"Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation

[Antoine]

Me too! They’re very informative and often make a lot of sense.

It's another JS +1 from me.  The link above is for the same post that I linked to in the "clocking" thread.  I think it good that Antoine has provided a link here too, it is very much on topic in this thread.  In fact, I think it offers a possible explanation for Guillaume's "cognitive dissonance" experience when adding FMC's and an optical bridge.  Impossible to prove of course, but it does seem possible to me.

Thanks. I read that. I think I’ve got power sorted. Both my tplink converters are powered by a single battery, so mains noise is not an issue. The Zen mk3 server has lps and Shunyata, next stop is Devialet.

So the linked article talks about noise from poor reclocking. When arguing with the Sonore guy elsewhere he said, and I quote:

You keep talking about “reclocking”. Let’s be clear we are not reclocking anything. These devices have oscillators in them because they are required for proper operation. All the gear you own has oscillators in them for one reason or another, but don’t intermingle them. A DAC might reclock after the USB receiver or Ethernet receiver to reduce their inherent jitter even though both processes might be asynchronous. The audio oscillators in your DAC are different than the data oscillators in network gear and computers and perform different tasks all together. The femto Aries appears to have femto oscillators on the audio outputs. This has nothing to do with this conversation.

The reason for systemOptique is simply to pair compatible network gear with our hardware. With so much network diversity on the market we needed to assure compatibility for our customers. Our optical products each come with an SFP module. The optical modules you are referring to are extra units for those who need them. There is no irony in any of this.

So this designer John S is going on about reclocking and the owner says there is no reclocking. I’m confused!

Current boxes - SOTM powering two tplink converters.

If that was JesusR you’ve had the discussion with, I’ve noticed he’s always very careful not to make claims about technical improvements and their possible effect on sound quality. It’s as if he’s trying to avoid discussions that may arise from that.

John used reclocking between “” in the post I and Confused linked to. There’s been many discussions about when to speak about reclocking or not. A digital circuit that processes incoming data uses a local clock to send it out again. Reclocking in the past was often used to describe the process of disregarding the embedded clock signal inside a S/PDIF stream in effect rebuilding a new S/PDIF stream embedding the clock signal using the own local clock.

Of course John described it much better than I can though he did not elaborate on why he put the reclocking word in between “”. I think what I wrote is the reason.

I’d trust John’s views over JesusR’s in these matters anytime. John is the designer and specialist engineer here.

The relevant part of John’s post here:
“The contamination is not complete, every time the signal gets "reclocked" by a much better clock the resulting signal carries an attenuated version of the first clock layered on top of the fingerprint of the second clock. The word "reclocked" just means the signal is regenerated by a circuit fed a different clock. It may be a better or a worse clock, reclocking doesn't always make things better!”