Is optical mostly a waste of time versus Ethernet?

For us generalists and/or audiophiles not expert in all the technicalities of streaming we have to rely on the designers of streaming equipment. @fredrik222  proposes himself as the expert above all experts, simply ignores designers of the steaming audio equipment audiophiles use to good effect. Many of us have used general service or streaming equipment not designed with audiophile in mind, we've heard improvements in sound quality with specialty equipment, he dismisses our perceptions as faulty. 

For the novice, you can go with ones and zeros or you can go with trust in your senses. The one thing the objectivist can never answer is why we hear things they can't measure,

@sns here is the thing, I am guaranteed the foremost expert on networking on this site. I don’t know a lot about everything, but networking is the one thing I do know, love and have made my life and career off. 
 

Therefore, like I said, confirmation bias is a real thing, and what you are proposing, where you could modify, in your favor, the payload, in real time of encrypted and digitally signed protocols, is a joke. Trillions of bank transactions every single day happen securely just because you cannot do what you think you hear. Money talks, and billions, if not hundreds of billions of dollars move every day on the basis that what you say you hear, cannot under any circumstance happen, ever. 
 

those are the facts. 

@jumia   so, I would skip the “audiophile” switches, and go with a enterprise switch. You can find cheap Cisco, Juniper, or other enterprise grade switches on eBay. 
 

“Audiophile” switches that I have seen actually have no real networking specs, just terms that doesn’t apply to networking at all. 

@fredrik222 

You may be a networking expert, which I respect unconditionally, but is there any possibility in your way of thinking that an analog waveform representing a secure digital financial transaction succesfully completes with added noise? Is there any possibility that a streamed song sounds different to the user if there is added noise on the ethernet feed? Is there any advantage in your way of thinking to limit the ethernet feed to 100mbps rather than “top speed”?

I think you’re talking two different things. there is the physical network topology segmented into layers then there is the electrical noise associated within the wire separate from the ethernet packets. Fiber not being metal is impervious to external electrical noise but does need power to perform the conversion to light so it could actually be noisier than a cable depending upon the power supply used to drive it.