Goodbye Sonos, hello ????

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.

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

Good point :-)

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.

Like audio cables, just trust your ears and don't think too hard. Well, that's what I do when dealing in this stupid hobby.

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'm not surprise. The operation has changed to asychronize. With whole track in memory, DAC just process data in memory and doesn't care if the data was loaded from the cloud, computer, transport with Home Depot PC ...

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.

This is similar to what Adobe flash player does. It wants to buffer enough data so when plays begin to avoid interruptions.

Next time you talk to damien, ask if he tried loading whole disc in memory before play and compare sound quality. Only down side is lag time before play begins. He can make it an option to load track or whole disc before play.

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:-)

You'll probably correct so buy the less expensive AQ Forest. Everything is system dependent. In my system, this is one of the best ROI tweaks. I have to check out Audirvana next so thanks for the tip.

Properly installed cat5e or cat6 should be more than sufficient for streaming audio on a local network. Cat5e *properly installed* is rated for gigabit speed. Cat5e, slightly sub-optimal, should get you 100 megabit, which should also be good enough for streaming audio without buffering issues.

Knghifi - Audirvana pre-fetches the next track whilst the current track is playing, based on what is selected as the next track.

Which track is next depends on the order the listener has selected - e.g. by album, genre, artist,composer, or whatever is in the stream from an internet radio station. I can go through my entire collection automatically if desired :-)

In my system playback sequence is controlled by iTunes. Audirvana simply deals with playback and simultaneous retrieval of the next track - simple, elegant and very effective and no dropouts due to networking issues.

There is a very small lag (1-2 seconds) on the very first track in a newly selected sequence - e.g. selecting a new album , playlist, genre, etc, while the very first track is loaded into memory, but after that everything plays with only the user defined inter-track delay.

So there is really no need to load an entire album, which on some systems might prove to be detrimental.

Still going to get the cat7 though - if it only makes my network more efficient I'll be happy - getting better sound - that would be the icing on the cake!

:-)

Kriskdf - on paper, cat5/6 should suffice, but once the real world kicks in there can be many factors, such as noisy environments, poorly installed connectors, noise from the WWW and quite often these days - crappy quality network cable, that can effect performance.

Cable ratings are supposed to protect against crappy cable, but there are so many cables out there from less than reputable manufacturers, that would fail the test they are supposedly rated at.

Purchasing quality cables goes a long way to ensuring the rated throughput is attained, but I think stepping up to cat7 as well will "future-proof" my system.

For a little while at least :-)