Sonore opticalModule v0.95 - discontinued

[kennyb123]

20 hours ago, Puma Cat said:

I've got a Jameco 5V Reliapro LPS coming (hopefully) tomorrow to power the OM in the interim until my Keces P3 arrives sometime around the end of next week. 

 

 

The Jameco LPS do a nice job for the price.  I would suggest though that you stock a spare or two.  I had them powering a pair of FMCs... I've had three of these fail after about two years of use.  What was weird was that they continued to send power to the FMC, but not enough to get the FMC to function.  I first assumed the FMC failed but the replacement had the same problem.  I ended up going back to the stock SMPS as my hope is I can ditch the TP-LINK FMCs once the EtherRegen finally ships - or potentially replace them with OMs.

[kennyb123]

18 minutes ago, Puma Cat said:

If my Jameco 9V powering my upstream FMC bites the dust, I'll just order one from Jameco; they are only about 40 mins. away in Belmont, CA from where I am in the East Bay. It only takes 1 day for them to ship me an LPS across the SF Bay via UPS. And I actually have a spare 9V Jameco Reliapro LPS; a friend is borrowing it at the moment but will be sending it back within the week. 

 

Jameco are actually very quick to ship.  I'm outside of Seattle and would receive my orders within a few days.  If only their power supplies wouldn't decide to fail on Friday evenings.  LOL

 

  

[kennyb123]

I intend to purchase an opticalModule to use upstream of an EtherRegen as follows:

 

FIOS > Synology router > wired > opticalModule > fiber > EtherRegen > wired > Innuos Zenith 

 

My question is about the power supply for the opticalModule.  Sonore offers three different choices of power supplies:  1) Jameco, 2) SGC and 3) Sonore.  My questions is this:  how much does the power supply matter on the upstream/dirty side?  Would there be an obvious sound quality improvement from selecting the Sonore power supply over the other two?

 

 

[kennyb123]

@barrows thanks for your reply above.  I had very much hoped you would respond.  Very helpful.

[kennyb123]

When do the “preorder for Feb 20th” units actually ship?  I’m eager to get mine.

[kennyb123]

4 minutes ago, vortecjr said:

It's looking like the end of the month now.

😥 ok thanks for the update 

[kennyb123]

2 hours ago, seaharp1 said:

Mine is coming in tomorrow 3/5/20 usps. 

 

Mine too - yeah!!

[kennyb123]

My opticalModule arrived this afternoon.  It replaced my upstream Startech FMC, with an EtherRegen used downstream.  It was up and running in no time with the Planet Tech 1000BASE-LX SFPs.  I’ll share my impressions once I’ve spent some more time with it.

[kennyb123]

My opticalModule has been here for a little over a week.  I’m very pleased with how it benefitted my system.  It replaced a Startech FMC on the upstream side with an EtherRegen downstream.  When comparing the two I found that the Startech actually made it seem as though the OM wasn’t revealing as much detail.  But after many swaps I concluded that noise was adding a harder edge to images.  Rob Watts the Chord designer often cautions about this kind of noise as it can cause some to favor that noise because they think it’s revealing more detail.  Rob’s answer to that is “darker is better” and in the case of the OM he’s exactly right. 
 

What really showed me how much I appreciated the OM was hearing that a friend purchased one for himself. You see, I promised to send him mine to play with.  A feeling of relief came to me when I learned that I wouldn’t have to temporarily go back to the Startech FMC.  That edge becomes fatiguing - so much so that I needed to use attenuators when using Planet Tech SFPs with that FMC.  No need for those with the OM.

 

So big thanks to the good folks at Sonore for bringing us the OM.  At some point I’ll give it an even better power supply.  At present I’m using an “el cheapo” supply from China.

[kennyb123]

50 minutes ago, barrows said:

@kennyb123, interesting take on ow to evaluate subjectively.  Nice.  Figuring out smaller, but meaningful differences can be difficult.  I do not think so much of "darker", but I feel l'm getting somewhere when things feel like they are slowing down a bit, while revealing more low level details.  I suspect this happens when fidelity is improved because the brain relaxes a bit more when it is working less hard (less brain DSP) to sort out the music.

 

I agree with the brain relaxing a bit more but sometimes it takes a bit of effort to allow ourselves to relax when doing A/B comparisons.  Here are some thoughts I shared with friends about the FMC comparisons:

“Switching to the Startech I found myself taken aback as there was more detail present.  The OM was darker in comparison, but also fuller and more focused.  What came to mind was Rob Watts saying “darker is better” and his caution about noise contributing to more perceived detail.  The OM was darker for sure and much of that was because the background was blacker.”

