Is optical mostly a waste of time versus Ethernet?

I encourage anyone to learn, and as you learn, you understanding will evolve. For pro audio, which have been using high quality streaming for 20+ years, there are two standards that most seems to use, AES67 and SMPTE ST 210. Now, I am not an expert at either protocol, but I have designed and built networks to support these protocols across the US and across the Atlantic.

Companies like Ravenna puts both of these into practice, and provides a wealth of information, and they don’t use products like Etherregen, but if you really really want to twist it, they do use optical for SQ, since the distances involved far exceeds copper Ethernet capability, so if you want to twist it you could say that pro audio uses optical to provide high resolution audio and improve SQ over Ethernet copper, since copper would not transmit anything at all.

but for short runs, all regular Ethernet.

@fredrik222 You certainly make many assumptions about me! I mention audiophile streaming being an immature technology and you go off on tangent about me being close minded, ignorant.

You seem to be one contentious person, you've ridiculed a number of people in this thread, this  not constructive in a forum where members are endeavoring to learn from others and listen to their experiences.

Constructive posts are those with positive bent, educating without belittling. You sir, cannot be a valued resource until you learn reasonable etiquette in dealing with others. Learn to strain out the narcissistic bit, gets old extremely fast.

@sns there you go, that is my point. You made a statement that is wholly inaccurate. I gave you information to educate yourself, and you continued down the same path.

how you perceive me is up to you, I just have no patience for ignorant people, especially people who chose to be ignorant. While that is not popular in today’s political climate where being ignorant and stupid is cool and everyone has an equal voice on all topics, I don’t subscribe to this, rather, I find it appalling.

I don’t know a lot about a lot of the topics discussed on this forum, but like I have said, I know more than anyone on this forum about this particular topic. Or at least until proven that it is not so. I am not apologizing for this, nor do I have to play nice with people who argue without any knowledge or sources, or regurgitate things from a webpage that they don’t understand, or outright lie.

@fredrik222 Okay, audiophile streaming is mature technology, don't expect further innovations. Is that an accurate statement?

Quite obvious you don't have patience for 'ignorant' people, in fact your additional comment as to the stupidity of people in regard to things political exposes level of malice also exposed in this thread.

As for expertise, a lot of us don't have expertise in many fields, not enough hours in the day.

Issue here is the usual overgeneralization and categorization of entire cohorts of people. Plenty on this forum ignorant about many facets of this hobby, but most are trying to educate themselves both through other's expertise and experience. You assume I'm not willing to educate myself, I suspect your emotions coloring your reading comprehension skills when you completely missed my post as to the purchase of Mikrotik enterprise grade router. In fact I'm at this very moment in steep learning curve getting this thing configured. I may never totally understand all the technicalities of networking, but at least I'm wiling to experience a wide variety of equipment and protocols involved with audiophile streaming.

@sns  no, that is not accurate. You still can expect incremental improvements of mature technologies, and I assume a lot more metadata will be integrated in the future to augment the listening experience.

Certainly intentions to be malicious in any posts, but if you can’t call out people on BS and at least try to have a fact based discussion, what is the point?

I did miss that you had acquire a microtik, although, I wouldn’t call that enterprise. Better than consumer, for sure, so a step in the right direction. So that begs to question, what is “enterprise” grade? Gartner defines it as follows: “Enterprise-grade describes products that integrate into an infrastructure with a minimum of complexity and offer transparent proxy support.” 

so what does that mean? Mainly that the products are not designed to operate a single unit, like an access point or switch for a consumer, rather a part of a total solution, solving more than one particular issue. And with the appropriate support structure for this.