2. cables
  3. 128927-305

Most Important, Unloved Cable...

Ethernet. I used to say the power cord was the most unloved, but important cable. Now, I update that assessment to the Ethernet cable. Review work forthcoming. 

I can't wait to invite my newer friend who is an engineer who was involved with the construction of Fermilab, the National Accelerator Lab, to hear this! Previously he was an overt mocker; no longer. He decided to try comparing cables and had his mind changed. That's not uncommon, as many of you former skeptics know. :)

I had my biggest doubts about the Ethernet cable. But, I was wrong - SO wrong! I'm so happy I made the decision years ago that I would try things rather than simply flip a coin mentally and decide without experience. It has made all the difference in quality of systems and my enjoyment of them. Reminder; I settled the matter of efficacy of cables years before becoming a reviewer and with my own money, so my enthusiasm for them does not spring from reviewing. Reviewing has allowed me to more fully explore their potential.  

I find fascinating the cognitive dissonance that exists between the skeptical mind in regard to cables and the real world results which can be obtained with them. I'm still shaking my head at this result... profoundly unexpected results way beyond expectation. Anyone who would need an ABX for this should exit the hobby and take up gun shooting, because your hearing would be for crap.  
douglas_schroeder
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Yes, I did forget that one, Geoff. Thanks for pointing that out. But sometimes common sense and technically supportable middle-ground positions seem to get overlooked in disputes between those at opposite extremes of the belief spectrum.

Al, no they don’t get overlooked. Those common things you listed, the ones that are patently true, don’t mean anything. It’s an interesting logical fallacy, though, using obvious truths to try to make it seem like your argument must be true. It's really the old Appeal to Reason logical fallacy in different clothes. My hat’s off to you. Old lawyer trick? 😬 You could employ the same tactics to try to prove almost anything in this hobby. Because such and such is true there must be no audible differences between fuses. Or, because such and such is true there must be audible differences between fuses. They can’t both be true. Let’s call it the logical fallacy of the Appeal to Occam’s razor. 😬 I actually don’t think this is an argument between two extremes. It’s just a typical audiophile argument, subjectivists vs objectivists, that’s all. Same old, same old.
cleeds
6,272 posts
 
jinjuku
I believe the method is scientifically valid and I haven’t seen any material counterpoint to it.
At least three contributors in this thread have explained how your test fails to meet scientific protocol. So either you're not paying attention, or you're just here to argue. 
jinjuku's avatar
jinjuku
226 posts
 
At least three contributors in this thread have explained how your test fails to meet scientific protocol. So either you’re not paying attention, or you’re just here to argue.

Post numbers please.

Let’s say you maintain you can jump 20 feet straight up. If I show up with a tape measure and a bar and offer $2K for you to jump, what is non-scientific about it?

Their sighted evaluation certainly holds no water. So not sure why you would give the credence over a well controlled evaluation rig. 



shadorne's avatar
shadorne
7,491 posts
 
@almarg

You start off with a euphemistic statement

" I agree that sensitivity to ethernet cable differences is a manifestation of less than ideal behavior by the components that are involved."

Come on. Seriously, there is NO advantage to making electronics gear where audio signals are sensitive to various differences between Ethernet cables. There is no semi-ideal behaviour of this sort.

This "Less than ideal behaviour" in the case of high fidelity really means CRAP performance.

We measure crosstalk and channel separation on amplifiers and it is a relatively simple matter to accurately decode, buffer and isolate digital ethernet signals from analog audio. So we should be completely justified to expect that good audio gear should be immune from small changes in Ethernet wiring.

There is NO extreme position in expecting audio gear to perform properly!!!

The extreme position is in making all kinds of excuses for totally inadequate "high fidelity" gear that cost a small fortune and almost certainly should perform better than $250 Best Buy basic gear (which by all accounts does not suffer from "unintended pathways" and change audibly with different Ethernet cables)




almarg's avatar
almarg
9,670 posts
 
Hi Shadorne,


As you know I’ve agreed with many of your posts in the past, that are often very informative, and I always view them with respect even when I disagree. In this case we’ll have to agree to disagree.

When highly experienced audiophiles such as DGarretson, Grannyring, and Bryoncunningham, all of whom have excellent systems as well as exceptionally high credibility in my book, report that changing from one inexpensive ethernet cable to another inexpensive ethernet cable results in significant sonic improvement, IMO a suggestion that they should get rid of one (and perhaps both) of the components that the cable is connecting amounts to an extreme position. And even more so given that there would seem to be no particular basis for confidence that whatever replacement is chosen would be any better in that respect, and might be worse in that or any number of other respects.

Also, regarding ...

... we should be completely justified to expect that good audio gear should be immune from small changes in Ethernet wiring.

... from a design standpoint I’m not sure that what you are saying we should be able to expect is as easily accomplished as you are envisioning. For example, in a post in this thread dated 3-28-2017 I suggested the following experiment to some of the others:

Tune a portable battery powered AM radio to an unused frequency, with the volume control set at a position that you would normally use. Bring it close to an unshielded ethernet cable on your LAN, while the cable is conducting traffic. You may be surprised at what you hear.

When I do that with the unshielded Cat5e cable I have on the LAN in my house, while the cable is **not** conducting any large amount of traffic, I hear increases in static from the radio when it is as far as 2 feet from the cable. Keep in mind that an AM radio is designed to just be sensitive to a narrow (~10 kHz) range of frequencies in the lower part of the RF region (nowhere close to frequencies corresponding to the bit rate of ethernet traffic, much less to the frequency components that constitute the risetimes and falltimes of the signals), and to have a sensitivity measured in microvolts. And for audio we’re dealing with microvolts as well, but without the benefit of the radio’s narrow band filtering. For digital audio if 2 volts corresponds to full scale the least significant bit of a 16 bit word corresponds to about 30 microvolts. And the least significant bit of a 24 bit word corresponds to about 0.1 microvolts! And perhaps more significantly there are jitter effects that will arise as a result of noise whenever D/A conversion is performed, of course. And this experiment just involves radiation of RFI through the air. Not through what would seem likely to potentially be much more significant unintended pathways for digital noise, such as grounds, other wiring, and parasitic capacitances within the components.

Regards,
-- Al

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