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The indisputable benefit of fiber for music

I've read a lot about fiber's audible superiority to Ethernet, and most of it I have taken with a grain of salt.  1GigE is plenty fast for just about anything, and it is balanced and galvanically isolated. The one area where fiber is clearly a better choice for music systems is lightning protection.

It is not uncommon for lightning to enter a home via the cable TV's coaxial cable. This can easily jump the millimeters from coax to Ethernet to Ethernet. So if you are like me, and rely on Ethernet cabling to stream to avoid any Wifi issues you are also creating a possible lightning path from the external Internet provider's connection all the way to your fancy audio gear.

In this one situation I have to say, the use of a 1m or longer fiber cable is the superior solution. I'm considering using this at the junction between the cable TV modem and my router, therefore isolating all of my streaming devices at once.

Best,

Erik
erik_squires
grannyring's avatar
grannyring
6,441 posts
 
I have tried optical and gone down the Uptone EtherRegen route. Not a bad solution and definitely improved sound quality. However with the introduction of the Network Acoustics ENO filter and silver ethernet cable I found the best sounding streaming solution these ears have ever heard. I placed an English Audio 8Switch ahead of the ENO filter and Ethernet cable and the results are a revelation.

Innovation is changing this space pretty quickly folks. 
audioguy85's avatar
audioguy85
2,017 posts
 
I think I will prefer to not worry about either...instead, I will just put on a record and drop the stylus, or press play on my cd player, or insert a cassette into my 3 head tape deck. All the above will sound better, at least to my ears.
towertone's avatar
towertone
82 posts
 
We just moved and switched to fiber. 
Oddly enough my music library is now missing some old bloat like Air Supply, Bay City Rollers, Rick Dees, and C.W. McCall.

Not sure how they got flushed out of the system but overall my music seems to have more pep....
erik_squires OP
15,902 posts
 
Yes, Wifi won't carry a surge, but it also is subject to interference from competing routers and distance limitations. The other thing is that this method, putting an air gab just before the streamer leaves the rest of your networking gear exposed to a possible surge.  If your cable modem fries, your home network is down and so is the streaming. :)
fatdaddy2
368 posts
 
Fiber is especially important when listening to tunes like "All Things Must Pass".
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