15-Feb-2017, 12:47
(13-Feb-2017, 17:16)ftom Wrote: Hi Antoine, many thanks for sharing your findings it is great to follow your experiences and congrats for your amazing system!
I was putting up a very similar source path as yours and I really liked the Visio way of displaying it so I did the same :-)
Only a few things are missing from the flowchart and could you - or any of you guys - have a quick look and let me know if I'm on the wrong direction as I feel that the LAN filter would be redundant in this chain. I'm also thinking on having a SFP PCiE Card instead of the LAN ethernet and do the first conversion in the PC.
Hi ftom, thanks for your kind words. In your diagram I don't even see a Devialet so thanks for bothering to sign up here and nevertheless letting me know!
To be fair, most of what I do surrounding the computer audio part is inspired by the good guys over at different forums, nowadays mainly computeraudiophile.com (and a bit head-fi.org). I'm not the type of guy who enjoys the wild experimenting and comparing even the smallest iterations others do seem to enjoy (and fortunately share) as I really dislike A-B comparisons. So I keep monitoring those websites and I either act when some sort of concensus starts to form on the effectivity of something or get inspired to try something out before. I do feel a bit obliged to share back what I reproduce because of their hard work even though I'm no longer a member of computeraudiophile and consider Devialetchat my "hifi home".
Anyway, on your question regarding LAN filtering/isolation; theoretically there's multiple redundancies in your diagram (since most ethernet interfaces are inherently galvanically isolated/filtered) but unfortunately basic theory of computer science doesn't always seem to cut it!
I don't think there's a big redundancy in your chain, I too have placed an isolator in the same place you did, but of course you could easily experiment removing the LAN isolator (to see if it adds anything) or even placing it inline directly after the second FMC nearest to the SMS-200.
Like you I have also thought about buying a NIC with one or two SFP interfaces/'cages'. But these are relatively expensive and I personally am still in the process of finding out if/the amount of influence the computer feeding the SMS-200 has so wasn't prepared yet to invest in it. I might switch back from my current music server NAS "PC" to my previous music server which is fanless powered by trhe HDPlex I still have or even build a new one that accepts 12V so I can power it using my Paul Hynes PSU.
I did look on Amazon/EBay and local marketplaces for affordable second hand Intel SFP NIC's like the i350 series or even the X520 10Gb/s series. There's also OEM's who produce/source affordable clones like Uptimed (https://www.uptimed.nl). Many affordable and well rated stuff by the Chinese 10Gtek (SFPcables.com) as well (I even think Uptimed sources it stuff from there).
PS Audio P3, Shunyata ΞTRON Alpha Digital and HC/Furutech power cables, Paul Hynes SR7EHD-MR4, DIY Roon Server & Roon Endpoint running AudioLinux Headless, Phasure Lush^2 USB cable, Audioquest Diamond RJ/E ethernet, Uptone Audio etherREGEN, Mutec MC-3+ USB, Shunyata ΞTRON Anaconda Digital XLR AES/EBU, Devialet Expert 250 Pro CI, Nordost Tyr Reference LS cables, Von Schweikert VR-5 SE Anniversary Edition, Anti-Mode Dual Core 2.0, JL Audio Fathom F112. More detail here.
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