 

“When I first started reporting the differences with fiber attenuators I mentioned how using too little seemed to tip the frequency balance toward the treble.  This was the same thing that was happening with the Startech FMC. And I think my initial reaction to this is a lot like the initial reaction we might have to the brightest TV on a showroom floor.  Our eyes are drawn to it, thinking we see better.  It takes some active thinking though to compensate for the brightness difference and look past it to properly judge picture quality.  This was my experience with this particular comparison.“

 

The net of it is there may be some who favor the Startech because of the apparent extra detail.  
 

Many years ago a friend let me borrow his Benchark DAC 1.  I was blown away by the amount of detail but ultimately reached the conclusion that the apparent detail was because it was adding some etching.  It was fatiguing to me so it didn’t last long in my system.  A lot of people liked that DAC though, which was very surprising to me.

 

[kennyb123]

21 hours ago, Ultrarunner said:

I’m going down that rabbit hole myself. I was wondering if optical cable would make a difference and thought about buying the Corning optical cable that Sonore sells. However, instead I just replaced the SFP modules in my EtherRegen and opticalRendu with single mode SFP modules, based on several posts suggesting this. That really did make a significant difference. So now I’ve ordered single mode optical cable to replace the multimode. 

 

The fiber that Sonore sells uses InfiniCor from Corning.  This was optimized for multimode, thus ideal for the SFPs that Sonore sells.  

[kennyb123]

20 hours ago, barrows said:

As a Sonore representative I will not say for sure single mode is "better", but it is certainly not worse, and I would be interested in hearing about others' experience trying different fiber cables and SFP modules.  The single mode SFP modules do not appear to use any more power than the multi mode ones, so no issues there.  And all this fiber stuff is pretty affordable for our purposes, so it is not a big financial risk to try different types.  As for possible explanations of how and why different types of fiber transmission might make a sonic difference, i would love to hear from any Networking experts on that.

 

Of course I just put in the single mode today, and it probably needs to break in to reveal its full potential...

 

I'm far from a networking expert, but I think Wikipedia gives us some clues:

 

"Because of the large core and also the possibility of large numerical aperture, multi-mode fiber has higher "light-gathering" capacity than single-mode fiber. In practical terms, the larger core size simplifies connections and also allows the use of lower-cost electronics such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs)..."

 

"Single-mode fibers are often used in high-precision scientific research because restricting the light to only one propagation mode allows it to be focused to an intense, diffraction-limited spot."

 

Lower cost electronics that are capable of lower precision could be a possible explanation for why multi-mode may not be as good of a fit for high end audio as single-mode.

[kennyb123]

In case you missed it, here’s an excellent write-up that speaks very positively of the OM:

 

 

[kennyb123]

22 minutes ago, charlesphoto said:

 

Looked on their site and many SFP's to choose from. Which model did you go with?

 

https://planetechusa.com/product/mgb-tlx-mini-gbic-lx-module-20km/

[kennyb123]

3 hours ago, vortecjr said:

Grounding the opticalModule as described in that post is not effective because there is no connection to the enclosure screws to the main board. The proper way to shunt the DC negative to AC ground is to use an iFi Audio Ground Hog with spade converter or equivalent.

FYI @zettelsm

[kennyb123]

8 hours ago, sahmen said:

Would it be better to replace this multimode cable with a single mode cable, since I am using the planetech USA transceivers?  That would be fine too, but I hope I wouldn't require any attenuators if I do.  Although, the two units I purchased seem to be working nicely, I hope their status as "single-mode" units is not posing any problem I am unaware of, in this environment,  I could replace them with the  multimode spec'ed units which I originally bought, but only if the single mode ones are posing some technical problems. What are the differences between single and multimode applications anyway, and do they have any impact on the sound?

Yes you should use a single mode cable with those SFPs.  I use this:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0099S4UTQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_uxMDEb7PQ4Q0J

No attenuators are required with the Planet Tech SFPs.  

 

There have been reports from trusted ears favoring these Planet Tech SFPs over others.  Single mode requires higher precision so that could be why.  

[kennyb123]

1 hour ago, vortecjr said:

This is obviously not recommended practice and neither is the use of attenuators for that matter.

 

This is a prime example of why the long stupid thread should be ignored. According to its charter no one can go against its findings so it’s the Wild Wild West in there. 

A few of us on the “long stupid thread” are now strongly recommending the opticalModule.  You’re welcome.  😀

 

I was among the first to start experimenting with attenuators.  They were necessary with the Startech SFPs but I think the better answer is to pick a different SFP instead.  I don’t use attenuators now with the Planet Tech SFPs.  I’ve never tried the SFPs you recommend.

 

I thank you again for bringing the OM to market.  I’m very happy with it.  

[kennyb123]

1 hour ago, vortecjr said:

K, that thread has a long history of nonsense and I’m not going to praise it even if they are talking good about my products. The general message is you need to do all these silly things to get good sound and we all know it’s a bunch of BS. 

