Do router and ethernet cables affect sound quality?

[StereJo]

I would like to approach from another side in this discussion.

Let’s imagine that we could hear the music without any clock problems, jitter errors, contaminated USB ports, switching power supplies or the like. With a device that, due to its design, knows none of these problems. And then we compare its music reproduction with that of a device that, due to its design, is fraught with all these problems and errors.

Furthermore, we do not use any of the digital sound enhancers advertised here or anywhere else to help. The digital playback device, which is therefore NOT tuned or improved with any aids in its sound, would have to sound significantly worse, since it suffers from all these problems.

My two comparison devices:

Device A

Record player: Transrotor Rondino Nero
Tonearm: SME 5009
Pickup: Transrotor Figaro
Phono preamplifier: Transrotor Phono 8.2 MC with XLR connector

Device B

Linn Klimax DSM

The Music:

I now put “Hummingbird” by Helge Lien & Knut Hem on the record player. This is an excellent recording. And it is also available to me in digital form, FLAC-files in 96 kHz 24-bit. My request for the label (Ozella) showed that the mastering of the record and the digital files is identical. Fortunately, the volume is almost identical, but I still fine-tune the two inputs on the volume on my amplifier. Thanks to Roon, I can play the digital recording (after some practice) simultaneously with the turntable. Now I only need to switch between the two devices on the remote control of the amplifier and can thus compare pure analog sound with digital sound.

I summarize my sound impressions:

First of all, I’m amazed at how good an antiquated technology can sound. No, not really, because I know my turntable and that’s exactly why I have it
The next experience comes when I switch to the digital source. Because first you don’t realize that the streamer is playing. Both devices sound surprisingly similar at first. Only after repeated switching back and forth slight differences emerge. Depending on the track, the record player seems to have a tiny nuance more body. The highs can also be heard more succinctly. In return, the spatial representation of the Klimax is almost breathtaking, the music detaches itself even more from the speakers, it almost seems to float in the room. But be aware of what is being talked about here. These are tasty nuances in the detail area.

All in all, I can say that both devices sound excellent and that listening to music is really fun. Only after concentrated listening do slight differences become apparent and one can therefore conclude that they also sound different. But I would not presume to judge a “better” or “worse”. Both play at a level that is absolutely comparable.

Which, according to logical considerations, leads to the result that the digital playback of my streamer obviously does not need any of the propagated sound improvers. Perhaps one could even conclude that these so-called sound-deteriorating properties simply do not exist in the digital transmission chain. At least not in mine.

As always, that’s my personal perception. On my stereo, with my ears and my room.

[Brad_Burnside]

Impressive Setup StereJo! And I agree about “Hummingbird” by Helge Lien & Knut Hem.

-But did you really mean to say that because both your analog and digital systems sound so good, and perform at about the same high level, that none of these digital “improvers” can possibly make a difference?

If so, I am again humbled by us humans’ amazing capacity to rationalize, and to even fervently believe almost anything. God is great!

[garym]

@Brad_Burnside

I am again humbled by us humans’ amazing capacity to rationalize, and to even fervently believe almost anything.

The audiophile industry depends on this.

[hmack]

@Jacques_Distler

hmack:

The output voltage of the two devices is considerably (5%) different. And, since louder invariably sound “better,” that’s how @Magnus decided he prefered the Yggdrasil.

Really! How can you possibly know?

Because Amir measured that. So did John Atkinson in Stereophile’s review of the Yggdrasil .

And if anyone thinks matching levels doesn’t matter in auditioning equipment, I have some cables to sell you .

I certainly didn’t suggest that matching levels isn’t important. On the contrary, I think it’s vitally important.

Did you actually read my post?

I simply questioned your assertion that because “louder invariably sounds better”, that must be why @Magnus decided he preferred the Yggdrasil.

A question for you - have you listened to both DACs, and if so which of them do you think sounds ‘better’?

I think I’ll pass on your offer to sell me cables. My current digital cables are more than expensive enough - they probably cost me an average of £10 or less each.

[StereJo]

@Brad_Burnside

But did you really mean to say that because both your analog and digital systems sound so good, and perform at about the same high level, that none of these digital “improvers” can possibly make a difference?

