Kingsrule
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Listen to different CAT7 cables..they all sound different. Shielding isn't the only thing going on.....
Do Ethernet cables Make a Difference
- Thread starter Mechnutt
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Listen to different CAT7 cables..they all sound different. Shielding isn't the only thing going on.....
Kingsrule
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A big +1 here
I need to see the measurements, the data and the double blind studies! Just listening? Rubbish! Where’s the science man!
(Joking of course). [emoji14]
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Speedskater
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If it were just listening, then everything would be great!
The problem is, nobody wants to just listen.
asindc
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This reminds me of the “USB cables don’t make a difference” dust ups that have been taking place all over the interwebs the past few years. You now even have some people saying USB cables make a difference but Ethernet cables don’t, some saying Ethernet cables make a difference but USB cables don’t, and some saying no digital cables make a difference but swear by analog cables. My ears laugh in amusement.
jerbil
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My buddy brought over a few ethernet cables from his shootout to test on my system as a sanity check to what he was finding - and yeah, the SOtM dBL CAT 7 LAN Cable was our favorite. It's a huge outlay considering it's MSRP, and especially since we found it worked best in combination with the ISO-CAT6 noise filter. We were floored and I couldn't resist getting a pair for myself afterwards. The generic amazon cables I had before had some harshness there that I thought was attributed to other things up until then.
The Supra CAT8's were a nice value at $50 / pop, but the SOtM was the cost is no issue result.
You can read more details at: https://audiobacon.net/category/reviews/cables/digital/ethernet/
The Supra CAT8's were a nice value at $50 / pop, but the SOtM was the cost is no issue result.
You can read more details at: https://audiobacon.net/category/reviews/cables/digital/ethernet/
mep
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This makes absolutely no sense to me. Are you saying the cheapest cable from one company sounds just like the most expensive cable from another company?
Well, I hope that engineers know what is going on because they are the ones designing the circuits you are trying to tweak. In most cases, real engineers design our circuits and tweakers usually butcher them with kludged on parts that don't fit and lifted circuit traces off the CCAs because they have no knowledge or soldering/desoldering skills.
I'm not sure I understand your point here. Do you mean if the claims made for some tweaks were actually true it would turn the scientific community upside down? I would agree with that and we can start with "grounding" boxes that aren't really connected to anything except people's imaginations.
So where is this guy?
octadyndude
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I personally haven't tried Ethernet cables yet but until about a year I started playing with digital cables. Come on it's only 1's and 0's. Holy Moly do they make a difference.
and you have performed DBT to prove this ?
Jim Smith
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octadyndude
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Your ears should be the judge not specs
BlueFox
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This is an interesting subject for me. I am deliberately avoiding this issue by using a direct attached USB drive to my Lumin. From a hypothetical perspective, I can easily imagine scenarios where an Ethernet cable can make a +/- difference to the sound. I suspect that what works in one system might not make any difference in another system.
Kuoppis
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I find this an interesting one too. Theoretically an Ethernet link is a data connection with IP error correction. So one could think the cable does not matter much. But when you try it out, it very obviously does. I would guess the difference is due to the nature of the signal.
As IP error correction was developed for data transfer, it just makes sure all parts of the signal arrive. What is not important in that protocol is which bit arrives first and which one second (talking milliseconds here). If we now switch to a music signal this tiny difference is all that matters: for music time alignment is key (did someone just say MQA?).
My conclusion is that a better quality Ethernet cable just transmits the signal with less need for error correction and hence less time alignment issues. That’s why it sounds better.
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As IP error correction was developed for data transfer, it just makes sure all parts of the signal arrive. What is not important in that protocol is which bit arrives first and which one second (talking milliseconds here). If we now switch to a music signal this tiny difference is all that matters: for music time alignment is key (did someone just say MQA?).
My conclusion is that a better quality Ethernet cable just transmits the signal with less need for error correction and hence less time alignment issues. That’s why it sounds better.
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Ethernet cables can make a difference. I don't think there is any scientific proof why they do but could probably be due to the fact how the noise profile/leakage is carried or filtered from the upstream are influenced into the component. The change in sound (good or better) is NOT due to anything related to networking - the network just acts like a transport to carry these noise profiles. My belief is if there is a way to stop these noise and leakage current, then Ethernet cables will possibly not make a difference.
I now have a simple home brewed sever setup that don't need streaming and is far less dependent on networking entities - it runs Rock with local drives (SSD) and connected directly to the DAC using audiograde USB PCIe card. Ethernet is just used for management duties where its connected to a switch (powered by LPS). Ethernet cable is cheap $10 BJC CAT 6A.
I now have a simple home brewed sever setup that don't need streaming and is far less dependent on networking entities - it runs Rock with local drives (SSD) and connected directly to the DAC using audiograde USB PCIe card. Ethernet is just used for management duties where its connected to a switch (powered by LPS). Ethernet cable is cheap $10 BJC CAT 6A.