I understand your position.  Just keep in mind that those who participate in that thread aren’t all of a single mind.  Compare the systems listed in their signature and you will see quite a variation in how many are actually doing all those things.

 

I think it’s best to “criticize ideas, not people”.  I think your contention with that thread is with the ideas expressed by some.  That shouldn’t prevent you from giving thanks to those who say good things about your products over there as those individuals might not even share those same ideas.  Myself and one other who praised the OM over there have been happy customers of yours.

[kennyb123]

https://www.audiostream.com/content/sonore-opticalmodule-review

“If you’ve got the time, energy, and finances necessary to enable experimentation with noise-reduction strategies, using Sonore opticalModules and linear power supplies to transmit data in an ethernet > optical > ethernet configuration will enable you to hear significantly more of what recording engineers and artists hoped you would hear.”

[kennyb123]

17 hours ago, lxgreen said:

I am currently using a tplink module from router and then fiber optic cable to optical module then Ethernet cable to Dac. Is there any advantage of replacing the tp link with a second optical module?

 

I found benefit in replacing my Startech FMC with an opticalModule.  You may want to consider taking advantage of the 30-day return policy to try another one for yourself.

[kennyb123]

11 hours ago, Flashman said:

From the March Audiostream review:

“When I questioned Gillis about the noise-reduction benefits of replacing the first two TP-Links located on either end of the 75 ft optical cable that connects the router in the main house to the second router in the music room, he said that Sonore designers had conducted tests, and, ‘It won't make a difference. We have done testing on very resolving systems. We only hear improvement in the last leg with optical.’”

That’s not relevant to what I said.  I was talking about only the last leg.  I heard positive benefits from having an opticalModule on the upstream side of that leg.  The quote above talks about upgrading the leg that precedes the last leg.  The context is clear from the portion of the paragraph you omitted:

 

“For review purposes, Gillis sent two Sonore opticalModules. Both were installed in the music room, where they replaced the final two of my four TP-Links and transmitted signal from the music room’s router to either one of my two reference DACs, the dCS Network Bridge (which in turn sends signal to the EMM Labs DV2 via S/PDIF), or the Roon Nucleus+.“

His first leg is 75 ft long and leads from his house to the router in his music room.  The second leg is 15’ long and goes from that same router to his audio gear. 

 

For that last leg he evaluated opticalModules at both ends and liked what he heard.  That doesn’t surprise me a bit.

[kennyb123]

9 hours ago, vortecjr said:

Thats a goofy setup. Why isolate a second router when you can simply isolate the endpoint.

That room is quite a distance from the house.  The router in the music room likely provides that room with WiFi.  Using fiber instead of copper for that long leg wasn’t a bad idea.

[kennyb123]

5 minutes ago, BigAlMc said:

End of the day I expect the OM to be feeding either my ER or the switch before my ER so not gonna lose too much sleep over the OM's PSU. But food for thought all the same.

 

I have no doubt either Barrow’s or Alex’s power supplies will bring goodness from the OM.  I just struggle with spending more on the power supply than on the component it’s powering.  So at moment it’s a cheap linear supply from China plus a single stage DXP regulator.  I’ve been keeping an eye out though for a good supply to turn up used.  A better power supply made a tremendous difference with the ER, so I’m guessing the OM would respond well too.

[kennyb123]

2 hours ago, barrows said:

Yes, sounds sensible at first.  The technical point of view for suggesting that the best power supply possible for the oM will make a difference is based on the theory that achieving the lowest possible phase noise from internal oscillator is critical to the sonic performance/results.  If one accepts that the theory is likely correct, then using the best possible power supply is likely to be an advantage, as clock phase noise is dependent on power supply quality.  I am just trying to present this in a technical sense, and am not making any proclamations as to subjective sound quality improvements with power supply upgrades, I'll leave those evaluations to users.  

On the importance of power supplies in general, one should consider that in most high end audio products with built in power supplies, the power supplies usually compose at least half of the BOM cost for internal parts, often quite a larger portion than that.

Great points, as usual.  You have offered a plausible explanation for why a better power supply so dramatically improved the ER.  I should make a better power supply for the OM a higher priority.  
 

Does Sonore’s 30-day return policy apply to the power supply you designed as well?  

[kennyb123]

3 hours ago, PYP said:

 

I think that is my cue.  Well, the theory works in practice.  Very nice power supply (Sonore 5VDC for opticalModule).  Using with the stock power cords with excellent results.  And that is right out of the box.  It usually takes a while for equipment to settle in my system, but this already sounds very good. And the build quality leads me to believe this little brick will be in my system for a very long time.  Reasonable price too! 👍  

 

That's the feedback was hoping to hear.  Thanks for letting us know.