Anyone interested in some Ethernet cable evaluation info?

Stephen, you know I value your listening skills.
And also your photographical advices.
They've cost me quite some money already, but my better half thanks you!
 
Huite said:
Thorough shielded (and good) cables everywhere I would say!
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Actually, no, shielding is not good everywhere. Its appropriate for ICs and digital coax cables, but not desirable for other types of cables, most notably speaker cables.

Here is some information from Galen Gareis, who is a professional cable R&D principal design engineer at Belden. From his design brief for Iconoclast cables (manufactured by Belden):
Shield material and design considerations:
"I kept this topic here on purpose. Some may already know that low impedance cables signal levels
negate the need for a shield. And that’s a good thing because a shield over a speaker cable is darn
near ALWAYS a bad thing for two reasons;

1. A shield will always increase capacitance of the cable. The question is how much.
2. To mitigate the capacitance increase, the shield must be moved significantly AWAY from the
core polarities, increasing the size of the cable.

He continues: "Shields are ONLY beneficial if the environment demands them. Shields inhibit the performance of cable in most cases. Coaxial cables being an exception as the shield defines the cable’s natural IMPEDANCE. The ground plane proximity and uniformity are vitally important with short wavelength RF cables. Coaxial cables do just that. Audio is not RF, and these shields are more FUD devices than actual benefits, especially in speaker cables that have signals orders of magnitude over the background noise. Incidentally, the woven pattern in ICONOCLAST has a built-in immunity to RF not that that RF immunity is evident in the use of the cable.

View a SHIELD as a rain coat; great if you have water flying around but a major hindrance if you
don’t. Audio seldom needs shielding on low impedance cables and here is why;

Magnetic fields decay rapidly with distance; ratio of 1/x^3. The best defense is to MOVE the low frequency electromagnetic cables away from one another. The foil and even braid shields are higher frequency shields that are ineffective at much below 1 MHz. Magnetic fields lines need low permeability shield material (something a magnet will stick to) to route flux lines away from sensitive
devices. A faraday cage is an example you can put something into to do this. Low permeability metallic shields are a pain to use (stiff and heavy). DISTANCE is the best remedy. For EMI and RFI, the foil and braid shields used on Interconnect cable will be fine for RFI
ELECTRIC field issues, but NOT 20Hz-20KHz magnetic fields. "

If you're interested in reading the entirety of the design brief, including the equations that underpin Galen's remarks, let me know and I'll add the URL.
 
kiwi_1282001 said:
Yes Puma Cat, so long as the only variable is a change in a single Ethernet cable, I would be most interested to read your findings. This is not "Steve Hoffman forums".
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Hi Kiwi,
That is exactly the only variable that will be changed, a single Ethernet cable (from my downstream FMC to my Sonore microRendu. Look for my notes on the configuration in the introductory/context post
 
aKnyght said:
very interested...

as a baseline, you might add generic cat5e or cat6 (unshielded, twisted pairs) and cat7 (shielded, twisted pairs) cables to the mix. also, comparing these two will tell you about the impact of shielding on this link in your system... there have been some reporting that shielded cables introduced a ground link through the shield which is, obviously, detrimental to SQ.

looking forward to your findings, regardless of the sample set you choose.
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Yep, I can do that; I have some generic Cat 5 and Cat6 cable around here I can plug in. I also have some Belden Cat6e cable, but I am not sure I want to plug it in; the last time I did so, the sound was pretty ghastly. Maybe it needs some burning in...I'll see if I can set something up to burn the Belden over the next week or so...
 
UltraFast69 said:
It would be interesting to hear between the two for audio.

I would never think not to choose shielded Ethernet cables.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
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Depends: I've heard pros and cons from different folks on shielding for Ethernet cables. Just as a general rule, sheilding is not always desirable, and for some applications, not the way to go. See my comments based on Galen Gareis' views above.
 
Tubes said:
When I bought my Lumin streamer, the sales person told me that an ethernet cable is an ethernet cable.

I'd love to know if a better cable would improve the SQ. I haven't tested any myself, but I'm certainly open to the idea of one being better than another.
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Well, respectfully, I don't agree with that sales person. I wish that was the case, actually, because I then wouldn't have to buy an "audiophile-grade" Ethernet cable.

But, it's not.
 
So, as an foundation for this evaluation here is the configuration I am running: Ethernet->Fiber->Ethernet->Streamer config for very specific reasons I won't belabor here.