At least I don’t know anything that works in the real, right world. I started with HiFi at the age of 18. From my first money I earned I didn’t buy a moped like everyone else, but a turntable, an amplifier and 2 fat speakers. I had no idea about the sound, but that wasn’t important either. The music was important. That was over 40 years ago. And in the meantime, not only did I invest a lot of money, I also heard all the promises in the world. Most of them were hollow words, only a few have proven to be correct. And during this time I learned to separate the wheat from the chaff. But that was an expensive lesson. Of course I read all the magazines, soaked up all the words and ran after everything that I absolutely had to have. To find out afterwards that everyone is cooking with water. In my experience, there are simply no miracles that you can pinch something in between to turn a 2k investment into a 10k investment. However, there are things that are amazing. Google Chromecast Audio for € 35.- or KEF LS50 Wireless. A lot of sound for the money.

I always smile when I read miraculous things that someone can properly distinguish a USB cable for € 50 from a USB cable for € 1000. Of course I also tried it, I can not comprehend that.

My dealer knows me. He no longer recommends anything to me, he connects one or two devices, gives me a cappuccino and then leaves me alone for hours. Then he asks me what I think.

The bitter realization is that there are really good devices. But they cost real money. Nothing is free. And of course I also invest in things that bring no sound improvement. I connected the Klimax with a beautiful XLR cable from “Goldkabel”. Excellently manufactured, exquisite plugs. But I don’t convince myself that they sound better than the previous cables, which weren’t bad either. Because it’s just not true.

If someone buys speakers that are twice as expensive as the previous ones, the chances of a sound improvement are high. With an amplifier you have to spend 4 times as much money to improve something. And if someone pays 50 times the price of a normal switch for a network switch, the best justification is that they secure jobs.

One thing should not be forgotten: If this person is now convinced that it will improve the sound, then so it is for him. It is only important that it is true for him. Everyone has the right to their own truth. For myself, I try to be as objective as I can. But that doesn’t always work either.

[Axel.S]

@Magnus

everyone and their mother who have listened to a cheap Topping DAC and a high-end DAC like Yggdrasil will say the same: Yggdrasil sound much better

Yesterday my mother and I bought both DACs in order to compare them. I hate to say this, but we both like(d) the Topping DAC a lot better. Then I rang up my neighbour and his mum, and we invited them over. Believe it or not, after two hours of critical listening, they came to the same conclusion as we did: No other DAC can top the Topping…

[greggl]

Sterejo
Get yourself a used Cisco 2960 router on eBay and connect it to your KDSM with a Blue Jeans Ethernet cable ($25). You will hear a nice improvement. Many of us on the Naim and Linn forums have been doing it for years. Just about a 100% satisfaction rate. I have been using one with my Klimax DS for about 3 years and have been quite happy.
Haven’t tried plugging the LP12 into the Cisco yet

[StereJo]

@greggl

Haven’t tried plugging the LP12 into the Cisco yet

I’m sure you were more than surprised

[Janne_Johansson]

@greggl

Get yourself a used Cisco 2960 router on eBay and connect it to your KDSM with a Blue Jeans Ethernet cable ($25).

Even though I don’t believe in audible differences in a audio signal transferred through different fully operational network switches, I can also recommend buying good hardware for your home network.

Also Blue Jeans cables are pretty nice.

[greggl]

@Janne_Johansson

Even though I don’t believe in audible differences in a audio signal transferred through different fully operational network switches, I can also recommend buying good hardware for your home network.

If you want to have some fun reading there is an ongoing thread on the Naim forum which is one of the longest in history. We have some fairly smart people and there has been quite a large amount of technical discussion. The original poster who started recommending the Cisco is a network engineer. He has provided some fairly convincing reasons why something like a Cisco switch works. He also provides good technical reasons debunking many of the high priced audiophile network solutions.

I recently purchased a new DCS Bartok which will be used separately from my 2 channel system on a headphone only system. Andrew, their technical support specialist, also posts here. He has said that many of the audiophile network cables do not even conform to standard Ethernet cable specifications.

[RBM (René)]

@Axel.S

Yesterday my mother and I bought both DACs in order to compare them.

Got to love a man that takes his mum out DAC shopping. Well done!

[Mark_Brown]

@Magnus

In this case, voltage regulators will have to work less with a limited signal, the DAC chip itself has to work less,

That’s why multi-tone testing is also done.

