In other words, “no matter what you say, and no matter what logic you use, I really don’t care”.
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Before this thread closes I would just say that I would discuss this further with all of you with some beer and a big Aberdeen Angus steak! BYO ears and multimeters.
The philosophy part is the most interesting: The question is more interesting than the answer.
Oh, heck. The answer is
Summary
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You got it. I use things called ‘ears’ to help inform my opinions. I highly recommend it!
To return to the subject, and after listening myself, IMO Ethernet cables can have an impact on sound quality.
I heard people saying Ethernet cables make absolutely no difference.
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Apparently @Chrislayeruk said the right thing here. However, he just does not or might not know where the “electrical noise” really come from?
Your Linn KDS/3 has an optical cable Ethernet input.
It would be interesting to know if you prefer optical, or regular Ethernet, and what you perceive any difference to be?
Do you get all your opinions second-hand?
The jury is still out !!!
My setup is Router → Cisco 2960G → wired optical ethernet out → Linn Organik DSM/3
I find optical provides more clarity, more top-end attacks, but somehow loses some PRAT (I think). I may plug back copper ethernet back in and have another long listening test.
Per Linn official manual, they said optical ethernet “improves” audio performance by providing complete isolation from noisy network components.
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The only issue is that any perceived improvement or difference between the two cannot be attributed to the cable or the interface, but only to downstream circuitry or components.
Ethernet cabling cannot make a difference in and of itself; it can only highlight deficient factors in the design and implementation of DAC input circuits.
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@ElTel, maybe you should teach Linn R&D staff a lesson in designing a network music streamer?
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Martin - do you have any opinions that are not as a direct result of something that you have experienced? I’m not just talking about audio, I’m talking about the way in which you gather knowledge. I, for example, have opinions about how the Second World War started. I have gathered these opinions through research rather than experience (obviously!).
I also have opinions about how ethernet cables work. I have gathered these opinions predominantly through research (although I do have experience of plugging them in and seeing them work!). Everything that I have read about ethernet cables suggests that they cannot make a difference when it comes to sound quality. Therefore if I “heard” a difference between two cables (assuming that neither was faulty) I would only have one logical conclusion. I would conclude that the thing that I was experiencing was a direct result of cognitive bias. As there is a logical conclusion that is consistent with my knowledge, I would trust my knowledge over my experience.
The opinions that I have are my own. They are not “second-hand”. But in order to reach these considered opinions I place only limited value on that which I have directly experienced, otherwise I would be leading a very limited life!
If I listened to their streamer and it sounded awful to MY EARS, I’d give them a lesson or two, and I would be right, because nobody could ever argue with MY EARS.
It’s fine if you trust your own ears, but if your ears belong to 0.00000001% of the whole population?
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Assuming there are 7B people in the world, my ears belong to about 0.0000000142857% of the whole population.
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It strikes me that many audio manufacturers should hire designers with a chip and networking engineering background. After all, we’re not talking analogue audio here, we’re talking data and the digital domain.
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Well said!!! @ElTel, Linn should have a good reason to hire you, fancy moving to Scotland?
Btw, just in case you guys do not know what it is, here is a review of the new Next Generation Linn Klimax Streamers, and the reviewer concludes this is the best music streamer he has ever heard.
I know a review is just a review, you just need to trust your own ears.
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I’m not going to follow suit and play the man, I shall instead continue to play the ball and keep the personal sleights out of the discourse.
Let me go into further depth with regards to this statement:
I would expect a difference between optical and copper inputs on the same streamer, but not for the reasons of the cables themselves. Optical inputs require transducing in order to pass into the DAC. The control of such transduced output signals can be tailored such that only the bare minimum signal is generated in order to control circuitry emissions/bleed into other circuits. This is why optical is inherently a better choice. Control of copper interfaces (even with the inherent protection of galvonic isolation of Layer 1 designs) still have an ability to affect the circuits and the device upon which they land (the input interface), this is particularly noticeable on poorly designed/cluttered circuit boards. Such effects are a product of what is transmitted from the upstream sending device and how much power is used in the effort to transmit rather than the quality of the copper Ethernet cable itself provided it meets minimum IEEE specifications for (amongst other things) EMI, crosstalk and attenuation.
If you have a poorly designed circuit then no patch lead will help. It just might move the problem elsewhere and not always, or automatically, to a point of higher tolerance for any audible artefacts.
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@ElTel, your post makes an absolute sense, and it is worth more than the sum of all 2000+ posts that come before it.
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The more I think about this thread, the more I realise that the perception of two sides is not based around ideologies and dogma, it is based on the potential for embarrassment rather than the desire to understand.
One party may feel they are being attacked for spending money (that is their choice) or having their spending habits ridiculed and feel the need to defend. Furthermore, when the position is laid-out in a comprehensible form, there is then the potential to infer that they are being once again attacked for choosing streamers or DACs with potential design issues. I’m really not certain this is the position intended by those trying to distill the complexities of networking standards and electrical engineering to a point where this all makes sense.
By all means, fill your boots and buy what makes you happy, but if you ask the question about Ethernet cables affecting sound quality then you might not like what you hear from people that have a lifetime of relevant professional experience to call upon and understand that patch leads merely carry a sequence of on/off signals with an embedded control that doesn’t require a separate timing signal.
If I get shot for being a purveyor of truth, so be it.
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I am obsessive compulsive BTW. (No? Really? Who’d a thunk it?)
I recommend and use Reichle & De-Massari (R&M) Cat5e patch leads as their specs exceed IEEE standards in all areas without costing the Earth. I first used R&M in a data centre and bank trading floor/back office installation which was part of the program I was running back in about 2005/6 in Singapore. The structured cabling component involved the installation of over 1600km of copper and 400km of optical product. I was really impressed with the factory patch leads so I bought a bunch for my own use and some bulk reel/punchdown blocks and face plates. I’ve installed R&M bulk in the walls in my home in Australia and whilst I’ve lost or misplaced a few patch leads during a few moves over the years in between, my most critical hosts (Lumin T2, Synology NAS and the back-haul for the WiFi mesh) are still using the R&M patch leads.