Luvdac

@MayfromSOtM Maybe this has already been answered before but are there plans for an upgraded motherboard that can take the newer gen Intel cpu's? I'm planning on building another server but currently the cpu's compatible with the smb q370 are becoming very rare.

Yes. The harness is pure silver as are the cables from the nano psu's to the cards. I can hear the difference for the better. More relaxed ( more absence of noise/digital harshness). Recommended.

Done! With jcat usb and ethernet xe cards and a jcat pico nano before the usb card. Powered by an hdplex 500w atx lpsu. The jcat usb card connects to an external hdd powered by an ifi 12v 4A power elite psu with custom pure silver dc cable, as well as to a gustard u18 with a custom pure silver usb cable. The u18 feeds a gustard x26 pro. The hdplex harness is soon to be replaced with hand drawn 99.99% solid core silver cabling. Initial impressions are very good with windows 10 and roon. A definite step up from a similar arrangement, ( same usb and ethernet cards from jcat, same silver cabling except for the ifi psu) using a run o the mill aorus gigabyte motherboard and coffee lake cpu. Deeper, and better soundstage, improved dynamics etc...BUT...the magic, to my ears lies in the silver cabling. When I changed the stock cable of the psu feeding the external hdd to pure silver, the change was apparent. More analog is the best way to describe it. As for the sotm motherboard, it's well worth the asking price to my ears.

The HDplex 500watts lpsu arrived today. Still waiting on the Silverstone fanless case. Sourcing a 65watts tdp cpu was a challenge but I managed to source a core 7 gen 9. The 95watts tdp cpu's are more readily available but I want to run it fanless. Also on the way are the usb and ethernet cards from JCAT. The Top tier ones. I hope to have it all assembled and running by the end of the month.

I bit the bullet!

It would be an interesting comparison between jcat xe usb card and the half as expensive sotm card and see how they perform in the sotm motherboard.

Would love to hear your views on it. I'm looking to upgrade to an audiophile type server.

My entire 14 tb library is in wav with full metadata. Those days of wav files with no meta data are long gone.

Finally got around to trying out optical and am happy to report that its a huge success. Right now its two media converters with a 3metre SM fiber optic cable between them, on one end the server connected with rj45 cable and on the other end ethernet to the home mesh network. The result is a blacker background. What i find is the importance of good power supplies for the media converters. Currently using one ifi 5v lps and one Allo shanti. The long term plan is to run a 15 metre optical fibre cable to the last mesh hub which serves the hugo2go.

Thank you all @plissken @MagnusH @stray_cat for your inputs. I will put up some comments here once I get the optical side of things up and running. Hopefully soon!

How much better is 'better'? That opticalModule is darn pricey. Well worth the upgrade?

I'm interested in knowing if there would be any appreciable difference in audio quality between MM and SM. My only experience with optical is the usual optical i/o of dacs and they are prone to jitter. I have however, heard differences in sound quality based on cables used. Yes, bit of a Noob here with regards to network optical. $$ would've been a consideration, but as you state, not much of a difference at todays prices for the generic models. So I'm left wondering why sonore decided on MM for their systemOptique. Im no expert but wouldn't SM be a better choice given that that the equipment uses higher quality laser vs cheaper led in the MM. Let's not forget the 'Light Bleed' in MM. I guess the only way to find out would be a blind test!

You must be mistaking me for someone else. I'm running an intel i7 gen 9 to a chord hugo2 via a 2go and onwards to a tube pre and analog input to a pair of devialet reactors. Easy to add a jcat net card to the pcie slot in the i7.

Thanks to R1200Cl and Foggie for replying. No, I haven't bought any optical equipment yet but am looking at it as an option to get better isolation for network audio. I've never heard a fiber optic based network audio system and am still not utterly convinced that adding more boxes and extra power supplies is the way to go. I'm still mulling over adding a jcat net card to the works to see if that brings any benefits before going fully optical.

Any one care to comment on using multimode vs single mode? Multimode can apparently handle more date over shorter runs but suffers from 'light bleeding'. Would that mean some sort of an effect on the final sound? I see that sonore recommends multimode, apparently their systemoptique is a multimode device. I wonder why they chose multimode over single mode.