Network Isolation

[r_w]

Exactly... It's not worth reviewing any LAN connected digital gear until the operating environment has been optimised for audio.

 

The TotalDac USB filter (before the regen) might just be your final piece in the picture.

 

LAN optimisation is cheap and simple to implement, so cheap that it is bonkers to ignore it.

 

Good job!

 

;-)

 

Installed everything tonight. It all went together easily and worked with no hiccups. A quick recap -

 

PC running Win 10 with no optimization, Mellanox fiber network card installed

Diablo 18198 fiber switch with Cisco SFPs

Synology NAS connected via TP Link MC220 FMC

CAPS server, used as NAA, running Win Server 2012 with AO 1.30, connected via TP Link MC220 FMC

iFi iPower PS on NAA FMC and Diablo fiber switch

Diablo LC-LC MM fiber patch cords and Blue Jeans Cable 0.5m Cat 6a Ethernet patch cords.

 

Result - pretty dramatic lowering of noise floor, allowing more detail, especially fine detail, to emerge. More realism, and the sense of the artist being there. This is great stuff. Between this and the Amber Regen, my system is sounding the best it has ever sounded...so far!

 

Colin

[Vitor]

Ok, so I've managed to install the 2 FMC's in between the sotm sms-100 and the TPLink router.

The patch cables used are SC/APC type linked to two TPLink MC210, with stock wallwart power supplys.

CAT 5 between FMC and router and CAT7 between second FMC and sotm sms100.

Listening to 3 or 4 tracks and didn't noticed any exponencial difference to justify the cost/work (in fact, in one song - a dead quiet one, i felt an increase of noise), maybe the psu on the NAA side will make a diference. I hope so. Will report back one I've done some more critical listening.

[Vitor]

Ok, so I've managed to install the 2 FMC's in between the sotm sms-100 and the TPLink router.

The patch cables used are SC/APC type linked to two TPLink MC210, with stock wallwart power supplys.

CAT5 between FMC and router and CAT7-(AQ Vodka) between second FMC and sotm sms100/mBps.

Listening to 3 or 4 tracks and didn't noticed any exponencial difference to justify the cost/work (in fact, in one song - a dead quiet one, i felt an increase of noise), maybe the FMC psu on the NAA side will make a diference. I hope so. Will report back one I've done some more critical listening.

 

Edited.

[BSAudio]

Hej guys,

 

On the surface this seems to be a comparable product to the Diablo switch:

8/9 ports Gigabit Ethernet Optical Fiber Switch with eight SFP ports

 

Anybody good or bad experience with this company?

 

Rick

[jabbr]

Hej guys,

 

On the surface this seems to be a comparable product to the Diablo switch:

8/9 ports Gigabit Ethernet Optical Fiber Switch with eight SFP ports

 

Anybody good or bad experience with this company?

 

Rick

 

Nice. Looks like a GT-Tech brand. Very tempting price.

[jjraffin]

I've read the thread for a while now. People trying the fiber isolation solution have talked about devices such as Aries, SoTM sMS-100. Would it also be applicable to SB Touch? Any other examples of devices?

[jabbr]

I've read the thread for a while now. People trying the fiber isolation solution have talked about devices such as Aries, SoTM sMS-100. Would it also be applicable to SB Touch? Any other examples of devices?

 

Fiber can be interfaced with any networked device given sufficient FMC and/or switches. For the squeezebox you could either connect a FMC to the Ethernet connection with an RJ45 jumper cable or do the same to the wireless router.

[Vitor]

Is it just me or the FMC's runs extremely hot?

[John769]

Is it just me or the FMC's gets extremely hot?

 

with my pair of MC220L, warm to quite hot. Definitely not 'class A' hot, though.

[Vitor]

with my pair of MC220L, quite hot. Not 'class A' hot, though.

 

I have the MC210CS and im pretty sure they get more hot than my class A/B amp.

[sig8]

Is it just me or the FMC's runs extremely hot?

 

Yes, they run warm. I have put feet on them (four very small cabinet door bumpers from Home Depot), it helps. Same thing for the Diablo switch as well, it gets warm too, and doesn't have feet of it's own.