[Magnus]

Im not a measurement specialist, but surely when comparing A with B something better can be done than just do a simple 12khz measurement and then look at picture of measurements? Even the resolution of the picture itself will come into play

Something like this perhaps, for comparing setup A and B:

1. Select a well recorded tune with a good distribution of frequencies, good stereo image, 3d feel etc.
2. Play and measure this tune in A and B,
3. Invert phase on one measurement
4. Sum the measurements (one inverted in step 3), and calculate average sample amplitude (absolute values only)

If done correctly, and with accurate measurement equipment, you would get close to 0 in 4 if A and B measured the same, and higher values the more difference there is between A and B.

I don’t think this would actually tell the whole story, but it sure would be much more informative than the way we see measurements done by for example Amir.

[Jacques_Distler]

So you find a difference. But what is the origin of that difference? Is it that A was behaving badly or B?

Even if we simply recorded the output of A twice, and did this inversion, we would obtain a nonzero difference – because the noise would be different in the two recordings.

If the question is not simply, “Do A and B produce different output?” but, rather, “Which of A and B produce more accurate output?” then you want to have an a-priori notion of what the output should be.

So, e.g., if the input is a superposition of pure sine tones, then the output should be a superposition of the same pure sine tones, with little-to-no harmonic distortion or intermodulation distortion and with a noise floor that remains low across the frequency spectrum, regardless of the input.

If the harnonic distortion and the intermodulation distortion really are vanishingly small, then the fundamental theorem of Fourier analysis can be envoked and an arbitrarily complicated (e.g. musically exquisite) waveform will be reproduced accurately.

OTOH, if you fail to do well on the simple stuff, there is vanishingly small probability that you will get the complicated stuff right.

[Magnus]

You could calculate a “perfect” signal from the digital data of the tune which would have no noise floor. Then you use that as a reference and compare everything with that, and the more difference there is the worse the measured equipment.

Some sort of amplitude matching probably needs to be done as well (like a volume matching), before the difference is calculated.

The point is that you can’t do simple 1-tone (or multi-tone) measurements and expect the result to be comparable to real music. Electronic equipment is to advanced to quantify that way. Only a real tune (or even a set of pre-selected tunes) will give results that tell something about how music will sound.

[evand]

are you an electronic engineer or do you continually allow your mind to roam?

[thumb5 (Ian)]

@Magnus

The point is that you can’t do simple 1-tone (or multi-tone) measurements and expect the result to be comparable to real music. Electronic equipment is to advanced to quantify that way. Only a real tune (or even a set of pre-selected tunes) will give results that tell something about how music will sound.

Magnus, although you state that as a fact, it seems to be rather a belief that you hold. If you’re saying that no measurement can ever give an idea of how equipment might sound when playing music, I’d say that’s demonstrably untrue - for example, seeing a lot of even-order harmonic distortion might predict a “warm” (valve-like) sound.

[Martin_Webster]

@Magnus

You could calculate a “perfect” signal from the digital data of the tune which would have no noise floor. Then you use that as a reference and compare everything with that, and the more difference there is the worse the measured equipment.

Measurement standards are not defined this way. They are defined from fundamental reference standards that are used for comparing all other measuring devices.

These high echelon standards define a unit of measure and are based on a physical quantity. For example, voltage, time and frequency. During the 1980s I worked on tier one UK reference standards for voltage–at the time utilising the Weston cell–and resistance. In the real world, science and engineering matters and lives depend on this fact.

Your suggestion is flawed because you wouldn’t have a “perfect” signal–indeed you wouldn’t know if you had achieved perfect. Unless you accept that measurement is relevant and defined by physical science this discussion is pointless. If it wasn’t our world would fall apart.

[Magnus]

You can calculate a perfect signal from digital data, its basically just a software DAC with a high-quality (and computational expensive) reconstruction filter. You can even do the calculation for different filters, and if comparing to a DAC just make sure the DAC uses the same filters.

From the difference between the calculated signal and the inverted measurement, you can then deduce lots of things like how much crossover, transient response, noise floor, etc.

If you get measurements like that, then you might be able to deduce sound quality from measurements alone, or at least an indication of sound quality. The measurements used today have very little correlation with sound quality, which is why I don’t care that much about them when selecting HiFi equipment.

[evand]

@StereJo

That’s a great looking hifi rack, did you have it made?