Thanks, Mario - would just have thought that the higher the Cat the better; but to think that improper or lack of grounding could actually make things worse… 
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Generic Cat 6 Ethernet cable from the Office Depot is all that is needed. Nothing more expensive will make any difference. Cat 8 makes any sense only if you are running a 40Gbps network at home which you most likely are not.
Anyone selling you a Cat 7 cable for use in home networking (especially an audiophile cable) is a crook and a thief, because a real Cat 7 cable uses a different connector.
Not really, unless you like wasting money. Excluding Cat 7 (which, as a standard, never went anywhere and is practically unused in real world except by unscrupulous sellers of “audiophile” cables) higher number means that the cable is capable of higher speed at longer distances, but even 6 (or 6a) can do everything a home system is capable of using (there’s very little home equipment that is capable of anything above 1Gbps) and buying anything higher is unnecessary.
If you can wire the house with 6a or Cat 8 for not much more money it won’t hurt and might give you satisfaction of future-proofing, but it’s probably your grandkids who will derive any real benefit from it when it becomes actually useful in home setting…
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Boris,
Thanks. Just testing
No - seriously - I’ll take your (and Mario’s) advice willingly.
This will be exclusively for the Nucleus in one room.
Isn’t it nice when simplest is best?
Appreciated!
My plan! Ready
Buying a Nucleus to use with a network endpoint already is an exorbitant expense. Nucleus is just a computer inside audiophile casework, but it definitely is not an audio component. So many officially Roon supported fan cooled NUCs are plentiful at 30 percent of the cost of a Nucleus. Even if fanless casework is a priority for ambient noise, aesthetics, and USB output, unofficially Roon supported fanless small form factor computers more powerful than a Nucleus are available at 15 percent of the cost.
AJ
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Thanks, Andrew…
I quite agree. Although, Nucleus is undeniably beautiful. It looks like an audio component and, without fans, it’s quiet. I don’t blame owners for wanting to give it a place of honor in their audio racks instead of putting it in the closet with their router where it belongs!
I’d stop short of calling Nucleus a waste of money. Value is there in the case work, official support, and plug-and-play simplicity of a finished product. However, I also agree that most subscribers who are comfortable using a computer and a small screwdriver will, with sufficient patience, be able successful with a ROCK build.
Being able to select the parts for ROCK is nice. You can choose to spend a bit more on a higher quality NVMe SSD, for example, which may extend life of the system or reduce chances of database corruption. You really can’t go wrong either way, as long as you stick to officially supported parts. Nucleus and ROCK with Roon OS offer a much better Roon experience than alternatives, in my experience.
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Great post, David. Encouraging; thanks.
I’d rather put my time and energy into the music than the hardware.
Looking forward to it
Those are among my main reasons.
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You’re welcome!
If everything is in the same room you probably could get away even with Cat 5e cabling but at these distances you aren’t really saving much money either.
Nucleus at least is plug and play, looks fine, and has some support from Roon (such as it is). Sure, if you are handy with computers there are much cheaper ways to run Roon, but Nucleus has some utility for lay people. Wiring your house with Cat 8 cabling has no utility for them.
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Boris,
No Cat 6 is OK, I think; but 6 or 6A?
Still not sure how I’d chain an iFi Zen Streamer with the Nucleus, though…
All good learning .
Connected by ethernet right before your end-point DAC. It will receive the music signals being sent from your Nucleus/router via ethernet and pass them to your DAC. I use 2 Raspberry Pi4’s running RoPieee for this purpose.
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Yes Cat 6 is ok, that’s why I wrote to buy Cat 6 and advised against all of 6a, 7, and 8
Cat 6a supports the same practical speeds in home networking as 6, but …
- For the, most likely irrelevant, applications that it does better than 6, it requires special hardware that nearly nobody has at home (nor is there a great need for it for home network applications)
- Part of how it achieves this is by 6a being shielded cable. At the very least this makes it much stiffer and harder to work with. In particular, its non-damaging bend radius is significantly larger.
- The shield can be connected on one or both sides, and I don’t think this is standardized, so not always known for a specific cable. If it’s connected on both sides you can have the same ground loop problem that I warned against for higher categories.
The 6a cables by BJC have the shield connected only on one side, so grounding is not an issue there. But they are still much stiffer, so considering that they won’t bring any practical benefits, I’d still advise against them generally.
Mind, if you are going to get the whole house wired and if you are getting it done by a pro, feel free to go with 6a or 8 in the walls and be super future proof for the grandkids. But for a few patch cables from router to switch and endpoints, go with 6.
See here for details of 6 vs 6a specifications, noting the fact that with 6 you can still have cable runs up to 55 meters for 10 gigabit/s (ten times as fast as the Ethernet equipment that you have). 6a only comes into play if you exceed that and need 10 gbps
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The Cat 6 cables I use from BJC (bought in 2016) have been great! No issues with them at all. 
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Inside one room? As Mario said, Cat 6 is more than sufficient. If pulling wires through walls, you might want to future-proof somewhat. Things to avoid are “Cat 6e” (there’s no such thing) and Cat 7. The latter does exist but is either incompatible with any home equipment, if it really is Cat 7, or just overpriced Cat 6a (at best) sold by crooks.
You would connect Nucleus to your router with an Ethernet cable. Another Ethernet cable from the router would go to Zen streamer. A DAC would connect to the streamer with whatever cable they have in common (USB is the best connection).
I don’t remember… do you already have the Zen and/or standalone DAC you want to keep? If you do, might as well use them, If not, I would personally rather buy an all-in -one endpoint with streamer and DAC, to keep things easier.
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Cat 6a from Blue Jeans is the one to go for imo. Shielded but tied to one end (or one end only). Sounded best to me out of low cost cables I tried, generic and ‘audiophile’ (and I know that’s controversial re sound so will leave it at that). It is stiffer so BJC 6 might be a better bet for long runs and corners.
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Thanks, Charles,
Mario has already identified BJC. So they are at the top of my list.
I do have a single 90° corner. But I can bend.
I don’t mind spending a little more, though; it’s an internal run of 25 feet.
Thanks, Mario - no, this is far from permanent. Specific one-off use. I’ll go for 6
Boris,
At the moment I have my Late 2017 iMac and a ParaSound Halo P6 preamplifier (then the same company’s A3 amp.), which has an excellent built-in DAC.
If I could just connect the Nucleus from the iMac via Ethernet and then to the P6, I would.
But I can’t, can I.
I’m not an expert here; but loving learning - and s extremely grateful to everyone here who’s so helpful.
So I believe I need the Streamer, the iFi Zen.
I’m preparing to connect the new Nucleus to the Airport.
Another Ethernet cable from the router would go to Zen streamer.
which means it would, in fact be better, to site both Nucleus and Zen local to my computer bench with as short as 1ft Cat 6 BJC Ethernet for each:
- Airport Ethernet to Nucleus
- Airport Ethernet to Zen
And then run a high quality coax (25 feet) from the streamer across the roon to the P6?
Like this:
?
Sorry if that is a little difficult to visualize. But very grateful for your patience in guiding me in the right direction, Boris! Thanks
Thanks, Jim!