Is optical mostly a waste of time versus Ethernet?

There are several power supplies in most people's digital signal chain, including those powering the modem, the router, and any switches, as well as power supplies inside of the servers and DACs that process the digital signal.  Ethernet itself is galvanically isolated but some believe that optical isolation near the endpoint can improve on that wrt noise reduction, which is probably where the idea of using fiber came from.  The Network Acoustics stuff is unpowered and isolates using transformers, which do not break the electrical connection the same as optical.  My Gigafoilv4 is powered by an HDPlex LPS so there are no switching supplies in the chain following the optical isolation offered by the Gigafoilv4.  Using the ENO just before the Ambre endpoint sounded good yesterday so if I switch to using USB directly from the server to DAC, I may try using only the ENO just before the server, and no other boxes needing power supplies.  I guess you just need to try stuff and listen.

@goofyfoot 

Anyone have an opinion on the Ether Regen from Uptone Audio?

Enjoyed my Ether Regen for several years. A really well thought out product: a reasonable audiophile switch with reasonable ethernet "cleansing". Depending on your ethernet chain and its problems, the Regen may be all you need.

DO NOT try the Muon filter or especially in combination with the Muon cable if you are happy with your Regen. Your happiness will promptly wane. The Muon streaming system is exceptional and in conjunction with a well thought out switch, your ethernet feed will no longer be the weak link in a given system. I don't know how much difference it makes to "pump the brakes" on your ethernet speed down to a steady 100mbps but it is quite apparent in my system that everything improved. 

The giga foil filter is about $600.  Isn't a quality switch accomplishing the same thing in a broader more effective way. Giga foil sounds interesting but you can't place it before switch because the switch only introduces lots of noise unless it's designed to prevent the noise.  So the giga foil would seem only usable after a switch.

Fibre Optical is the holy grail of streaming. I have 3 of the Sonore OpticalRendu's and they are fantastic at giving a very clean clear sound from your DAC. 

Putting a FMC in front of the OpticalRendu also improves the stream. However, I had 3 different brands in front of my OpticalRendu's and the only one standing is the EtherRegen. My Sonore OpticalModule is dead and a cheap FMC that was part of the Small Green Computer package is also dead.

For the 2 cases where the FMC's died I take the fibre optical directly from my network switch's. This does not sound as good as adding the FMC in front but it is not that much of a difference and I have moved on to listening to music.

1. Seems the etherregen is a glorified fiber media converter, which may do a really good job but it's extremely expensive when only used as a fiber media converter Once you use ER as a fmc you can't really use the remaining ethernet ports because it will adversely impact the optical connection what's lots of spillover noise from the other ports. Not sure why ER doesn't do a simple network switch without optical. And not sure their fmc is very good.