[tgb]

hi

strange that you are all saying they are hot.

my mc110cs are slightly warm, but absolutely not warm or hot.

But this is maybe due to the power :

the one powered by its 9V smps is pretty cool.

The one powered by a 5V battery is slightly hot.

 

thus

- Gb FMCs hotter than 100Mbs ?

- 5V power makes them hotter than 9V ?

[John769]

hi

 

the one powered by its 9V smps is pretty cool.

The one powered by a 5V battery is slightly hot.

 

 

Interesting. Need to try with 9v instead.

[ted_b]

My MC220L FMCs:

to NAS (powered by 5V Anker battery) cold

to NAA (powered by 5V JS-2) neutral to slightly lukewarm (barely any heat)

to router (powered by stock wallwart) lukewarm at best

[jjraffin]

Fiber can be interfaced with any networked device given sufficient FMC and/or switches. For the squeezebox you could either connect a FMC to the Ethernet connection with an RJ45 jumper cable or do the same to the wireless router.

 

Thanks.

 

I was mostly trying to find out what devices were being used at the end-point. As stated I currently have a SBT, but I'm tempted soon by the Aries Mini and eventually I'm getting a LH Labs Source. The Source has an internal hard drive for music file storage, whereas I currently have my library on a QNAP NAS.

 

But if I need a renderer for streaming e.g Tidal or internet radio, then any device would still be CAT cable connected. And not being an engineer, I don't know if electrical interference continues to impact if there is TCP-IP activity or not.

[pl_svn]

my two TP-Link MC210CS and single mode fiber cable have been delivered a few minutes ago

setup was a breeze and only a matter of connecting cables and power

(just check you are connecting TX on one device to RX on the other one and vice-versa )

 

though I'm using isolation in a different (and silly? ) way: not between devices but between the "music related portion" of my LAN, where everything runs on LPS, dedicated NAS, ethernet switch and media converter included, and everything else non music related

 

only missing bit, to accomplish my project, is... the right DC cable between LPS and NAS

 

 

oh... and even if my NAS is still powered by its default SMPS... first few minutes into listening and, placebo or not, I'm really very happy

difference (mostly consisting in sharper focus) kicked in yesterday when I got my HD-Plex LPS and started using it to power the ethernet switch connecting Mac mini and NAS

[tgb]

But if I need a renderer for streaming e.g Tidal or internet radio, then any device would still be CAT cable connected. And not being an engineer, I don't know if electrical interference continues to impact if there is TCP-IP activity or not.

Hi jjraffin,

all the topic is about it !

Everyone who tried FMCs realized that electrical interferences carreid by RJ45 cables impact the sound. The FMCs placed upstream a streamer lead to a huge improvement.

Forget the tiny improvement you can enjoy when you buy a high end cable. When you buy 2 FMCs & & fiber & a battery, it cost 150eur max, and improvement is way ahead what you would expect for that price.

Rgds

[Vitor]

This is definitely not for me, so anyone needing 2 TPLink MC210 and 2 patch cables, please let me know.

I'm the black sheep.

[tgb]

Hi Vitor,

You still do not have FMCs upstream your streamer ?

 

In case you don't have, I understand the "FMC tweak" look a bit weird or for crasy idiophiles.

That why, following the 1st post of Eurodriver on this thread, a long time ago now, I started discussing about FMCs on the french audiophile forum.

I created a new dedicated thread (phile is my username overthere ;-) )=> Pont optique : pure data, pure musique (quasiment) : Musique dématérialisée

(use google translate if you need so)

The brainstorming session about FMCs started on another thread, thus I created that thread to settle things about FMC use.

In the first post, you can find sum up about FMC & feedbacks (CR in french stands for "feeeback" "review") from the 1st owners/testers of FMCs.

 

But the thing that helps quite a lot is the shopping list I added ;-)

Based on this shopping list, a lot of French black sheeps like you could know what to buy and where, received the parcel & simply plugged the FMC&fibers to enjoy the improvement brought by just 2 tiny FMCs.

I don't know where you are, if you are ouside France this shopping list won't help you, but you can easily find dealers anywhere.

