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
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.
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....
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. :)
Fiber is especially important when listening to tunes like "All Things Must Pass".
There are those passive inline ethernet isolators used in hospitals against EMP. Not sure if or how well they work for Lightning strikes.