If you're hazy on why we'd want fiber in a few-meter home not hundreds-of-km industrial scenario, my understanding is that like external Toslink and internal optocouplers, it cuts all electrical and ground noise. In industrial applications fiber has many more advantages over copper including speed and bandwidth. In a hifi context, the primary focus would seem to be its optical isolation. I was a newb on how this neat notion translates at the ears. Wherever review assignments can cover new ground after 20+ years on the beat, they become even more interesting. Consider my curiosity cranked to 11. Okay, perhaps 9½. My primary MO remains playback of local files. But if cloudy files could be made to sparkle, I was all for it.

From Joël's review again we learn that the Cybershaft masterclock engineers consider square-wave signal better for LAN use, sine-wave signal better for D/A converters. The LHY clock has three BNC outputs each, all individually dip-switch configurable for 50/75Ω. Even that was a Kamasutra position to try out. My lower back hurt just thinking about it all. To insure that his shipping guy would tick all the right boxes, Weng sent me a final email with the items he'd prepare: 2 x SW-10; 1 x OCK-2; 1 x 20m optical cable; 1 x 1m optical cable; 2 x 1m 50Ω clock cables. How about a 20m 50Ω clock cable? "Unfortunately a 20m clock cable isn't feasible. As such synchronizing two SW-10 with a masterclock won't be possible in the second scenario." Okay. I had my marching orders. On August 25th, those changed. "We just received the new SW-6. It boasts a new in-house developed switch with 1 x SPF, 1 x RJ45 with extra isolation transformer, 4 x standard RJ45 and 1 x 10MHz BNC clock input. We're envisioning truly captivating possibilities combining the SW-6 and SW-10 instead of dual SW-10. So we propose you review our new combo." Okay.

What I immediately liked about the SW-6 over my SW-8 is that it loads up on the extra clock, fiber-optic and 'super' isolated RJ45 terminals, maintains the smaller casing and reduces the number of standard RJ45 ports to just four. What system needs more? Whenever I see eight network ports as on the SW-10, my head spins. Also, to my mind the SW-6's isolated RJ45 port packs the functionality of SOtM's inline Ethernet isolator which requires an extra cable and two more connector junctions. With LHY's solution we run just one cable and no outboard clunker; nice where less is more. In a pure copper context, I'd use that isolated Ethernet port for the CAT8a cable coming in from our router. In a fiber context where the router already isolates optically with the SW-10, the isolated RJ45 port seemed tailormade for the final short CAT8a link to my iMac's network input.