Thanks for taking your time to post this.
What is your associated equipment?
Also, what part of the chain did you use your Ethernet cable on?
Thanks for taking your time to post this.
What is your associated equipment?
Also, what part of the chain did you use your Ethernet cable on?
Main system which is a Naim Uniti Atom, Cisco 2960CG-8TC switch cables tested where all from switch to the Atom , I have bjc cat5e from socket to switch and Roon core running ROCK to switch.
Read my post and you will see they do, but in my system only subtly and itâs not worth bothering about in the whole schemes of things and itâs definitely not night and day that some report.
Thanks. Just an observation from my experience, take it for whatâs worth:
Differences on Ethernet cables to me were mostly in timbre and tonality. It will be tough to capture on REW, if possible at all. I have REW and calibrated UMIK-1. And I appreciate your effort doing it.
I do use âafter marketâ Ethernet cables, I have also experimented with them. Having said this, itâs not a critical part of the audio chain. We definitely have bigger fish to fry
The theory is as follows: Ethernet is copper. Electrical noise can travel through the copper lines, including the Ethernet cable to your streamer, from the various devices in your network, and noisy power supplies, that can potentially in theory affect the performance of your streamer, then DAC. Itâs just a theory. If it does not appeal to you, then definitely donât do anything about it. We all make our own choices with our systems. Needless to say, there things much more critical to our systems than an Ethernet cable. Obviously
I donât discount that theory. However, I still believe many people here are wasting their hard earned money trying to solve problems that donât exist or they canât hear. Itâs their money, so none of my business. I just hope their spouse and kids donât suffer because of it. It appears to me to be an obsession.
You can rest assured that me buying an Ethernet cable had no consequences whatsoever on the wellbeing of my wife and kids
Agreed! I was more worried about divorce when I bought my speakers (currently B&W 803 D3) than when I bought the Ethernet cable, which my wife cannot possibly notice
I only used rew to see if there was any difference as I found little you had to really focus to hear the nuances. It was interesting to see the WireWorld and CatSnake though as they gave a little more detail in certain areas and that is reflected in what rew captured with the sensitive area, it was to the WireWorlds detriment though as it did come across as too bright for prolonged listening with bright music.
Great post @CrystalGipsy, thanks for taking the times to do this, I have been using blue jeans Cat6A throughout my system and house but I would love to try some of the more costly âaudiophileâ cables to see if I could discern any difference but posts like yours go a long way to making me feel like I am not missing out in any way.
Here are the ten main reasons for divorce, Ethernet cables do not get a mention.
Could easily come under number 4 or 7.
Spending too much time on Internet forums posting pointless remarks about things you have no interest in could probably come under number 9.
Oops, helps if I add the link
LOL! These two sentences from both of you cracked me up! I seriously laughed. Both times
Canât be bothered reading 555 posts - whatâs the answer/consensus?
Consensus is that no one will sit for a blinded test even though I could setup a computer with a teamed network adapter, setup a switch with an LACP LAG and administratively turn of ports while playback occurs and have the âgoldenâ ears tell us all what cable is in use.
Not sure why your post was flagged. Some good points that apply to more than just the audio world.
Not sure either. But itâs not the first time. Someone (or two) always flags all my posts, no matter what I say.
What exactly do you mean by âfrequency sweepâ? Electrical signals are generally not measured in âsound pressure levelâ units so there must be a microphone involved, no? Did you just do a frequency spectrum of all the music you listened to? If you really did sweep the cables which pair did you use?
I played a flac of a frequency sweep through my system which plays the full frequency range and played through for each different cable to see if there was any difference. As any change in sound by the cable would show up in the captured reading from it⌠This is then captured by a calibrated microphone using REW software. Its what is used when doing room correction to see how the system is changing the sound from the flat original response.
Thanks for bringing this up Mark. This was the first thing I thought of, having been involved with subjective audio testing back in my university days. A double blind test removes any possibility of conscious or unconscious bias in the results.
I kind of dislike the use of the word âtheoryâ here, as it is clearly not used in its scientific sense. There are no unknowns in how signals travel and potential distortions in an ethernet cable, the model is well established.
What I find miserable in these discussions is that they are based on too little knowledge. Yes, signals in ethernet cables can get distorted, even to the point where bits get corrupted. That has never been in question. However, the result can never be a muffled or unclear sound, because thatâs not a repeatable result when the signal gets treated. As a corollary, changing cables will never, ever, result in a fuller, brighter sound. Either you hear hisses, crackles, pops and silences, or you donât have a problem that can be solved by changing your ethernet cable.
Then people go on to argue that surges in the signal can interfere with the rest of the equipment. That is also technically possible, if very unlikely. The solution however is not to buy expensive cables, but proper equipment. The innards of a DAC should not be affected by the output of an ethernet cable, the same way you donât simply lose a harddrive because its USB cable is not heavily shielded.
The weirdest thing is that most sellers of expensive cables donât actually promise better sound - theyâd get sued if they did. They promise a less compromised signal, without ever arguing whether signals get compromised on a regular basis in other cables. Itâs the reviewers who then write nonsense like this:
" The perceived differences between the Vodka, Diamond, Cinnamon, and Cat. 5 cable are plainly apparent and easy to hear. Iâd sum up these differences as more. You get an increasingly large sound picture as you move up the line, greater differentiation between sonic elements, and a greater sense of clarity."