Davycee

MarkusBarkus, Glad you think their OK. I'll probably choose them over the more expensive alternatives. charlesphoto, Electric meters are in my own history too. As a kid, our house was burgled by someone who stole the money from our meter. We used to joke about feeding the meter with mints instead of coins. When we moved into this house, it still had a gas meter upstairs. Although the gas company had not collected meter money for years, the mechanism would still disconnect the gas when the timer ran out. We therefore kept an old coin (a half-crown) with which to feed the meter when necessary. We'd remove the coin from the meter's collection drawer the next time we needed to extend the timer. The good old days, eh!

Hi Charlesphoto & MarcusBarcus, Thanks for the information. It doesn't looks as if Shunyata make/sell UK-type wall sockets. I can find Furutech gold plated double sockets for UK (FP-1363-D) but they cost £140 ($180). A cheaper alternative is made by MS HD whose gold plated double sockets are a more reasonable £88 ($116). Not much in the way of reviews, so I might just go for the cheaper option - at least they should be well-made. Regards, David

Juststeve & MarcusBarcus, I think my wife would prefer a smarter-looking faceplate on the wall. I've seen pictures of those brush-type ones; they remind me of the sort that fit over the inside of letter box apertures to keep out draughts. I forgot to ask (if this is the correct forum) about power sockets for the hi-fi gear room. I've asked for those sockets to be 'unswitched' and on separate circuit, isolated from the rest of the house's wiring. But is it also worth buying 'audiophile' wall sockets? Or should I just ask for a brand that is well-built? Sorry to drag this out! Thanks, David

Even more ideas! I'll keep that in mind as things develop. As work continues, more of the underlying structure will be exposed. Thanks again, David

Hi Charlesphoto, An interesting point - I hadn't thought of running both fiber and Cat 6a. It seems to be everything in audio (for 'audiophiles') that's a moving target, not just networking. Thanks, David

Hi Juststeve, Thanks for the extra information. I was just pondering on Plissken's point about Cat 6a being able to handle 10GbE. I'll definitely be asking the electrician if (once he's looked at the nooks & crannies) he's got sufficient space to run copper rather than fiber. I'd assumed that fiber would be simpler, being thinner and more flexible. I take your point about the potential cost saving too, given your point about daily rates; not that I begrudge paying people for their specialist knowledge and experience. And as I mentioned to Plissken, in the grand scheme of things, the extra cost may not be so significant amongst all the other work that's being done. But maybe Cat 6a would be simpler in the long run. Many thanks for the input. Much appreciated. David

That's very reassuring. Based on your advice, I may as well go for the cheaper (MM) version. My main worry was that I'd choose the 'wrong' options and then be faced with potentially trying to rectify or undo a network that was already embedded in the newly refurbished structure. You wouldn't believe how many bags of rubble have already been removed, just from one part of the house! Thanks again for taking the time to help, and put my mind at rest in the process. Best wishes, David

Hi Plissken, 1. I don't have a specific budge for this part of the house refurbishment. We're having to spend so much on various elements (of which the electrics is one) that I don't think it will be significant in the overall total cost. Of course, that was just my assumption. 2. I've not had any quotes yet. I just outlined to the electrician what I wanted to do. But the electrician was only familiar with installing normal (Cat 6 etc) ethernet. He later emailed me the above questions from the people he has used previously who do install fiberoptic. The electrician was then going give me the quote for installing (a) conventional Cat 6a and (b) fiberoptic. I hadn't realised that there was such a price difference between MM/SM (I take it the 'transceiver' is the SFP). 3. Is the question about 'cores per fiber cable' something I need to address? I had just assumed there would be a common standard for fiber as there is for Cat 6 etc. 4. Although our house has an odd internal construction, which means that there will have to be some convoluted cable routing, I doubt that any single run of cable would require as much as 300 meters. The highest audio files that I buy are 24/192, so 1GbE should easily be ample. But would 1GbE still be sufficient if one (or more) of us should want to stream Ultra HD 4K HDR video (the 'future-proofing' angle)? 5. I got the impression from other posts that SM was better for audio quality, so I would regard the extra cost could as being like buying a piece of upgraded audio equipment. 6. Thanks for taking the time to help out. Regards, David

