Last year I switched my phone contract from EE to Sky, visiting their store in town as I hate talking to robots. As part of the process the assistant needed to call Sky and hand his phone to me so I could provide details. During the conversation he asked if I would like to switch my Broadband to Sky Full Fibre as it was now available at my location. The assistant shook his head and advised that I should stick with what I had. Not having much idea of what I would gain by switching and having nearly18 months left on my contract I followed the assistants advice and declined the offer.
I was recently advised that my two year Sky tv and Broadband contracts would soon expire and needed to be renewed. Again I was informed about Full Fibre being available in my area. I enquired about the price and was told that I would only be paying £2 a month extra over a two year contract, so why not.
Originally Openreach would not be able to connect us until November, but as they were in the area they could do so in a few days. The new Sky router which was required arrived prior to the engineers visit. Talking to the engineer I found out a lot more about Full Fibre, a bit embarrassed about my ignorance. My speed would increase from 60GB to500GB. Although the area is connected to Full Fibre connections have to be made to individual properties which are fed by copper cables. Another engineer carried out work some distance away. I was told that copper connections would become obsolete in the same way as tv ariels and if they were not replaced by optical a property would not have access to the Internet. This could go a long way to explaining why I was offered Full Fibre at such a low price with my contract due for renewal. The engineer installed boxes outside and one inside near to the router. He said it was important that the length of glass cable from the socket to the router should be short because the glass cable was more fragile than standard Ethernet
Prior to the visit I was playing George Harrison's “All things must pass” from the NAS. A difference was immediately noticeable when I put it back on. It was as if the music had been slightly out of focus and now it was in full focus. Not earth shattering, but very apparent .It is the same on everything I have played on both systems. I was not expecting this from the NAS although I hoped for a slight improvement from Qobuz because the stream comes from outside the house.
I am at a loss to explain what is going on. Obviously noise, affecting the local network, was degrading the signal path prior to reaching the router and the switches and filters between the router and preamp cannot restore what has been lost. The culprit would appear to be the length of around 3m of Cat 6 Ethernet cable connecting the previous wall socket to the router which has been replaced. Instead there is a short length of optical cable connecting the new wall socket and router. I am delighted as this is the biggest improvement I have made to the signal path since the purchase of the Network Acoustics ENO filter going on five years ago and that cost £700! As that was an Ethernet filter I have come to the conclusion that the Ethernet path is the main problem where noise entering the system is concerned.
What amazes me is that I have not been able to find any mention of full fibre broadband improving sound quality anywhere on the web. If I had, this is something I would have investigated as my location was upgraded to fibre over eighteen months ago, though probably less than two years ago. Does this mean that there are special circumstances pertaining to my location and systems? Probably not. Although my Sonos (third) system sounds the same as before, on the basis of the evidence of my ears every streaming hi-fi system would benefit to some extent
Things have certainly moved on since I bought my first PC twenty five years ago at big cost. The internet was shared with a phone line and the connection had to be dialled up and CD and vinyl would reighn supreme in my systems for another fifteen years, when my interest in hi-fi resurfaced. This post has gone on a bit but I wanted to share a eureka experience with virtually no cost.
I was recently advised that my two year Sky tv and Broadband contracts would soon expire and needed to be renewed. Again I was informed about Full Fibre being available in my area. I enquired about the price and was told that I would only be paying £2 a month extra over a two year contract, so why not.
Originally Openreach would not be able to connect us until November, but as they were in the area they could do so in a few days. The new Sky router which was required arrived prior to the engineers visit. Talking to the engineer I found out a lot more about Full Fibre, a bit embarrassed about my ignorance. My speed would increase from 60GB to500GB. Although the area is connected to Full Fibre connections have to be made to individual properties which are fed by copper cables. Another engineer carried out work some distance away. I was told that copper connections would become obsolete in the same way as tv ariels and if they were not replaced by optical a property would not have access to the Internet. This could go a long way to explaining why I was offered Full Fibre at such a low price with my contract due for renewal. The engineer installed boxes outside and one inside near to the router. He said it was important that the length of glass cable from the socket to the router should be short because the glass cable was more fragile than standard Ethernet
Prior to the visit I was playing George Harrison's “All things must pass” from the NAS. A difference was immediately noticeable when I put it back on. It was as if the music had been slightly out of focus and now it was in full focus. Not earth shattering, but very apparent .It is the same on everything I have played on both systems. I was not expecting this from the NAS although I hoped for a slight improvement from Qobuz because the stream comes from outside the house.
I am at a loss to explain what is going on. Obviously noise, affecting the local network, was degrading the signal path prior to reaching the router and the switches and filters between the router and preamp cannot restore what has been lost. The culprit would appear to be the length of around 3m of Cat 6 Ethernet cable connecting the previous wall socket to the router which has been replaced. Instead there is a short length of optical cable connecting the new wall socket and router. I am delighted as this is the biggest improvement I have made to the signal path since the purchase of the Network Acoustics ENO filter going on five years ago and that cost £700! As that was an Ethernet filter I have come to the conclusion that the Ethernet path is the main problem where noise entering the system is concerned.
What amazes me is that I have not been able to find any mention of full fibre broadband improving sound quality anywhere on the web. If I had, this is something I would have investigated as my location was upgraded to fibre over eighteen months ago, though probably less than two years ago. Does this mean that there are special circumstances pertaining to my location and systems? Probably not. Although my Sonos (third) system sounds the same as before, on the basis of the evidence of my ears every streaming hi-fi system would benefit to some extent
Things have certainly moved on since I bought my first PC twenty five years ago at big cost. The internet was shared with a phone line and the connection had to be dialled up and CD and vinyl would reighn supreme in my systems for another fifteen years, when my interest in hi-fi resurfaced. This post has gone on a bit but I wanted to share a eureka experience with virtually no cost.
