Is optical mostly a waste of time versus Ethernet?

Sns, you wrote about in one of your other posts about using a server with a incoming Port and an outgoing port versus the traditional Single ethernet cable that involves a 2 directional flow. I hope I’m getting that correctly.

I’m trying to understand the flow of your optical versus Ethernet Signal path and all the streaming gear that you have. I also took a look at your system and found it a Little scary because i had trouble following all that’s going on.

But focusing back on the traditional server set up using a single Ethernet Cable it does present an interesting question as to whether there is a better way to do this.

The music data flows into a nucleus and then flows back to the switch and then to the streamer/dac. Not sure if I understand the originating flow of Sonic data as it finds its way into the streamer/dac. It would seem to be a very turbulent journey for all those packets before getting to the comfort offered by a streamer.

Do you really need to run fiber from the router to the server or is an optical isolator (such as Gigafoilv4)  just in front of the server sufficient to clean up any noise on the Ethernet cable?  Is a transformer isolator (such as the NA ENO or Muon) just in front of the server sufficient for the same purpose?  If your only wired connection out of the router is your audio system, why do you even need a switch and how can the switch possibly improve sound quality in that situation?  It does seem that simplifying the digital signal path and removing converters and power supplies should in general reduce noise, unless there is something amiss with the digital signal delivery.

@emergingsoul You have that correct, one ethernet in, one out. Most servers have one ethernet port in which case you bidirectional flow back and forth to router or switch. Doing this I've avoided an extra piece of equipment, in my case server>FMC>OpticalRendu(convert to usb)>dac. Also made sense to me that one would want to avoid the bidirectional flow,

I did try adding an audiophile switch, lesser sound quality than above setup, only makes for an unneeded detour.

@mitch2 Seems logical to me minimizing noise earlier in chain would be more effective than later, in this case optical router would seem preferable. Ethernet  vs optical router, any single ethernet router could create less noise than a certain optical router,  implementation key. If ethernet router superior to optical the isolator may be way to go.

Assuming you're using wifi with all other equipment connected to router, only audio system using ethernet. Router is likely noisiest component in streaming chain, switch is there to minimize noise from router. Now if that router isn't supplying wifi, replacing router with the quieter switch would be way to go, superior clocking and better power supply in audiophile switch a further step up. ;Problem for vast majority of us is we need wifi, have to put up with noisy routers. Nice way to go, have two ethernet services coming into home, one for audio system, other for rest of home (wifi). Audio branch feeds audiophile switch, just got rid of one very noisy component (router). My proposed optimized/simplified streaming chain would be, modem>switch>server ethernet port in>server ethernet port out>streamer>dac. One could substitute all optical for the ethernet, could also take server ethernet/optical out to streamer/dac, could also substitute integrated server/streamer for the separate server and streamer.

So, here we go again, another thread about bunch of people applying pseudoscience audiophile terms to Ethernet. Nope. Ethernet does not work that way. Ethernet, along with the TCP/IP stack are several layers of error detection and in some layers error correction. If an error is detected the frame, or packet, or datagram is discarded, or in the case of error correction, discarded and the retransmit requested.

So why fiber at all? Copper Ethernet cabling has limited range, 100ft is a safe bet, but depends on speed and cable standard. 
 

but fiber for super short runs like 5ft is crazy waste of money. 

And, final point, Ethernet is a layer 2 protocol. The type of cable does not change this, as the cable is layer 1, regardless if it is fiber or copper, or barbwire (yes, you can run Ethernet over barbwire).