In my small townhome, a long run of Ethernet to a GigaFoil IV and then Ethernet to my streamer is simply not practical, so my run of optical fiber is ~ 7 meters of Tripp-Lite MMC SC/SC fiber connected by two 850nM TP-Link fiber media convertors (FMCs); this saves on requiring a long run of Ethernet cable, and mitigates/attenuates the problems concomitant with a long run of Ethernet, e.g. EMI, RF, lack of galvanic isolation, etc.

The streamer is presently a Sonore microRendu powered by an Uptone Audio LPS-1 linear power supply which in turn is powered using a Shunyata Venom 14 power cord plugged into a Shunyata Triton distributor. The upstream FMC is powered by a Jameco 9V low noise regulated linear power supply. The downstream FMC (the one that connects to the streamer) is powered by a 9V iFi iPower LPS plugged in my Shunyata Tirton. So, the power going to the Sonore is pretty darn quiet, but not as quiet as it could be with a Keces P3 (Mike and I discussed that on the phone today).

The USB cable going from the Sonore is a Shunyata Alpha USB cable to my Schiit Gungnir Gen 5 USB multibit DAC. The Schiit Gumby is powered with a Shunyata Black Mamba CX PC, also plugged into the Shunyata Triton. Preamp is a Conrad-Johnson CT-5 and power amp is a C-J LP70S, all plugged into the Triton with Shunyata Black Mamba CX (HC/CX for the power amp) or Zitron Cobra PCs. Speakers are Dynaudio Contour S3.4s with Esotar 2 tweeters and Shunyata Venom speaker cables.

So, needless to say, this is a pretty dang quiet, transparent and revealing digital front-end and system, overall. It also sounds very lovely, sweet, natural, analog, and musical in a very nice way. (Note: The Shunyata Alpha USB took this system to another level I simply have not heard on a digital front-end before).

So...that's the system and configuration...
 
Puma Cat said:
Well, respectfully, I don't agree with that sales person. I wish that was the case, actually, because I then wouldn't have to buy an "audiophile-grade" Ethernet cable.

But, it's not.
Click to expand...
The whole ethernet/streaming thing is too new to me for me to have an opinion either way so I'll be anxiously awaiting your results.
 
Tubes said:
The whole ethernet/streaming thing is too new to me for me to have an opinion either way so I'll be anxiously awaiting your results.
Click to expand...

Thanks! Its fairly new to me too, though I have been using my Sonore microRendu since the end of 2016. The BIG improvement came when I moved the Mac Mini music server out of the audio rack and put it at the other end of the house.
 
So, here are the cables I'll be describing: Audioquest Cinnamon, 0.75 M, Wireworld Starlight Cat8 1.5M, and Audioquest Vodka, 0.75M, Supra Cat8 1M, a $7 7M run of Amazon Cat7 cable, and a generic Cat 6 unbranded cable I've had around the house for some years now. The WW Starlight Cat8 and AQ Vodka are rented in from The Cable Company. I own the Audioquest Cinnamon, and bought and installed back at the end of 2016 when I installed the Sonore microRendu. It will serve as my baseline reference point. The Supra Cat8 are new and are being "burned in"; I'll comment on these in a week or so vs. the baseline reference, Cinnamon.

My Audioquest Cinnamon, which is well burned-in is a very nice-sounding Ethernet cable; reasonably spacious, natural and neutral with a hint of warmth in overall character. There's a nicely defined but somewhat smallish soundstage and good but not exceptional imaging. The overall musical presentation is crisp, clean and quiet, and the musical presentation quite natural-sounding, just on the warm side of neutral. The soundstage does not extend past the sides of the speakers. By contrast, the $7 Amazon Cat7 cable I was using before I installed the run of fiber sounds muffled, veiled, closed-in, dark, and most notably, quite rolled off on the top end, giving a very closed-in sounding top end. Cinnamon is more extended on the top end. Cinnamon is not quite as extended or silky as the AQ Vodka (more on that later), but its very similar overall in character and, at $80 for 0.75M, what I consider to be quite a good value for money.
 
Puma Cat said:
Thanks! Its fairly new to me too, though I have been using my Sonore microRendu since the end of 2016. The BIG improvement came when I moved the Mac Mini music server out of the audio rack and put it at the other end of the house.
Click to expand...

