Ethernet "treatment"?

[dabassgoesboomboom]

@Mike_Plugge

Theoretically, it is possible. The levels of RFI noise needed are not present in the typical home.

On this one, I thought I saw Brian and Danny mention they’ve seen these experiments during their time at Meridian on the effects of RFI in the home.

Roon Client/Server - Best Practice?

is having the media server away from the listening room really necessary, if we are using completely silent builds tailor-made to be in the listening room (such as the CAPS machines mentioned)? Electromagnetic and radio-frequency interference are the kind of “noise” I’m talking about, not the audible kind. We worked with Meridian for many years on these issues when building out the Sooloos product line, since the original Sooloos devices were fanless PCs in pretty boxes. They were fairly wel…

and

Computer Noise - Affect on Audio Quality

It could be there? How would I test for noise? Subjectively: ABX test between Computer->DAC and Computer->Network->Bridge->DAC. Objectively: Plug Computer->DAC and Computer->Network->Bridge->DAC into a scope with plenty of dynamic range, play the usual test signals, and analyze/understand the differences. The first one tells you if the difference matters to you personally. If you iterate the test over a population, you can determine whether it makes a difference to anyone. The second one t…

and

Roon Client/Server - Best Practice?

You really want Roon on the PC, and the DAC somewhere else. I know the “Computer Audiophiles” may not like that idea, but the computer is a pretty electrically noisy place. In an ideal situation, you’d want your DAC to be networked and far away, but if you can’t do that, you’d want a bridge of some sort. PS Audio makes one (that will run RoonSpeakers soon!), and you can also make one with RaspberryPi or maybe even an older Android phone. If it were me, I’d build kickass Roon library managing PC…

I really don’t know enough but I do trust that they trusted the experiments they saw at Meridian enough.

So if RFI in the home can affect a DAC’s performance or analogue components performance (depending on how it itself is shielded/rejects RFI by design) I wonder again, if the RFI shielding/rejection of the ethernet cable going into a DAC may (or may not) explain why ethernet cables may sound different (depending on how they shield/reject RFI)?

For those that are lucky enough to own Meridian loudspeakers you don’t need to worry - they are expertly designed and tested to shield/reject RFI but for the rest of us (myself included) I wonder if it may depend on the shielding/RFI rejection of your DAC and analogue components etc, as to whether the amount the RFI picked up by digital cables may (or may not) cause interference inside the DAC and result in different digital cables sounding different.

Again, I only point to the Meridian experience linked above (real world noise in the home) as a way to possibly consider why ethernet cables may sound different (again, maybe due to their shielding/RFI rejection designs varying from cable to cable).

So I do respect those that have heard differences in digital cables because there are plausible reasons (see the links above for the comments about testing at Meridian). And again, just to be clear, I’m not discussing RFI affecting the digital data itself here.

Again, I don’t know but it’s interesting stuff

I do remember hearing my old Blackberry next to my speaker some years ago