I went through the swap. The results were not convincing. I believe I settled on the reverse method. Fixed cable in switch, removable cable to MU2. I’ll check and edit this post.
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I am Fiber out of my SW-6 all the way to Lumin Streamer - I am planning on trying the Muon Pro out of my eero Router into my SW-6 switch…has anyone used it this way? Thanks…
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I don’t know, I’m hearing all kinds of difference from Ethernet cables, FO setups, and even fuses. It’s either a curse or there’s a demon in the house that needed to be galvanic isolated.
At least fiber optic is cheap so I’ll go with that; all 3’ of it.
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I do like that when a bunny shreds a 10m fiber cable it’s a $17.99 loss. When she does this I just coil up the rest of it and let he have it. She likes to reduce it to many, many, many 1/2 long inch pieces.
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Honestly, I haven’t attempted any A/B testing. But I like what I hear. I know theoretically that galvanic isolation with fiber is lower noise than non-isolated copper, and that alone is enough for me. Just like I may not be able to hear a difference in A/B testing between an amp with 100db S/N vs 130, but I will take the 130, all else being equal. The pursuit of “better” is a fun part of this hobby, even when it becomes highly individually subjective or “on paper” only.
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Without a doubt and I don’t know why it sounds better to me but reverse is the winner not even close to my ears. The Muon filter close to the switch longer cable to the streamer.
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Am I the only one who still prefers the Muon Pro in its “usual” direction (short cable to streamer - long one to switch)?
Is this due to the Tempus in the path?
I’m wondering how I’ll be able to sleep tonight with all these unsolved questions in mind!
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Hello Luca, I also have the Muon Pro in the specified direction. After all, I don’t drive my car in reverse gear all the time.
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The thing is, you state galvanic isolation is preferred like you know the actual truth. And you state it like you are speaking to a child. It seems like you just believe what you choose to believe even if you can’t hear it.
I have tested it many times, upgrading to the Forums new favorite Optospan gear. And I can’t hear the difference. Not a bit.
So maybe, just maybe, one of us is fooling themselves. But preach on.
aren’t the glass fibers dangerous for the bunnies…?
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They live on. They mostly eat carpet and wood trim when they can’t get fiber optic cable. I wonder if after eating the fiber optic cable they become galvanically Isolated?
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+1 that simplistically believing that galvanic isolation will be better is… simplistic, and likely to be wrong in at least some scenarios. You’re introducing another transceiver into the equation (two actually) when you use a fiber SFP module. The characteristics of that chain vs. a differential ethernet driver with RJ45 is subject to any number of variables. It’s akin to saying ST optical is always superior to AES-EBU to your DAC because of galvanic isolation. We all know what happened to ST…
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Fair enough, but may be worth minimizing their ingestion…
Whoa, not saying I can hear anything, and certainly don’t mean to offend. I am saying that copper is more succeptible to noise than fiber, and I believe manufacturers put isolation ports on devices for a reason. If you are happy without such measures and see (hear) no benefit, that’s fine by me.
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BTW… ethernet is by specification galvanically isolated. It’s differential with no ground connection and isolation transformers with miminum 1500V dielectric strength. It would be more accurate to say that optical eliminates any electrical connection whatsoever, but both formats are isolated.
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So when a product like the LHY SW-6 has a port on the back labeled “ISOLATED” is that some extra level of isolation beyond the standard?
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You better get things turned around @luca.pelliccioli
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I’m not sure the exact implementation but based on what they say and what I can see from a picture of the PCB, they’re likely using standard RJ45 jacks with built-in transformers on the main 4 ports, and an independent discrete transformer on the isolated port. All ethernet interfaces are isolated by design, but a discrete isolator could help minimize any noise transmission within the LAN. Transformers are very imperfect devices, particularly at the frequencies of interest, so I’m guessing there could be benefits to more elaborate isolation implementations vs. the industry standard “slap an integrated component on it” approach optimized to meet minimum performance requirements at lowest cost (think op-amps vs. discrete circuits).
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yup that confirms my suspicions. you can also see from pics of the PCB that the isolated port is much shorter than the module for the other 4 LAN ports - those in all likelihood have integrated isolation and the isolated port is just a jack with a discrete isolation circuit ahead of it.
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