Which Ethernet cable?

Tinkering
1

Hi all,

I have stopped storing my music on a spinning drive connected to my NUC (Win 10 Core) and the music is now stored directly onto my NAS. I am just moving some kit around and I have a few different choices of Audioquest cables at home both the pearl and cinnaman network cables. I assume I should be connecting my NAS, which has the music, with the better quality cable? e.g. the cinnaman cable.

Thanks

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We’ve favoured the AudioQuest Cinnamon cable when it comes to all USB and ethernet interconnects, offering what we see as the point before diminishing returns kick into overdrive. For longer lengths, we buy in reels of Meridian CAT7 cable which is a very close second to Cinnamon which we terminate to required lengths.

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Cinnamon made 0 difference to my Belden Blue Jeans
network cable at 10x less outlay in my system. Don’t be fooled by these overpriced cables and buy a decent certified network cable.

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First advice is use whatever cable you already have that works. Any to spec UTP Ethernet cable will do the job. It’s unlikely you’d need more than cat 5 but that depends on your network kit, e.g. switch, NAS, and if you have bandwidth requirements beyond Room, e.g. 4K streaming…

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Thanks for the replies. I already have both the audioquest pearl and cinnamon cables to hand. I suppose I want to put the ‘best’ cable in the place where the music is streaming from. I assume its from the NAS rather than the NUC Core, but this is a guess on my part.

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Ahh, this again needs a little more context. If you’re playing to network endpoints and music is you’re only/primary concern I’d argue that NUC to network is more important. If the files on your NAS are compressed FLAC for example then the stream from the NUC to network will likely be the most important. It’s also got to handle two way traffic, from NAS plus to network…

BTW the thread title is USB and I’m talking LAN cable. I assumed LAN as you’re talking NAS but the details are a little vague. If it is LAN and both cables are to spec UTP then you’ll be fine.

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Hi @killdozer - my mistake on the USB title, I think my brain let me down there!

Yes, I am streaming out across an ethernet network to multiple endpoints and the vast majority of files on the NAS are FLAC. I am also using HQ Player on the NUC too. Looks like I need to swap the cables over!

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Sounds like you’ve made your mind up @tahsu, ethernet’s a well established and reliable technology. If your upsampling in HQPlayer then that’s more traffic coming from the NUC. Enjoy…