Goodbye Sonos, hello ????

Had a chance to think about LAN cables and where a quality cable might make a difference....

Basically, anything connected to a router/computer is subject to sending data that is checked for data errors - if an error is detected the data is re-sent until it is correct - that's the way computers ensure that a vital bit is not dropped, which might cause a spreadsheet to display incorrect numbers.

The only place that data is not verified is in the link between the streaming device and the DAC - that's where I found good cables definately make a difference.

HOWEVER - there would be a case for good quality LAN cables if you are experiencing breaks in your music, which might be an indication that the error rate in your network is severe enough that the re-transmission of data causes a time lag that is long enough to interfere with the reconstruction of the audio signal.

If your streaming device does not have sufficient buffering capability then bad cables will certainly highlight the problem with more frequent breaks in the audio signal.

Vicadamone - thanks for the link - I think this is worth investigating, if only to see if it makes my NAS drive will respond quicker.

Williewonka, my AQ Cinnamon ethernet cables have ~24 hrs and the improvement is DRAMATIC over generic cable. I took MF advice and bought middle grade. It cost me < $300 for 3 cables from Audio Advisor so very inexpensive experiment. :-):-)

Kgnhifi - do you happen to know the rating of both new and old cables?

Are the old ones cat5 or cat6

Alternately what is the tested bandwidth of both old and new cables

Knowing this will help me determine the kind of improvement I might be able to attain.

Also - what software/hardware are you using to stream to the dac

Many thanks

Vicdamone, Thanks for the tip.

Williewonka, old are Cat5. New according to AQ website, Cat7, 300 MHz??. There's enough bandwidth in Cat5 100 MHz so don't think bandwidth is why AQ is superior. I'm only running AQ from router to DAC.

My setup is very very simple. Music store internal hard drive. Running PS Audio or Logitech Media Server (can never get JRiver to sound good on my machines) on my computer. Use Lyric app on iphone for control.

I have a modest level system but high enough resolution where I can easily detect direction of a fuse. Every parameter improved, detail, resolution ... but most obvious is 3D, better separation between images in soundstage where I'm hearing new things in familiar recordings, some hi-rez no longer sound light weight ... just PRAT.

I had whole family over last night and they couldn't believe all I changed was a stupid Ethernet cable.

I don't know your system but only way to know is to HEAR it in your system.

For an audiophile, removing anything from Home Depot is always a good thing. LOL!!!

Knghifi - not everything - I've found Home Depot MDF is good for shelves :-)

It would be nice to now how the various streaming devices actually stream data, then the impact of good network cables would be easier to assess.

For instance, when I was using the Apple TV to stream it seemed anything I tried improved the sonic quality - even upgrading the power cord to a Furutech on the Apple TV made a real sonic improvement.

Since switching to the iMac and Audirvana Plus, which loads the entire track into memory, I found that having the same Furutech power cable on the iMac did not make any difference to sonic quality once I removed it.

I received an email from Damien of Audirvana and he says, for streaming content directly from the web e.g. radio, it loads several seconds of a track before it starts playing and by the time that 5 seconds has finished playing the rest of the track has been buffered in computer memory - and by the time that track has finished playing the next track is buffered and ready to play - and so on.

He also believes cat5e will suffice for most music when using Audirvana.

So I am thinking that since Audirvana buffers so much data, upgrading network cables might not be as beneficial in my setup as it is in your own.

But since the upgrade to cat7 is relatively inexpensive and the fact I will have to do it at some point in time - I'll give it a whirl - what the heck:-)

Will keep you posted.