Indexing gel for AT&T optical glass transport to dac link

[georgehifi]

I have a transport and dac that have the AT&T transmitter and reciever and glass fiber-optic coupling lead. Has anyone ever done some tests or A/B's using an indexing gel on both ends.

I would like to try but the cost of the glass fiber Indexing Gel is up there with voodoo lotion, $78us for .4oz of gel, yep you read that right point four of a ounce.

http://www.luxlink.com/products/og-1052.htm

Cheers George

[kevinkr]

I wouldn't think index matching gel would be needed with ST style connectors. You might have better luck getting some from digikey or similar in terms of price.

Back when I did work in fiber optics the gel slightly reduced transmission losses, where it seemed to help most was in reducing reflections at the fiber/air/fiber interface. This was verified by optical TDR, but it was so long ago I don' remember the specifics..

I am not certain how much improvement you could expect. ST glass is already quite good in all respects particularly compared to toslink.

Hint: use a laser source.

[georgehifi]

Originally posted by kevinkr

Hint: use a laser source.

Wouldn't that be nice.

Cheers George