Thus, just to tell you : even the black sheeps can enjoy the nicer sound thru FMCs !!! Yes you can !! :-)

;-)

Rgds

[Vitor]

Hi Vitor,

You still do not have FMCs upstream your streamer ?

 

 

In case you don't have, I understand the "FMC tweak" look a bit weird or for crasy idiophiles.

That why, following the 1st post of Eurodriver on this thread, a long time ago now, I started discussing about FMCs on the french audiophile forum.

I created a new dedicated thread (phile is my username overthere ;-) )=> Pont optique : pure data, pure musique (quasiment) : Musique dématérialisée

(use google translate if you need so)

The brainstorming session about FMCs started on another thread, thus I created that thread to settle things about FMC use.

In the first post, you can find sum up about FMC & feedbacks (CR in french stands for "feeeback" "review") from the 1st owners/testers of FMCs.

 

But the thing that helps quite a lot is the shopping list I added ;-)

Based on this shopping list, a lot of French black sheeps like you could know what to buy and where, received the parcel & simply plugged the FMC&fibers to enjoy the improvement brought by just 2 tiny FMCs.

I don't know where you are, if you are ouside France this shopping list won't help you, but you can easily find dealers anywhere.

Thus, just to tell you : even the black sheeps can enjoy the nicer sound thru FMCs !!! Yes you can !! :-)

;-)

Rgds

 

Hello phile,

 

I have, or in this case, had. Two tplink mc210 with two SC/APC patch cables. Couldn't find a replacement psu for the FMC at the NAA (sotm sms100) side, so i was using the stock ones.

Tried it anyway, but to my ears the diferences weren't dramatic to justify two (very) hot bricks in the rack and 4 meters of fiber cables.

Like i said before, maybe a better psu on the NAA side would make a substantial improvement? Dunno.

Maybe the fact that im using SC/APC fiber cables instead of the recommended SC/SC ones? Don't think so..

Call me skeptic.

[pl_svn]

Like i said before, maybe a better psu on the NAA side would make a substantial improvement? Dunno.

Maybe the fact that im using SC/APC fiber cables instead of the recommended SC/SC ones? Don't think so..

Call me skeptic.

 

a good LPS makes a world of a difference!

it makes even more if you manage to use LPSs for as many devices as you can

 

as I wrote a couple of days ago, powering from a LPS also the ethernet switch between NAS and Mac mini brought a noticeable improvement (still waiting the DC cable to power my NAS too from an HD-Plex LPS)

[jabbr]

a good LPS makes a world of a difference!

it makes even more if you manage to use LPSs for as many devices as you can

 

as I wrote a couple of days ago, powering from a LPS also the ethernet switch between NAS and Mac mini brought a noticeable improvement (still waiting the DC cable to power my NAS too from an HD-Plex LPS)

 

Those Anker batteries (5V) work really well and aren't expensive.

[Vitor]

Those Anker batteries (5V) work really well and aren't expensive.

 

Where can we source those anker batteries for the tplink mc210 in EU?

Or others for that matter?

[jabbr]

Where can we source those anker batteries for the tplink mc210 in EU?

Or others for that matter?

 

I know these are real issues, but I'm ordering stuff direct from China all the time off of ebay. Does Amazon work for you, or ebay?

 

What about: TeckNet® 2ème génération PowerZen 16000 mAh 5V/3.4A Batterie Externe munie de la Technologie BLUETEKTM 2 Ports de Sorties 3.4A Chargeur Portable compatible avec les produits suivants : Apple iPhone 6, Plus, 5S, 5C, 5, 4S, iPad 4/3/2/1, iPad Air ,iPad

 

These little batteries are great and you don't need to worry about ground loops:)

[jabbr]

Has anyone tried any of these:

 

New Rechargeable USB Power Bank Charger 4pcs 18650 Battery Box Case Holder | eBay

5V 3A Dual USB 18650 Power Bank Battery Box Charger for IPHONE6 Plus S6 Hottest | eBay

 

and then filling them with the real Panasonic NCR18650b batteries?

 

or you can go all out and get the PPA battery packs and regulators:

SHOPPING AREA: BATTERY ADAPTER