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If you stream music from the internet, I can't recommend this more highly

I had been using a Roon Nucleus to stream Qobuz, with my Chord Qutest directly connected to the Nucleus. I thought I was getting pretty decent sound quality. And then I got a marketing email from Small Green Computer touting some of their optical gear. The basic idea is that normal cables and connections used to stream from the internet pick up noise of one kind or another (radio frequencies and electromagnetic something or other). But fiber optic cables and their connections/interfaces do not. I don’t know anything about anything, but it made theoretical sense to me, it wasn’t a huge amount of money ($1,400), and with a 30 day return policy I figured I could always return it if I didn’t hear any improvement. Well, I didn’t just hear a slight improvement; it was like turning on the lights in a dark room. Much greater clarity and detail, much better micro and macro dynamics, better timbre to acoustic instruments -- overall just more lifelike. Two quick examples: I’ve listened to some of Steely Dan’s top songs 100s of times over the course of my life, and this is the first time I’d ever noticed a particular and very subtle sound characteristic of Fagen’s keyboard in Babylon Sister. It’s hard to describe, but it’s like there’s a slight sound of air being exhaled by it. The other example: the specific timbre of whatever percussive instrument is used at the beginning of Copeland’s "Fanfare for the Common Man" (a recording by the Minnesota Orchestra). There’s more of a metallic sound than a drum skin sound to it that I didn’t know was there before. The metallic sound starts in the center and then projects out and to the sides, like a wave washing over you. Anyway, I’m just thrilled about having stumbled upon the whole "optical" thing and felt obligated to let others know about it. If you stream music over the internet, I highly recommend giving it a try. (The product I got was the opticalRendu, with the linear power supply option, and the Fiber Ethernet Converter Bundle option.)
128x128hiphiphan
rbstehno
1,399 posts
 
i agree with others on the steaming posts that the best way to stream music from tidal or Qobuz is to use a fiber internet network if you want dead quiet transmission. If you have to use any other cable, then you have to apply bandaids to get rid of the noise.
If you use a computer/music server that sits on your rack and connects to your dac thru usb (these music server are just dedicated computers), then you have to apply bandaids to usb to improve sq. If you want to stream music from the internet or from ripped music on your hard drive, then all you need is a dedicated computer located in another room running Roon or other apps like Audirvana/jriver/pure music and use Ethernet to connect to your dac. This setup will sound better than most music servers that are attached to your dac using usb.
agillis
8 posts
 
This is Andrew from Small Green Computer.

A number of people have asked me to make an in depth video on the subject of optical isolation. Here it is.

https://youtu.be/iwtzN5spDUg
hiphiphan's avatar
hiphiphan OP
72 posts
 
Thanks Andrew. Seems like a lot of moving parts. I have to think the whole optical thing is going to be simplified in the near future. Not to cut into your business model, but I think a lot of people are probably going to wonder, if they just want to "clean" the signal with fiber optic wire, why do they need this other contraption (the opticalRendu) after the conversion to optical has already occurred in the little media conversion box? It seems to me that the main reason for it is just that most DACs don’t have the proper port for the fiber optic wire. Or is there more to it than that? And while you’re here :) ... do you have time to offer a brief answer to someone’s question above: "I’m not saying that any of these devices don’t work, but what I don’t understand is, don’t streamers cache a certain amount of the data internally? If you are listening to music and you pull the ethernet cable out of your streamer, it will continue to play for a brief period of time. So I’m just not sure how "cleaner" ethernet packets going into a devices memory chips (cache) would improve the sound. Could anyone elaborate on this?"
mitch2
3,680 posts
 
A couple of years ago I read an article by Michael Lavorgna at AudioStream that presented a method of optical isolation involving two TP Link Ethernet/Optical converters and a short optical cable.  Total parts are less than $100.  I run the Ethernet from my router into a Bonn switch and then into the above optical isolation set-up and then a very short Ethernet cable from the second optical converter into my server.   I believe this provides a subtly smoother presentation.   
douglas_schroeder
3,281 posts
 
It does not compute imo that simply replacing the ethernet cable by optical, with its conversion, would negate the need for reclocking, etc. One seems to be for the purpose of eliminating the noise in the transmission, while the other is for the purpose of altering the wave form. 
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