There is no IP correction done. Its done in the TCP layer (which is layer 4 is OSI network model). A typical client and server, like Tidal and its endpoint (streamer, dac etc), works with these TCP/IP protocols. Any packet errors introduced in a far remote server passing 1000s of routers in between to reach you home cannot be corrected by AQ Diamond Ethernet cable
Kuoppis
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There is no IP correction done. Its done in the TCP layer (which is layer 4 is OSI network model). A typical client and server, like Tidal and its endpoint (streamer, dac etc), works with these TCP/IP protocols. Any packet errors introduced in a far remote server passing 1000s of routers in between to reach you home cannot be corrected by AQ Diamond Ethernet cable
Sir, now you need to read a book.
Error correction is and cannot be done by the cable, ever. It is part of the TCP/IP protocol which is an element of any Ethernet connection.
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Don't need a book
Did not say cable can correct error. There is only IP checksum but there is no correction. The path in which networking packets gets transmitted from A to B is determined by routing protocols, such as BGP, OSPF. Between two endpoints A(Tidal server) and B(Tidal app), packets can be transmitted form more than one path. When packets gets lost in transmission, they are re-transmitted by some transport layer (layer 4) protocols (not all), like TCP since the protocols uses Sequence no and ACK no to track them and that is why its sometime called a reliable protocol. Other transport layer, like UDP, there is no guarantee. Roon RAAT protocol started as UDP and shifted to TCP sometime in 2017.
TCP/IP can be carried over variety of MAC/Physical. Ethernet is just one of them and commonly used in home networks. Your Tidal packets originating in a Tidal server may not be carried over Ethernet till it enters your home after a modem. That is why Audiophile Ethernet cables cannot have any effect of the networking aspect of the data - whatever SQ improvement is happening with Ethernet cable is local to one's audio setup and its electrical characteristics and not related to networking (I think).
Kuoppis
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This is obviously not your area of specialty, so why argue? It is rather simple if you actually know what you are talking about, but you are confusing so many things, it is hard to even try to respond.
If you read the postings, this thread and myself as well are talking in particular about a local Ethernet connection to a music system. This has absolutely nothing to do with Tidal servers and where the signal originates from.
By their nature, and in difference to analog signals, digital signals are always on or off (1s and 0s remember). While an analog signal can be strong or weak, that does not exist in digital. Reason is that the amplitude and wave length of the signal are much shorter, which results in lower signal fault tolerances.
So, using an Ethernet connection the signal is transported via TCP/IP which is relying on error correction to ensure all data packets arrive on the other end. Hence, there always is either a full connection or no connection. If not all bits are transmitted in a data packet, that data packet is rejected (not transmitted). But there are really many of these data packets in a music stream, remember 44.1K per second in a red book quality stream such as Tidal Hi-Fi. Those are so many, that if a few packets are rejected we cannot hear it. When the rejections are increasing we start to have artifacts, i.e. disturbances that can be heard or seen (e.g. video signal). When there are too many artifacts the result to the end-user’s ear is a so-called drop out, no signal is transmitted over a longer period of time (e.g. 500 ms).
To make it more complex, a digital signal can be transmitted in many ways. If you are connecting via USB the digital stream is actually transmitted as a digital audio signal instead of IP data. Correspondingly, sound quality is impacted more directly by cable quality in the USB connection. One reason many Sharks have been reporting best sound quality when connecting their DAC via Ethernet (also a source of the sound quality advantage of Linn streamers in the past) is that there is error correction in the signal. You might not receive all packets, but what you receive is bit perfect.
I said read a book, because this really is signaling 101. It is just difficult to argue when someone is relying on Wikipedia as their knowledge base.
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If you read the postings, this thread and myself as well are talking in particular about a local Ethernet connection to a music system. This has absolutely nothing to do with Tidal servers and where the signal originates from.
By their nature, and in difference to analog signals, digital signals are always on or off (1s and 0s remember). While an analog signal can be strong or weak, that does not exist in digital. Reason is that the amplitude and wave length of the signal are much shorter, which results in lower signal fault tolerances.
So, using an Ethernet connection the signal is transported via TCP/IP which is relying on error correction to ensure all data packets arrive on the other end. Hence, there always is either a full connection or no connection. If not all bits are transmitted in a data packet, that data packet is rejected (not transmitted). But there are really many of these data packets in a music stream, remember 44.1K per second in a red book quality stream such as Tidal Hi-Fi. Those are so many, that if a few packets are rejected we cannot hear it. When the rejections are increasing we start to have artifacts, i.e. disturbances that can be heard or seen (e.g. video signal). When there are too many artifacts the result to the end-user’s ear is a so-called drop out, no signal is transmitted over a longer period of time (e.g. 500 ms).
To make it more complex, a digital signal can be transmitted in many ways. If you are connecting via USB the digital stream is actually transmitted as a digital audio signal instead of IP data. Correspondingly, sound quality is impacted more directly by cable quality in the USB connection. One reason many Sharks have been reporting best sound quality when connecting their DAC via Ethernet (also a source of the sound quality advantage of Linn streamers in the past) is that there is error correction in the signal. You might not receive all packets, but what you receive is bit perfect.
I said read a book, because this really is signaling 101. It is just difficult to argue when someone is relying on Wikipedia as their knowledge base.
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