If you want to listen to Class D amps and sterile sound, you go right ahead. I am quite happy to be an old dinosaur that uses tube-based preamps and Class A and Class A/B amps. I grew up listening to vinyl in the 60âs and 70âs and love the sound from that era. I wonât deal with the hassle of vinyl but I still want that analog sound. You wonât get it with Class D amps and boring Topping DACs. Even my old 80âs Class A amp kills modern Class D amps when it comes to great sound.
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The closest approach to the sound you want to hear.
Buy what makes you happyâŚ
The issue here is not that expectation bias can overrule everything - a $50K system will sound better than the speaker in an iPhone to absolutely everyone - but it does become much more significant when the actual difference is less pronounced or, in fact, nonexistent. As best I can tell from the evidence (and leaving the issue of ground loops and shielding out of it) an ethernet cable is a component that either works, or fails, and because itâs deeply embedded in the digital side of the chain it canât possibly have any effect on SQ.
Again, let me reiterate my previous point. If someone does come up with a reliable explanation as to how an ethernet cable can effect SQ (grounded in science, engineering, or some other discipline thatâs relevant) Iâll believe it. Until then I think the fragility of human perception is a much better explanation for any perceived difference.
Occamâs Razor is your friend 
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Why would you want to disregard the most likely causes of actual differences?
No!
Youâve just destroyed my deep seated belief that an Alien spaceship crashed near Roswell and the aliens are being held by the US military in a bunker in Area 52, or is it Area 53? 
What other belief sets of mine are you going to debunk next?
By the way, I do think that your argument is a sound and logical one - but as AndyR said above - donât disregard the effect of ground loops and shielding. I am just of the opinion (at the moment) that too many people whose opinions I value say that they can hear differences for me to rule out the possibility. Of course these differences may be entirely to do with shielding and grounding.
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Here is the basis of Occamâs Razor:
âOther things being equal, simpler explanations are generally better than more complex ones.â
I donât see anything in there about âreliableâ explanations.
I wouldnât. Perhaps my comment was badly worded. What I meant was that the basic idea of an ethernet cable is that it works, or it doesnât, and no amount of esoteric and/or expensive changes can make it any better. I disregarded ground loops and shielding in that context as they are real problems that can alter the SQ in ways that are electronically plausible.
The notion that human perception is fallible is a reliable one, backed up by substantial evidence in numerous disciplines. The notion that esoteric ethernet cables can improve SQ has no reliable explanations, at least none that Iâm aware of.
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Or, to paraphrase, ethernet cables can sound different⌠but not for the reasons the sales department might claim? 
Haha. Iâd rather say âfaulty ethernet cables can sound differentâ.
How about âinappropriate selection of upstream equipmentâ? *
** with respect to the DAC⌠and any other down chain audio stageâŚ
** or even mains-bourne noise from all those switch mode power supplies ll of the houseâŚ
Like something to regenerate the signal?
Donât go thereâŚ
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Iâm comfortable with the idea that there are multiple elements in the audio chain that can alter the SQ of a system, for well documented and clearly understood reasons. Exotic ethernet cables, in my opinion, are not in the same category.
Hmm. I think weâve just agreed that exotic ethernet cables can - for whatever reason - change the sound by affecting (say) grounding. Whether anyone prefers the effect is not the same question. Evidently added second harmonic distortion is preferred by some, and I donât understand that either. But now we are into subjective preference. Buy what makes you happyâŚ
A design flaw in any component can impact the SQ, but I think weâre getting a bit off the point here. The following is the type of product Iâm objecting to, particularly in terms of the multitude of BS marketing claims that fly in the face of common sense, physics, and any other relevant discipline:
Marketing department had fun with that one for sure.
All equipment designs are a compromise, despite what the marketing department might claim. What may be perceived as a design flaw in one context may give improved [insert preferred quality metric here] in another.
Now, if anyone has a plausible explanation why the ethernet cable connecting my Roon core to my router* might make a differenceâŚ
** both in a different room, wireless to endpoint. I like the yellow one.
I prefer white ones - less colouration 
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Well David, I am sorry to say but the white ones have the most colouration of all.
White light is a combination of all colors in the color spectrum. It has all the colors of the rainbow. Combining primary colors of light like red, blue, and green creates secondary colors : yellow, cyan, and magenta. All other colors can be broken down into different combinations of the three primary colors .
Dirk
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Ah. But you are forgetting that âcolourâ is a purely subjective interpretation by the brain of stimuli received by the âconesâ on the retinaâŚ
We would need to see a spectrogram before it could be accepted as objective proof of your assertionâŚ
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