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Fiber Optic isolation causing listening fatigue

Just curious if others have experienced the issue I'm having. I have a decently resolving system: Aurender N150>Weiss DAC 204>Wyred4Sound Pre>First Watt J2>Omega RS8 monitors. Not being able to leave well enough alone, in a quest for more detail, I decided to isolate my streamer from the router by dropping in two TP Link fiber media converters separated by a fiber optic cable. Well, initially I got the effect I was hoping for: I heard a great deal more detail in my music. I could hear the singer take a breath where I typically couldn't. I heard nuances of music that typically escaped me. In fact the effect wasn't really subtle. There was much more clear instrumentation separation, etc. However, after about an hour of listening, I started noticing a feel of irrititability, just a general annoyance. I told myself "you're just over-caffinated." But I think the added level of clarity was simply causing listener fatigue.

Anyone else experience this with a fiber optic upgrade? Of course the fiber optic cable will not require break in (it is simply passing light through a channel), but maybe the fiber media converters would need time to settle in? I was trying this upgrade as a "proof of concept" thinking that I would upgrade to a Sonore Optical Module Deluxe if I liked the effect. Now I'm not so sure I'll take the risk in spending more money on this.

I guess I'm just curious if anyone has had this experience. Or might have some thoughts?

Thanks,

Tal

surlydale
surlydale OP
26 posts
 

Good to know. Thanks. 

audphile1's avatar
audphile1
7,948 posts
 

Try to have all your network stuff plugged into a different circuit to avoid contaminating the AC line where your system is connected to. 

surlydale OP
26 posts
 

That’s a good thought. I plugged the first FMC into a different circuit, but the one going into my streamer is plugged into the same power distributor as my system. 

tuberist
1,006 posts
 

I implemented the optical cable system as described several years ago and never experienced the listening fatigue you experienced. Everyone has different ears, of course. I could easily hear the difference between the optical cable and the ethernet cable. I also like that my system is protected more from lightning strikes as I live in a lightning prone area.  I recommend trying this because it is very inexpensive. You are still going to need two ethernet cables, one from your router to the first TMR box and one ethernet cable from your playback device to the second TMR box. 

toro3's avatar
toro3
514 posts
 

Maybe I missed it, but are you using a LPS on the second FMC?

I’ve found that the cheaper FMCs can do more harm than good, especially if using their generic power switching wall-wart (especially on the last FMC prior to the streamer).

The “detail” and listener fatigue could be jitter. 

The quality of FMC matters. The opticalModule Deluxe with LPS can re-clock the signal better, which should reduce the jitter, and subsequently avoid that listener fatigue (which I also experienced when experimenting with generic FMCs). AudiophileStyle has a pretty good 10-year thread about FMCs

For context I currently run oModule Deluxe and oRendu.

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