Is optical mostly a waste of time versus Ethernet?

@fredrik222 You are one cat that has selective comprehension. Who the heck was talking about " QOS over the Internet". I was talking about on the home network as I clearly stated in my reproduceable test of how to make a ROON stream distort the sound 100% of the time.

I certainly couldn’t hear a difference when I tried the Etherregen.

Each of us hears differently and also tests these things differently. When I tried the ER on a $10K streaming Integrated amp it had no sonic benefit to my system. When I tried it in reverse order (B > A) using Swenson’s guidance with fibre optical I was able to easily hear an improvement. That is the fibre setup improved even more. Swenson does not actually state to use a ER, for this use case. He suggested a FMC but I only had the ER handy so I used it B > A.

However, since you did not hear any improvement then no one will. Guys. like you are entertaining. I am bored now with you.

A $45K system is great for the economy. I am sure you made some people happy buying that gear (hopefully yourself too). However, the last thing I would do is to use the price of audio gear as some representation of quality.

Anyways, for the folks that are curious I have provided enough links above for you all to do you own deep dive. One of the reasons, I found some of these issues on ROON is because I listen to just under 200 hours a month on ROON (there is a total on one of the ROON views). You think streaming problems do not crop up during this time.

@yyzsantabarbara  EtherRegen doesn't support QOS, so there is that. Need managed switches for that, and EtherRegen is not managed. And while you can configure a lot, most QOS configuration do not limit or prioritize anything until you hit the defined congestion threshold.  However, EtherRegen, if you have a congested network, by design, can cause issues, since you have "A" ports that are gigabit, and the "B" port that is supposed to go your streamer/dac, which is 100Mbps. If you are pushing over 100Mbps on the "A" side, and for some reason push it to the "B" side, you will introduce packet drops. It is even possible that the EtherRegen will flood the "B" side with everything going on on the "A" side. UpTone does not give any type of specifications for this, or any other specifications at all, only "ultra low jitter" and "ultra low noise" without and numbers. 

What we do know about the UpTone is that they use cheap components according to their own pictures of the circuit board.

Did you ever think about this in a objective manner?

1) Uptone provides 0 specifications

2) There is no measurable improvement to their claims

3) There is no theoretical improvement to their claims 

4) They use cheap components 

5) Some people hear a different, but others do not. 

Maybe there is a confirmation bias involved, maybe?'

You are the one who brought in the money, I get it that you feel stupid when you thought I had a $500 marantz receiver from BestBuy with a Klipsch $300 bookshelf pair, but if you want to argue that Classe Audio for Pre/Power is not good quality, you are in a league of your own, and will really feel stupid. 

Uptone is of questionable value. All about positive reinforcement. I bought one and really haven't seen any value in it at all.

no one understands what's going on inside this thing. It's all gibberish. Someone has created a lot of circuitry within this Metal box they created and they're selling it.

And then you hear that crappy Power cord they sell with it. Horrifying. They want you to buy a power supply upgrade after spending $600 on a switch. 
 

And then they say well you can't use more than one item on it because it contaminates the signal.  So don't dare to share it with anything else on your net work.

At least they could've furnished a longer power cord a better quality.  Right now it's just a pain in the neck to deal with

I've experienced enough streaming components, and observed so many variations in streaming solutions others report having good experiences with to write off any particular component or collection of components. I do believe we'll get to a point where simpler is better becomes a de facto standard, optimizing components by utilizing best technology available within each is key to getting there. Streaming still relatively immature technology, expect great number of innovations in coming years.

@sns no, not at all. It is a mature technology far beyond your comprehension. It is used in pro audio and pro video daily. You don’t understand, along with others on this forum, but calling it immature is just a spectacular show of your ignorance. 
 

you don’t understand it, but it is used daily at level far beyond your reach. 

I would advise you to open your eyes, read up on the topic, I have given you numerous sources to educate yourself, yet you chose to be ignorant.