[Moderated] The objections start when the claim is made that storing the CDs in this rack makes them sound better
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Can we please try and stay on thread topic which was best digital interconnect over $1000 for your edification.
Not sure how we devolved to CD racks here.
Thank you.
[Moderated]
Nobody said anything against expensive CD racks. Not even the purchase of expensive digital cables is much of a problem if it is done to create subjective listening pleasure by feeling sophisticated.
What is being argued against are nonsensical statements like this in the article that was posted in the opening post:
If youâre using a generic Ethernet cable anywhere in your computer-audio setup, you havenât heard your systemâs potential. Even in a link such as a NAS drive to computer, AudioQuestâs Diamond Ethernet renders a noticeable improvement in resolution and ease. RH
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This is literally the system we live in and how the big wheels keep spinning. The goal is to make people spend as much money as possible (to buy sometimes useful but mostly useless things) to gain endless growth of companies and ridiculous amounts of money for owners. Itâs called market economy.
There are plenty of rules about lying to/misleading consumers though. Advertising standards and so on. Its not quite the wild west you make out!
CD racks are for people who need to hide cheap looking cables
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Since starting this thread most of the usual suspects in any audiophile discussion regarding digital audio have made an appearance.
The person with the super high end audio system who indirectly tells the rest of us that with our meager audio systems itâs no wonder that we canât hear the vast differencesâŚblah, blah, blah
The IT professional who tells us how impossible it is for there to any differencesâŚblah, blah, blah
But still missing is the individual from the world professional audio, e.g. a recording engineer or recording studio designer, who tells how superior pro audio equipment is to the consumer audio equipment, even high end audio equipment, that we foolishly believe to be so wonderful.
Anyone else notice a pattern with all these little tempests in a teapot audio discussions? 
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Depends on the country, I guess, but in the US âpufferyâ is allowed. You canât say that âmy unidirectional cryogenic graphene-coated Ethernet cable improves data transmission speed by 150% while reducing dropped -ackets by 46%â unless you can actually measure and demonstrate it. But âvast improvements in midrange clarity your wife will notice from the kitchenâ are allowed as those are completely subjective and non-verifiable.
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The latter probably have real work to do rather than engage in pointless (if amusing) discussion.
AFAIK big commercial studios donât use any of that fancy cable stuff. Whether that signifies anything or notâŚ
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Why not use fiber? Bits are bits, They either get there or they donât. If the argument for outrageously priced wires is to avoid any sort of electronic interference with amplification and analog elements of the system, shouldnât all manufacturers start adding an optical port to their DACs and Preamps? Lumin does this with their X1.
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This is slightly OT:
Besides an RPi feeding Roon audio to my DAC over USB, all of my source and amplification equipment is made by Benchmark Media.
Back in the '80s, Benchmark built analog audio distribution amplifiers for television networks.
Than they got into ADCs for studio use, now they produce DACs, headphone amps, line stages, power amps (the AHB2, which is the cleanest measuring power amp on the planet) and for a while even made studio monitors. All of their gear can be supplied in 19" rack-mount versions.
Benchmark advise against using anything other than the cables they use to test their gear - Canare Starquad cable and Neutrik connectors. Low cost, professional, high performance cable assemblies of the sort used in the recording industry:
Search: 90 results found for "cable" - Benchmark Media Systems*
The prices are refreshingly sane, heck their USB cable costs a meagre $8.95!
Thereâs another application note about balanced vs unbalanced which delves a bit deeper into cables and stuff:
All in all, Benchmark Media is a professional audio based manufacturer with a refreshingly BS and snake-oil free, no-nonsense approach. Lots of discussion based on solid engineering and the measurements to back it up.
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Sure, you can use fibre, but good old vanilla ethernet works just fine. People are looking for a solution to a non-existent problem.
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Understood and agree. Just saying, if there is any argument at all against wire, fiber completely eliminates it for < $100
Thatâs because one does not need fancy cable to record and master âmusicâ to be played back on mobile phones, cheap ear buds and Bluetooth speakers, which accounts for, oh Iâd say, 100% of modern popular music.
Arenât virtually all recordings digital, and isnât all mastering one on a DAW? What fancy digital interconnect cables would you need during this process?
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Yes and for the big orchestra they unpack to fancy cables they have stored in the cellar, is it so?.
Your claim is wrong on so many levels.
A (non-esoteric) commercial studio is buying solid and inexpensive cables on 100 meter cable rolls.
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Following the audiophile logic, the same fancy stuff to prevent getting jittery noise fragments into the recording. Remember the audiophile directional SATA-cables.
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My claim wasnât meant to correct, it was meant to be funny. You know that thing called humor, something this thread could use a lot more of.
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Iâd have to say that e.g. Mapleshade probably does use Mapleshade cables (quite expensive, although not quite as astronomical as some of the ones mentioned in the original post), and their recording are excellent.
Musty be the cables!!!
Sure, but it wasnât obvious, so I took it seriously, just in case.