Any audiophile use computer (MacBook) as your audio streaming source?

@yyzsantabarbara Thank you for the additional info, however on a conceptual level I am still confused. I may just be missing something obvious.

How can fiber constitute a "moat" when it is merely a conduit without filtering abilities of its own? If a noisy signal enters a fiber run, isn't it delivered identically at the other end, noise and all?

And if SFP fiber does in fact erect a "moat" protecting a system from noise, why wouldn't coaxial and toslink do the same?

Fiber won't pick up noise along the way like copper might, but what about the noise that entered the signal upstream of the first endpoint?.

Fiber audio networking is new to me, so these may be stupid questions. If so I do apologize.

@devinplombier Fibre optical cables are made of glass and can be very long; cheap too.Fibre is used to transmit data across large distances reliably, 

Glass cannot carry analog noise that is in the network, a network is likely ethernet cable based for the most part, like my home network. I use fibre cable as the last bit before the DAC.

I think jitter is another matter to be concerned with, but most competent DACs (low cost) can handle jitter these days. I do not know how that relates to streaming. I do not care since the DACs can deal with it.

Toslink is likely also made of glass, but it is a different type of cable and cannot travel long distances. Toslink also has some issue related to digital transmission that I do not know enough to explain.

I do use Toslink in my office system for 1 DAC input and SPDIF for another DAC input. The Toslink is for my noisy computer (YouTube and sports) and the SPDIF is for CD/SACD's. The SPDIF sounds great, as good as the streaming. The Toslink is not that great, nor is the source.

I am just some person spewing an opinion here however, there are some heavy-duty DAC designers that are stating the same thing. PlayBack Designs Andreas Koch for one.

BTW - Lumin were the first DAC company to support fibre natively, they actually did this after reading posts on an online forum years ago about the advantages of fibre.

@yyzsantabarbara - the problem with Toslink is that a) it is limited to 24/96 and b) there is no error detection or correction like with USB. USB is way more modern, I am running 15 ft USB just fine, it is not worse than a twisted pair.

I think jitter is another matter to be concerned with, but most competent DACs (low cost) can handle jitter these days. I do not know how that relates to streaming. I do not care since the DACs can deal with it.

@yyzsantabarbara  No!  Most DACs can somewhat handle jitter, but most if not all DACs can significantly benefit from a DDC and/or external clock.  Michael Lavorgna has written here recently how adding an external clock, even to a very accomplished DAC, can greatly improve performance.  Most DACs do not even have an OCXO clock much less completely deal with jitter, so to say most low-cost DACs can just somehow “handle” jitter is just nonsensical and incorrect.  You’re inappropriately minimizing a significant issue here that should not be minimized. 

@soix I believe it depends on the DAC and some designers say their DACs do not need a clock, such as PlayBack Designs. Now this is not a cheap DAC, $6k -$24k.

I use the low-cost, Schitt Yggi+ OG and LIM (soon converted to MIB) DACs. I consider the Yggi a very competent DAC, one of the best. I have not contacted Mike Moffet via Head-fi web site to ask why he does not use a clock, but I do not have any concerns about Schitt DACs supporting a clock. 

A lot of nonsensical and incorrect information abound. I know what works for me and who is blowing a bit of hot air. 

For anyone who is not sure what I am using. I have a separate streamer that uses fibre at one end and converts to USB at the other end. The USB end goes into my Yggi+ DACs. The newer Yggi's have a good USB support.

BTW - Mike is the designer of the Yggi DACs.