Oh god yes, when I had a Audioquest 7000 it kept tripping a relay, pulled it and reinstalled it to my mechanical room - problem solved


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
Puma Cat said:
Actually, no, shielding is not good everywhere. Its appropriate for ICs and digital coax cables, but not desirable for other types of cables, most notably speaker cables.
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[FONT=&quot]I use speaker cables from the British Chord Company. Cables from their top range "Chord Music". [/FONT][FONT=&quot]https://www.chord.co.uk/product/chordmusic-speaker-cable/
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]These cables are shielded in 7 different ways. And believe me, the Chord Company is well-known and my speaker cables sound great. So, as we say over here, there are many ways that can lead you to Rome!
To return to ethernet cables. Here is a short video with Nigel Fynn who is technical director of te Chord Company. At the end he says some interesting things about ethernet cables.[/FONT] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSgL9JlehjM
 
Huite said:
[FONT="]I use speaker cables from the British Chord Company. Cables from their top range "Chord Music". [/FONT][FONT="]https://www.chord.co.uk/product/chordmusic-speaker-cable/
[/FONT][FONT="]These cables are shielded in 7 different ways. And believe me, the Chord Company is well-known and my speaker cables sound great. So, as we say over here, there are many ways that can lead you to Rome!
To return to ethernet cables. Here is a short video with Nigel Fynn who is technical director of te Chord Company. At the end he says some interesting things about ethernet cables.[/FONT] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSgL9JlehjM
Click to expand...

Knowing full well Chord's reputation for making excellent-sounding products, I'm sure they sound great. And thanks for sending the link to the video. I watched the interview with Nigel with interest. In particular, his comment about changing "the spacing between the conductor and the shield" is fully consisent with point that Galen Gareis was making in his design brief for his speaker cables, specifically:

"Magnetic fields decay rapidly with distance; ratio of 1/x^3. The best defense is to MOVE the low frequency electromagnetic cables away from one another. The foil and even braid shields are higher frequency shields that are ineffective at much below 1 MHz. Magnetic fields lines need low permeability shield material (something a magnet will stick to) to route flux lines away from sensitive devices. A faraday cage is an example you can put something into to do this. Low permeability metallic shields are a pain to use (stiff and heavy). DISTANCE is the best remedy."

This is exactly what Nigel said that Chord did with the "Signature Reference".

They increased the spacing between the conductor and the shield because it makes the Chord cable perform and sound better for exactly the reasons that Garies cites above.

Nigel also commented that the new speaker cables are significantly less stiff than the older model, but added, "...relatively speaking.." This is also consistent the Galen's comment that low permeability shields are a pain to use, stiff and heavy.

I'm sure the Chord Signature Reference sound great; Chord is a solid engineering-based audio company with excellent credentials. But, respectfully, I'm not convinced that because Chord does it that it is a cable design paradigm or "central dogma." Digital coax, sure. Speaker cables, no. Personally, I'm an advocate for "fit for purpose" engineering. I don't see an advantage for engineering something just because you can. This is what Howard Hughes got caught up with with the Spruce Goose. And, particularly if it adds unnecessary complexity to a design embodiment, or, most importantly, if it adds undesired effects that then have to be compensated for.

I'll give you example. For years now, Audioquest has been installing Dielectric Bias System (DBS) units to their cables. They actually work, and reduce the time for burn-in. But, as they are battery powered and output 72 volts, it turns out that the DBS units also output RF. So, now, AQ had to modify the DBS units to a new engineering specification to include an "RF trap" to protect the cable from the RF that the DBS field elements themselves put out. :S

*-unrelated side note: Why do almost all audiophile product companies use terms like "Reference, Statement, Signature, Platinum, or Reference Statement or Signature Statement or Reference Signature, etc.? I find it amusing, but I digress.
 
Good evaluation and analysis Steve. Thanks. Try to get a hold of the AQ Diamond and Shunyata Alpha/Sigma Ethernet cables to try. We are having lots of fun comparing those, among others. My two cents: like everything, cables are very system dependent.
 
We are on page 4 of this thread. When does the cable evaluations start?
 
Okay, here are my impressions of WW Starlight Cat8:

WW Starlight Cat8 cable back in the system after the AQ Cinnamon. Its a nice-sounding cable, on the whole, its most notable attribute is that its very quiet, and compared to AQ Cinnamon is that the soundstage on the Wireworld Starlight Cat8 is quite a bit wider than Cinnamon; it extends well past the sides of the speakers; Cinnamon's soundstage does not extend past the sides of the speakers. And, there is more space around each instrument and voice in the stereo image. The overall soundstage is on the two-dimensional side in that its not particularly deep front-to-back. The musical presentation is very neutral, but on the lean, cool side of neutral than the warmish-side of neutral. Vocals and instrumentals are clean and well-defined, but what I would classify as somewhat spare and thin in presentation and body. String bass definition and articulation is excellent, and a just a touch dry and lean. Some sibilants can be somewhat hot and/or bright, depending on the recording.
 
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