ADOT fibre-optic gigabit network upgrade kit is designed to take an ethernet signal, upgrade it to fibre-optic and then back to ethernet again and effectively rebuilds and retimes the data packets. This is essentially designed to clean up potentially conducted electrical noise from copper CAT5/6 cables in your home network before the ethernet signal comes into your hi-fi system.

Once your home network ethernet goes through the ADOT, it can then be connected to your Melco music server or other ethernet device and essentially provides a basis for a cleaner network connection into ethernet connected devices designed for audio. As a result, your networked audio devices will have the best possible signal path.

MC Accessory

A kit to allow MC series kits to be used with network switches that do not have SFP ports. Includes single MC01 Media Converter, power adapter lead to use existing power supply of MC01/02/02 kit, and 1m Melco CAT7 Ethernet Cable.

What is an SFP?

SFP stands for Small Form Factor Pluggable. It is also known as mini-gbic (Gigabit Interface Convertor). In this case, the SFP transceiver plugs into the adaptor and converts the electrical signal into an optical one. The fibre optic cable then plugs into the SFP device, while the other end of the cable plugs into the network switch. The link then provides a fast and clean optical data connection. Finally, there are different light frequencies used for fibre networks, therefore two matched SFP’s are provided, together with a matching cable.

Why do you need fibre?

Digital audio can be more delicate than we assume - ideally you need the best possible connections and signal path for today’s hi-bit rate hi-res audio files. Digital signals are still affected by noise and interference. This can lead to dropouts, loss of data and jitter. The noise damages the edges of the data pulses making them prone to timing errors and jitter. Melco network switches such as the S100, aim to ensure that the data arrives in top condition. It removes errant data packets so that they do not arrive at the DAC or streamer.

However, the signal still passes along a noisy copper Ethernet cable. These cables can act as an aerial and pick up all kinds of electrical noise from other networked devices, such as PCs. The solution is to use optical fibre, this picks up no interference and provides a purer basis for networking for audio.

Design challenges

Fibre is primarily used for speed while audio just needs accuracy and clarity. One way of obtaining better sound quality is to reduce the network speed to 100Mb/s, this is set with a couple of switches in the MC units. The MC series are made to enterprise standards including the Ethernet magnetics that are used to connect to the copper part of the network.

Specifications 

• Type: fibre/ethernet conversion kit
• In/outputs: SFP, RJ45
• Size H×W×D: 25 × 68 × 92mm
• Weight: 207g