switch with one copper port and one fiberoptic port.

 

You can easily have 2 copper and 2 fiber ports. At this point, for just a bit extra $ you can go with an 8 or 12 port SFP switch. The point here is that with fiberoptic we have complete galvanic isolation between the devices and so while point to point is fine, the additional serialization/deserialization and reclocking performed by the switch may actually reduce rather than increase noise.

Custom room treatments for headphone users.

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



×
×
  • Create New...