DJM ACTIV Audio Ethernet EMI Filter Review (Bonus!)

[restorer-john]

I was told the resulting EM pulse had been sufficient to reboot servers and sometimes the lifts in the building (causing them to emergency drop to the ground floor).

What sort of absolute crap design causes a lift to "emergency drop" to the ground floor? Let me guess, Schindlers Lists Lifts...

 

[Berwhale]

What sort of absolute crap design causes a lift to "emergency drop" to the ground floor? Let me guess, Schindlers Lists Lifts...

I may be over-egging it with the use of 'emergency'. I don't believe the lifts dropped like a stone (they would have mechanical governors anyway). I think it's more likely that the system running the lifts would reset and return the lifts to their 'home' location on the ground floor.

 

[restorer-john]

I may be over-egging it with the use of 'emergency'. I don't believe the lifts dropped like a stone (they would have mechanical governors anyway). I think it's more likely that the system running the lifts would reset and return the lifts to their 'home' location on the ground floor.

I was imagining some "Die Hard" moment when the power got spiked...

 

[Billy Budapest]

I can see a use case for this in manufacturing plants, broadcasting facilities such as radio stations, etc., and any number of industrial facilities where there could be tons of RFI interference that may adversely affect Ethernet performance. However, I don’t see labeling this device as an “audio filter” as particularly helpful. Instead that’s marketing of the most crass nature, playing into audiophile hysteria and/or encouraging propagation of audiophile myths.

 

[Hart]

Perplexing why they would offer this up for testing, they must have known the writing was on the wall. I am wondering if this amount of coverage means increased sales regardless of the outcome?

 

[anphex]

I commend this review and the courage of the manufacturer ...

 

[anphex]

Is this company China/India based and aiming to sell this 5-10 $ product for 2k $ to a handful of poor fellas? If so, this review sample and ASR review post would make 100 % sense.

 

[Berwhale]

I was imagining some "Die Hard" moment when the power got spiked...

There were 4 trains an hour going North a peak times. They could have charged for rides...

 

[Martin Takamine]

It's cheap for its intended customers.

 

[Billy Budapest]

Is this company China/India based and aiming to sell this 5-10 $ product for 2k $ to a handful of poor fellas? If so, this review sample and ASR review post would make 100 % sense.

They are based in the USA and are a legit manufacturer. Mostly industrial customers as well as the U.S. military, as far as I can tell. This is a real device with good filter performance—but pretty much useless for consumer applications.

 

[Beershaun]

Interesting.

We're managing industrial ethernet in factories and, sometimes, interferences are a fact.

Industrial field buses using ethernet are usually low bandwidth and using S/FTP cabling or FO to minimize interference impact.
They are using protocols that may be
compared to Dante, AVB or other live audio streaming data protocols :
They are similar to audio streaming, in a sense, since data quickly becomes obsolete.
They therefore also use UDP or direct layer 2 communication, since low latency requirement is incompatible with a lot of retries and buffering.

So for that use, this could maybe be useful.

I'd be curious to test this with a Dante flow in a very hostile environment.

Right. It's built for addressing the industrial use case you describe. That doesn't/shouldn't exist in a home audio environment. If it does you may want to consider moving to a safer location to raise the kids

 

[amirm]

It's from a company named ACTIV Audio, but does any literature or company info say that the thing is intended as an audio accessory?

Company name is DJM Electronics.

 

[amirm]

I don't know what's funnier, the idea of a critical listen room being next to/on the same network as a CNC machine or the fact that this is actually the case for our studio (right next to my CNC shop/in the same building).

I was not including audio in that example but the operation of CNC itself.

 

[Steve Bruzonsky]

Company name is DJM Electronics.

Company is based on Shelter Island, San Diego, California.

 

[georgehifi]

Sounds to me like those 50c AC mains fuses that are "directional?" they gold plate the ends and then charge $250 for

Cheers George

 

[fatoldgit]

Two TP Link MC200CM's ($25 each) plus a 62.5u SC/SC OM1 Fibre Lead ($10)... job done.

The MC200CM's come with integrated GBIC's (no need to bother with media convertors that use insertable ones)... really plug and play.

Or DX Engineering ISO-PLUS Ethernet RF Filter for $100... does the same thing as the DUT (device under test) from a no bullshit company focused on the ham radio market

I use both and I do cause I have structured cat 6 wiring in my house... 48 runs that hit a patch panel of which 18 are active ethernet runs (ISP routers ***, WAP's, servers, desktop PC's, media servers, ethernet DAC's etc) that connect into an 24 port switch so the chance of parasitic noise getting into my music system is very high. Many/most of the internal ethernet runs will be > 30M.

Other runs from the patch panel support phone lines/telephones, usb over ethernet, HDMI over ethernet etc but these are point to point via patch leads so dont go via my ethernet switch.

Ethernet is very good at noise suppression (I was in the industry) but for bugger all $$ I get an extra layer of protection.



Peter

**** I live in a heavily tree'd rural area (no internet fibre to the home) so have both VDSL and wireless internet to cover off downtime when a tree takes out the phone lines. The wireless internet is quite flakey at peak usage times so use VDSL as my main internet connection with the wireless internet as a back up.

 

[Newman]

Yes, thanks. Corrected.

Also, as pointed out in post #9, your words "There is difference other than run to run variations." should be "There is NO difference other than run to run variations.", based on context.

cheers

 

[Chrispy]

Company name is DJM Electronics.

Does seem to just be the product's name/model. Owner's guide fwiw https://www.djmelectronics.com/docs/ACTIV AUDIO Owners Guide.pdf

ps The link copy/paste is funky.

 

[Jimster480]

Definitely an interesting device. I could see it used in industrial applications for Ethernet connected CNC machines and such where you are trying to protect the machine itself. Outside of that I am not sure what use cases it would have.

 

[dlaloum]

As mentioned in the initial review, I can see the place for this device within noisy/industrial environments, but it really doesn't have a place within audiophilia / Hi-Fi...

I've worked on setting up remote area depot's that had various heavy machinery in them including arc welders... and some of the machinery (and definitely the welders!) can cause havoc with ethernet signals.

Fully shielded cabling (properly grounded) helps, but I can see situations where a device like this one could be useful.