April 2025 edition. Went back to a Sonore opticalModule and it does sound better than the SFP fiber coming out of the Cisco Meraki even with all of the modifications I’d made to it.
10 Likes
It’s comments like this that get me in trouble 
Why fight it, I should just go buy one now and save myself the next two weeks of internal anguish and debate - let alone the internal struggle over why source end of an optical Ethernet connection even matters 
It’s interesting to see the full commitment to Audience Frontrow with their USB and AES cables, as well as the commitment to Shunyata power cables. My ocd side loves the brand consistency 
Maybe my biggest surprise in your setup is after all this time the Roon NUC remains. Given the effort you’ve put into the digital front end of your system, I’m surprised you’ve not gone more “boutique” with your audio server. (Don’t get me wrong, I still use and love my fanless NUC. But every once in a while I look at that little black box and wonder if it’s holding me back at all. Especially with such good reviews floating around about gear from companies like antipodes and grimm.)
Thanks for the annual update, always educational to see how others are putting their systems together!
3 Likes
I’ve gotten into much trouble suggesting that the server portion is not meaningful in a boutique level audio appliance. The important parts in the digital out and Ethernet treatment. A lot of the cost of an all in one unit is in removing the noisy aspect of the PC component and paying boutique dollars to do so.
That said, I’ve probably got enough in the digital upstream for it to have been easier and cheaper to simply buy a K50 or something like that. But I’m a tinkerer at heart, so.
This I went back and forth with a lot because at the FTA and frontRow levels I was fiddling with, it was simply all down to splitting hairs this way and that. In the end I just felt the frontRow pairing fought less with itself and gave me more of the stage shape I was looking for. The Audience pairing gave me more depth and synnergized with the Mojo Pro more since that already had great width, and it was an acceptable give and take to gain the addition depth perception. My room is small and the more “grand” I can make it feel sonically the better.
5 Likes