As I mentioned earlier, this thread is not about debating whether ethernet cables, or any other cables for that matter, are effective or not. I don’t necessarily disagree with the explanations provided above, but I’ve also learned that there are things we just don’t know how to measure or account for yet. I was a power cord and speaker cable denier for the longest time. One day, I actually tried - yeah, imagine the audacity of actually trying something, a nice speaker cable and haven’t looked back since then. The same ’zeroes are zeroes and ones are ones’ arguments are thrown around when describing DACs, and therefore a $200 DAC is no better than a $5k one. But of course, people who actually have heard the better DACs in appropriately high end systems can tell the difference. But that has never stopped the naysayers.
If we were to follow the ASR type of reasoning based solely on measurements, we could argue that there was absolutely no sound on earth before we developed the ability to measure it. People only communicated using hand gestures. That’s obviously not true. Just because we can’t meausure something doesn’t necessarily imply a lack of existence.
Secondly, we ran an experiment at a friend’s house using different ethernet cables and both of us were able to discern a difference. It was subtle but noticeable. Now you can argue it was implicit bias at work ... so what? It’s a hobby, not a science project for most of us. We're not solving world hunger or curing cancer here. If WE can hear a difference, whether measurable or not, whether perceived or real, that’s all that matters.