1. My house is being re-wired and I want to take advantage of the opportunity to future-proof it by having a fiber network installed at the same time. I've been asked some questions by the installers and would be grateful for any advice from the experts on the forum, since it's not something I know about and I'm definitely not technically proficient. 2. It's a Victorian house (UK) on four levels (including small basement). Our broadband connection enters the house on the ground floor (1st floor USA). I plan to put the switch in the basement (where it's cool) and run a fiber cable to the rooms on the other levels. I don't intend to populate each individual fiber terminal; the aim is to allow flexibility about where we choose to put home entertainment, audio, computer equipment in future, so we can move our seating/equipment positions if we wish, without having to trail cables across the room. I am, however, interested to obtain as good audio quality as possible. At the moment, my music is on an Innuos Zenith Mk3 which feeds a Schiit Yggdrasil DAC. 3. First, should I ask for a 10GbE switch or is 1GbE sufficient into the near future? Any particularly good brand or any I should avoid? 4. The questions posed by the installer are:- A) How many terminations per fiber outlet box? My answer would be 'one' because it will either go (via FMC) directly to a single device or to an ethernet switch to which other kit would be connected. B) What connection ends ie SC FC or AHC? The only fiber cable I have at the moment is, I think, LC which goes into a TP-Link Single-mode FMC (MC110CS). C) Single or multi-mode cable? I presume the answer should be single-mode, since that is what I've used successfully so far, although just as a single in-line connection. D) How many cores per fiber cable? I haven't a clue! 5. I'd naturally welcome any other information, advice or warnings (gotchas). Thanks in advance, David

Zerio DAC looks great value, but seems like I'd need to modify it to get the best out of it. As a klutz I'd rather get something made by professionals with a good track record. Thanks anyway.

Hi Chris, Thanks for advice - not least because the Benchmark DAC1 PRE is around half the price of the Audio Research DAC7, so it will be easier to save up for! It would be nice to be able to audition them, but at the moment DACs seem to be too much of a niche product to be in hi-fi shops (in London/UK anyway). The DAC1 PRE seems to be very much 'fit & forget', which would suit me too. Thanks also for such a useful site - I'll keep coming back to follow others' developments. Regards, Davycee

1. I find I'm listening to more music through my PC using headphones than through my hi-fi. I'd be grateful for some advice on how to improve the music audio (it's fine for games). In particular, how much improvement I'd get by putting an outboard DAC into the system. 2. I run WinXP and probably won't change until Windows 7 is established. I either listen to CDs directly or from WAVs on the hard disk, ripped using EAC (Exact Audio Copy). I use WinAmp with ASIO driver, although I've also used Foobar. 2. My PCI sound card is an Auzentech Prelude. I need to retain the use of it to use the Creative EAX capability for games. It has the following chips on board (which don't mean anything to me.): Creative X-Fi CA20K audio processor; one AKM AK-5394 super high performance 96kHz 24-bit ADC for analog input; four AKM AK-4396 96kHz 24-bit advanced multi-bit DAC for analog output. 3. The RCA output from the sound card goes to an Earmax Pro valve headphone amp. I use Sennheiser HD650 headphones. 4. I've seen some DAC reviews, but they range from the affordable Cambridge DAC Magic up to the expensive Chord QBD 76 and Audio Research DAC7 which get fantastic reviews. I don't mind saving up to get one of them, but would I really hear the difference - with the law of diminishing returns, maybe something else would be the best 'bang for buck'? I'm not technically minded, though, so I don't want to do a lot of fiddling about, I just want something simple to connect and operate. 5. Sorry for the long post - thanks in advance for any advice. Davycee