Danny
There you go again with all this techo jargon, can’t you keep it simple for us old audiophiles 
PS Great explanation 
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Yeah, I decided I was being a ‘Philadelphia lawyer’ and tried to delete my post before you had to hassle a reply, but too late.
Good news, bad news.
Good news - a clear and lucid explanation. Thanks.
Bad news - it won’t make a difference to those not already in the choir.
Peace.
Lol the passion on this topic is fantastic and never ceases to amaze, as long as it’s kept cordial and respectful (like it mostly has been).
Where’s Mike when you need him! 
Quite simply it is your money…if you spend it on a $500 cable to replace a $5 cable and you, for whatever reasons, think it sounds better/different and you can justify that cost benefit then go for it.
I have personally done plenty of ABX tests and for the life of me I personally have never heard any difference with digital cables…and seldom any different from analogue ones baring some minute (perhaps) changes due to LRC properties, but nothing that would make spend a significant difference on a cable. Power cables included.
You milage may vary. Each to their own and only your ears/brain can tell you truthfully what you hear is what you like. Your opinion is yours alone and will always be right.
That said I would not spend much on a pair of interconnects I was going to make myself…but a decent set of RCA connectors for a cable will be around $30-40 (Neutric Profi as an example) and some decent coax cable maybe another $10/M - so for around $40-50 one should be good to go DIY or worst case maybe double for a commercial stereo RCA-RCA cable will be fine. Good quality does not imply ridiculously expensive for a given solution.
However if your audio gear is sensitive to picking up noise (EMI/RFI) then thats bad design.
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Thank you @danny I’m going to print this out and stick it to my forehead whenever I enter a hi-fi shop that stocks fancy “audiophile” cables. Hopefully it will cover up the word “Sucker” that appears there occasionally. 
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Danny you should post that in all Ethernet / music forums. That along with a link to speaks to OSI model layers 1 and 2. Since I have work related education in this area I am just that educated.
But when it comes to analog interconnects and speaker cables I have no formal education. Whether ignorance on my part or reality, I can enjoy the subtle differences I hear when using JPS or BJC. Haha
Truth is when you invest in a nice 2 channel you don’t want to connect it with something looking like lamp cord, even though it may sound fine. (Analogies will not be provided). As some mentioned above if you think it sounds better, then it does. No reason for us to pound our heads in the wall arguing (discussing).
I’ve always loved the coathanger test/anecdote:
For any John Swenson fans (microRendu, ultraRendu, LPS-1, Uptone Regen, Iso Regen) he posted some interesting observations today:
and
I replaced the ethernet going into my DAC with fiber converters (and left the final ethernet cable very short, 1 foot BJC Cat6) a couple months ago and never looked back. He gives some reasons for possible benefits in those posts.
It’s interesting stuff.
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If you have multiple endpoints, check this out. Cheaper in the long run.
Damn, just got re-involved in the whole audiophile thing. It’s a sickness.
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It reminds me of someone (Edit: not John Swenson) who makes very expensive LPS said that all switching power supplies (especially including the one for NAS) on the whole network need to be replaced by LPS. May be there is some truth in it?
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I was thinking along the same general lines, but if you read that whole linked thread, Swenson says:
So what I get from that is that he’s not promoting his own power supplies per se. Having read a lot of John’s posts on CA, I don’t get the impression he’s all that commercially minded.
Full disclosure: I’m a happy Uptone customer (JS-2).
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For those that claim ethernet cables can cause ground loops, and go the optical route instead, there is something I don’t understand. @xxx – since you did this, I’m curious how you solve this problem:
This is what you are fighting… 2 powers electrically connected == 2 grounds.
device --------ethernet-------- switch
| |
power power
So you decide to get optical instead of ethernet because optical cant connect the grounds. However, your audio device doesnt support optical input (or does it?), so you get a optical/ethernet bridge and use a short ethernet cable. Like this:
device --------ethernet-------- optical bridge -----optical------ optical switch
| | |
power power power
The power connected to the optical switch is nicely isolated, but don’t you have a second ground with that optical bridge’s power?
I’m curious how to solve the above concern using optical, and clearly I’m missing something.
If your audio device supports optical input, then this whole thing is moot… use the bridge and be done.
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@danny - If you’re asking do I use fiber optics, I don’t. I was contemplating it, as a tinkering exercise. If I implied other in a post that was unintentional.
My point, in the beginning, was ‘audiophile’ ethernet cables might have a benefit. Since my core is in the basement, my proposal was to convert to optic, make the long run, convert back to ethernet, and then use ‘audiophile’ cabling into the endpoint. At least, I think that’s what I was after. Been awhile and I’ve since changed my opinions.
As for the discussion about grounds - Huh !???
This assumes that longer runs are worse than shorter runs for some reason. Yet another variable/explanation required. 
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This was in a discussion about expensive cables, so the assumption is that I can afford long runs of ‘audiophile’ ethernet.
If there is a budget, then electrical optimization is the last thing you should be spending your money on. There are way better ways to improve sound quality… the biggest impact for the money being the room.
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Yeah, I made the similar observations about priorities here, where @dabassgoesboomboom and I agreed to disagree.
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Ha but we can still be mates Slim!
PS: you’ll come back to the dark side - keep that iUSB3.0 handy…
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Hi Danny, I’m not an expert but I hope if there are any expert electrical engineers reading this thread they can help the both of us.
I believe the claim is that groundloops may happen via the shield, if the shield is grounded at both ends.
The observations shared in linked posts above, by the highly qualified and well respected John S are concerning leakage current loops, not groundloops. While leakage current loops also travel via the ground, I am told groundloops and leakage current loops are not the same thing and blocking a groundloop may not block a leakage current loop.
As an example, the little transformers in ethernet connectors block groundloops but John S’s observations above are that leakage currents can sail right through.
I don’t know if you are still active on the CA Forum but I would love if you can pose your questions directly to John S so we can all learn.
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i’ve read John S’s posts. Assuming for a second that it’s all 100% true, the real question is how much of an impact this makes to SQ.
For example, I see photos of people setups with speakers too close to the wall, no curtains or a flat wall across the speakers, low flat ceilings, etc… I also see people with a device with a fan in the room, or a DAC that I know takes lame shortcuts internally (so many do).
Once at a friends home, I actually heard the difference in a live system by just swapping a power supply on an ethernet switch. I also would never have a setup like him because he had such a mess of cables and devices in the room.
Assuming this ethernet quality claim is true, the 3 questions I must ask are:
- how much of a difference does it make?
- how much of this is caused by your own setup, and could be reduced by just getting rid of components/cables.
… and if money is a concern at all… - what are ways to get better improvements given the same budget?
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