I’m networking guy so I understand how networking and TCP/IP works so I know there’s no experiment needed from principle. I will very simplify explanation. Network is not transferring audio signal but data. What makes audio signal from this data is device which receives this data. Data transport you can imagine like splitting big data (file) into very small data with adddress (and some more information) called packets. Each packet keeps information from where it was sent to where it is sent (and some more). Those millions of packets are queued by sender and travels to recipient. Because it can be received out of order (not FIFO) or some packet can be lost, recipient is queuing this data and if some are missing or corrupted, he asks sender to send again (speaking about TCP now, not UDP). In total you transfer more data than reqired because of packet loss, packet header etc. So on top of data you want to transfer you transfer much more data just to be sure you receive original data properly. If there would be any chance that cable or router or whatever modify your data then all internet will collapse. Thinking that audio file (digital data not analog signal) is somehow modified by cable or such is like to think that during online financial transaction you will receive less money because of wrong quality cable.