Most Important, Unloved Cable...

Sorry, everyone is entitled to their preferences here. What’s "bonkers" is denying them that.

There is a difference between preference and potential self delusion. The primary problem is ascribing realtime flowery prose to non-real time systems. 

I’ve never suggested a "sighted evaluation." I’ve suggested that if you seek a scientific test, you should follow established scientific protocols for conducting the test. Instead, you’ve proposed a convoluted "test" of your own design with multiple variables that isn’t scientific and isn’t double-blind.

1. I never said, or didn't say that the method is scientifically rigorous. That's for the naysayers to point out the pitfalls. The claims are simple and the testing method is simple. I've yet to see anyone actually point out a real fault with it. If you say you can jump 20 feet straight up, I don't have to contact the Psychology department, the Math department, the Physics department, at University just so I can show up with a tape measure and a bar.  

2. Get off the Double Blind wagon. Not all tests that control sighted bias are double blind. The Pepsi taste challenge is one such, so is Penn and Tellers 'Organic Food' experiment. Now you can go the the YouTube comments and argue about the 'Scientific Validity' the 'Not Double Blindedness' of it all you want. People in general have pretty good BS meters and will see you are just being an apologist for the poor saps that are so easily hoodwinked. 

What are the convolutions of my test and what are 'all the variables'? In the testing with a L3 Managed Switch there are only two variables: The boutique cable and the garden variety cable. Everything else is the claimants own setup. They even get to experiment with swapping out cabling and evaluating fully sighted. I'm also going to bring along a much longer cable then they are most likely currently using. How about 400% longer? So if they have a 2 meter cable, I'll, right in front of them, construct an 8 meter cable?

In what way am I being unfair? In what way am I being convoluted? In what way am I introducing too many variables? 

There’s the problem! Buy declaring it "data cabling" you’re completely ignoring the fact that the actual signal is the same as any other signal through wire or cable. It’s an electromagnetic wave that obeys the same laws of physics as any other signal, whether the signal contains data or music or doodlebugs. This is all starting to look like the same old bits is bits argument we’ve heard so much about over the past what, 35 years?

Not ignoring it at all. Since you brought it up: How is one cable with 4 pair of copper going into the Ethernet port of a device going to deviate from the laws of physics vs another cable with 4 pair of copper? 

We are talking multiple copy stack. Two buffers on the NIC, Then PCIe Bus, then RAM set aside by OS, then RAM set aside by the player application, Then more RAM set aside by the USB bus, then buffer in the DAC itself. 

These are all Clock Domain boundaries because the timing is different for each of these sub systems. The data has most likely been copied 6-8 times in transit and it's not real time.

How come no one will answer this simple question:

When playing back audio and you pull the Ethernet cable, and of course it will still play back (with most systems) for a few seconds, DOES THE SOUND IMPROVE? It's really a simple question and yet for some reason...

If the cables are copper they are directional. All bets are off. 

If the cables are copper they are directional. All bets are off.

How come no one will answer this simple question:

When playing back audio and you pull the Ethernet cable, and of course it will still play back (with most systems) for a few seconds, DOES THE SOUND IMPROVE? It's really a simple question and yet for some reason...

When playing back audio and you pull the Ethernet cable, and of course it will still play back (with most systems) for a few seconds, DOES THE SOUND IMPROVE? It’s really a simple question and yet for some reason...

I don’t have an ethernet connection in my audio system, so I can’t answer that based on experience. However, assuming (as I do) that the several highly experienced and widely respected audiophiles who have reported realizing significant sonic benefits by changing from one inexpensive ethernet cable to a different inexpensive ethernet cable are correct, and if the explanation of those benefits that I hypothesized in my post in this thread dated 3-27-2017 is correct, the sound may or may not improve depending on the specific system.

As you will realize in reading that post, and if my hypothesis is correct, whether or not the sound improves would depend on the path(s) by which, and the degree to which, electrical noise and/or RFI from the signals in the cable reach and affect downstream circuit points that are ostensibly unrelated to the ethernet interface. It would also depend on how the content of the signal sent into the cable by the source component changes when the cable is disconnected, as a result of that component having nothing to talk to at the other end.

While what I stated in my 3-27-2017 post is only a hypothesis, as an EE experienced in the design of high speed digital circuits that operate in close proximity to sensitive analog circuits and D/A converter circuits it is the only means I can envision that would account for the reported differences. And I don’t think that most of those who have similar circuit design experience and are also reasonably open minded would rule out the possibility I have stated.

Regards,
-- Al