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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
jinjuku's avatar
jinjuku
226 posts
 
I have a question regarding Ethernet cables, aside of what all of you are discussing. My cable has to be about 50’ from my computer to my pre pro or DAC. does the length of the cable effect the sound quality?, ( as in HDMI too long is not inherently good)
The standard is 100 meters/328 feet. A solid PHY can drive it ~380 feet with out BER starting to show up.

That’s for 1GBe (~110 MB/s or 1 CD every 7 seconds). Crusty old CAT5e is good for 10GBe at 37 meters with a lot of switches (~1250 MBs/ or 1.7 CD’s every second).

In my testing of 315 foot generic CAT5e (Hypertek) at $.30 a foot and a 3 foot Nordost Heimdall II at $233 a foot (so 7000% more expensive) on a both a server/client computer to USB DAC and server computer to $4000 Cary Audio DMS-500. No one when blinded could tell a difference.

When I recently went out to WGUTZ in Denver and he listened blind he only hit 60%. So basically a coin flip. Otherwise he was positive of differences. The generic cable was a 100 foot $13 flat ribbon style from Amazon. His was ~20 foot custom, cryo treated, with Siemons industrial terminations.
Ag insider logo xs@2x
knownothing
1,578 posts
 
So what do you make of this interview, taken from another thread, in the context of the current discussion?

http://www.davidgilmour.com/press/2005/march/TapeOp_March05.pdf

It is a rather long but good read on a number of levels.

Seems the studio manager and engineers are convinced they hear differences related to different signal, digital (even the most important, unloved one) and power cables, different cable orientations and swear by good power conditioning. They apparently determined this through careful listening and experimentation, and it guided decisions on significant investments by the studio owner.

Here is a short video of the same studio space with the owner.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UqP32CeQuUw

Thanks to @maplegrovemusic and @shadorne for bringing these links to my attention.

kn


jinjuku's avatar
jinjuku
226 posts
 
Any of them doing this with Ethernet? You know that is THE topic at hand.
mclinnguy's avatar
mclinnguy
445 posts
 

As a result of all the excellent recommendations for audiophile ethernet cables in this thread, especially those from jinjuku, I have settled on the SOtM dCBL-CAT7.

Here's to having more square and less rounded off 1's and 0's.

Thank you everybody contributions to this thread 😉

 

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