ENO/MUON Ethernet Filters for Streaming Audio

I discovered some interesting things here. Ethernet cable, plug-in filter and inline filter. Here’s a quick test.

Does anyone have any experience with the Acoustic Revive brand?

https://highfidelity.pl/@main-1407&lang=en

I’ve used their products for the last dozen years including their interconnects, speaker cables, LAN cables (no longer have). LAN isolators, and other stuff. They are all from c. 2012-2013.

At the moment their RCA-PA interconnect is being used to connect my DS DAC Mk1 to my Conrad Johnson integrated and the speaker cables are their SPC-PA. Both were the best they made at the time and both are the previous generation.

I’m using two of their RL1 LAN Isolators one going to the Mk1 DAC and the other to an Oppo 105D. Again these are the previous generation. I periodically remove the LAN Isolators but always put them back after a short time. At one point I thought they might be smoothing over a bit of the highest frequencies but I’m no longer sure.

A characteristic of Acoustic Revive is the well-worn audio cliche that they help foster an “organic sound” or at least that’s how it seems to me.

The company is unconventional in some of their production approaches. I have their RWL diffusion panels which have silk covers encasing their diffusion material. Acoustic Revive as I remember the story fed their silkworms mulberry leaves mixed together with tourmaline so that the resulting fabric would be impregnated with the tourmaline. Their LAN cables likewise (at least back then) were also impregnated with tourmaline which is a piezoelectric crystal.

I remember that their products tended to be on the expensive side but for nowadays maybe not so much.

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I have had acoustic Revive red lan isolator a couple of years ago, and it made some improvement. But I switched to a SoTM Cat7 red Isolator/cable that was clearly better. However, when I started using Shunyata Omega ethernet cable, it didn’t gel with SoTM at all. The SQ was dark and muddy. Not all lan isolators would work with other passive filter together in a chain as it turned out. But I found a much better combo with Omega and Stack Audio SmoothLAN together.

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Here’s something interesting and an insight into how an ENO or Muon works.

With NA filters, the pairs of wires are separated and wrapped around ferrite rings. Disturbances are combated effectively. The impedance could be influenced somewhat by separating the individual pairs of wires, but the filter effect is very effective. It seems to me that the price is determined based on the increase in sound since the material costs should be low. I think the muon has slightly larger ferrite rings than the ENO. The ENO2 is protected against interference in an aluminum housing. Is the Muon just a box made of ABS plastic?

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Haha this is the very first incarnation of the NA filter and there have been many years and generations of upgrades, improvements.
I know these German forum guys like to believe with some ferites on their cables they could emulate the same effect as a filter etc.

For your setup I would recommend a ENO2 streaming system so you got a great price-performance. From there using your remaining power cords (I know what a Dragon Source and SR Master fuse can do to a Holo Audio Red streamer) etc will be further options.

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I think some guys on the forums know what they’re doing. And I’m always interested in how does something work? The gentleman on the page linked above has measuring equipment. From music lovers to hobbyists, developers and manufacturers, the forums are full of people. Actually like here in the forum. The solution to suppress interference on individual pairs of wires seems to be the more effective one. I didn’t mean to badmouth the NA filters. The solution is currently the most effective for eliminating disruptions in the network. Greetings Andreas

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Hello, I’m still a little unsure about my decision. How did you come up with the tip about the ENO2 system for my system? Have you tried it? I would prefer a comparison between Muon pro and ENO2. Advantages and disadvantages. Visually, I find the ENO2 more appealing than the Muon pro. But what ultimately decides is the listening experience for me.
Greetings Andreas

Hey Andreas you make some very valid points and apologies for butting in on your discussion, but we thought it might be helpful for us to clarify a couple of things regarding the design of our Ethernet Filters.

The original eno Ethernet Filter, pictured here, contains two hand-wound oversized ferrite toroid cores. These cores were precision-wound with a special conductor. This is a painstaking and slow process that can only be done by hand. If the winding of the conductor around the core isn’t exactly right, one of two things happens: either the filtering effect doesn’t meet our sonic standards, or the filtering becomes excessive, causing the Ethernet signal to be over-attenuated. While this approach worked well, it did limit the design to 100Mb/s. With the creation of the 1Gb/s-capable eno2, we found a more reliable way to achieve consistent sonic results by using multiple cores with different properties.

Although both the muon Pro and eno2 filters are designed to exploit the benefits of a 1Gb/s connection, the eno2 filter uses a completely different design from the muon Pro. The muon Pro does not use any magnetic-based cores or rings, and the technology it uses is much more sophisticated and expensive to manufacture, hence the price difference.

We hope this helps, but if anyone has any further questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

:slight_smile: NA

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Thanks for the clarification. I own and enjoy the
Muon Pro System. Though the newer technologies employed in the Eno2 are “less expensive and sophisticated” does the resulting performance fall short, equal, or surpass the Muon Pro?

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Hi, well from what I read you are looking for the best price/performance upgrade. In that regard I’d go with the brandnew ENO2. Then you could still use some budget for either another ENO2 to further tweak your system or try different Ethernet cables etc.
Even though the Muon Pro is still a bit better than the ENO2, it beats all others I have tried.

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hi @straightwire the eno2 is big step up from the original, but as a rough guide it delivers about 90% of the performance of muon Pro which remains our reference filter :slight_smile: NA

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Welcome @network_acoustics, glad to see you here on PS Audio forum.

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Welcome!

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Thank you for the explanation. It is good to know that eno2 is able to achieve 90% of the level of Muon Pro. Then the question is, will Muon Pro get an update as well? Particularly, since your new Tempus switch offers fiber optic connectors, will the next generation of your Lan filters provide such connectors?

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Welcome to the forum.

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Welcome to the forum! I have not heard the Eno2 but I have plenty of experience with the Muon Pro and I feel safe assuming that the extra 10% of performance is worth the extra price of admission.

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Thank you all for the kind welcome and your interest in our products, it is very much appreciated. We’re happy to try to answer general technical questions you might have, but don’t want to side-track your conversation, so please feel free to contact us directly if you have any more specific questions.

@dchang05 our ethernet filters by their nature will always designed to remove electronic interference from the ethernet signal. That said our goal is to make products that enable streamed music to sound as good as it possibly can, so we’re open minded about what form future solutions might take. We included SFP in tempus’s design for two main reasons, first to future proof it as best we could and second for more practical reasons, so customers who have long distances to cover between there router and there audio system would have the option to use fiber which is ideal for such a situation.

I hope this helps and thank you all again, NA :slight_smile:

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Thank you for the feedback, and I’m looking forward to your future products!

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As of a few weeks ago we really never paid much attention to ethernet filters.

We started out with the Eno2 and it made a huge difference, so we tried the Muon Pro to see if there was an appreciable improvement over the Eno2 and in our system there was so we kept the Muon Pro.

The Muon Pro makes listening to streaming on par with what we have on our hard drive.

There is one unique thing that happened, our setup is router-switch-streamer, but also out of the switch is a separate system consisting of atmos receiver, Apple TV, Sony Oled TV, and the picture and sound of that system got better.

We asked Network Acoustics and this was their answer: “The muon Pro will be reducing noise travelling back from the streamer too, so the overall level of noise on your network will be reduced. This could improve the performance of other connected devices”

We don’t know how that happens, but what a great added value suprise.

Just our thoughts,
Steve08226

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Thanks for your contribution. You seem to be the first to compare ENO2 and muon pro. Then I’ll probably pull the trigger and order a Muon pro. Even if the ENO2 is packaged nicer.:wink: Did you just replace the filters or did you use the associated cables as a system? Greetings Andreas

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