Are my CAT5 and router my weak link?


I have paid a lot of money for my PS Audio PW DAC II with the bridge....as well as all of my interconnects, power cords and speaker cables. After all that, I have an inexpensive (relative to my system) wireless router that connects my computer to the PW DAC and CAT6 cables that are not too special. Are those components letting the signal come through fully? I am curious what others may have done.

Thanks
Jeff
jeffatus
I am jumping ship when CAT10 hits the market. Meanwhile, am am sorting out the directionality of my fuses.
08-07-12: Sgr
...I saw CAT 7 on Amazon. I tried a piece or two. Drat it sounded better.
This comment made me buy some CAT 7. Today I changed the 50 foot run between my computer and my ethernet switch. I replaced shielded CAT 6 with CAT 7.

To begin with, it improved my internet speed by about 3Mbps. Theory? Maybe...

Better shielding = less RFI/EMI = fewer errors = fewer resends = faster speed.

Also, it sounds better. More resolution. More relaxed at high volume. Too audible to be placebo, IMO. Maybe...

Better shielding = less RFI/EMI = ??? = less jitter.

Don't know what "???" is.

Bryon
???=less digital cable and system noise since they both produce jitter. Also less analog cables pickup. One thing to remember is that speed of Ethernet cable directly doesn't effect anything since data has no timing. Effect is indirect by radiating noise.
Thanks for the responses so far. It has made for interesting reading. I have my computer hard drive connected to the router via cat6 cable, non shielded. That run is about 10 feet. Then I have a 50 foot run, cat6 unshielded, from the router to the DAC.

It sounds like a relatively inexpensive experiment to try the shielded runs, but what about the router? I just keep thinking about all of the money I have spent for high end gear and their fancy connectors, etc. and want to know if a $120 router will be my weak link.

Thanks!
Jeff
I just keep thinking about all of the money I have spent for high end gear and their fancy connectors, etc. and want to know if a $120 router will be my weak link.
I doubt it. The physical separation between the router and the system would seem to make it very unlikely that RFI generated by the router would have any audible effects on the system. It is conceivable to me that differences in the risetimes and falltimes of the signals generated by different routers could result in VERY minor differences in noise conditions within the DAC, but I doubt that those differences would have audible consequences. Even if they did, there would be no reason to expect a more expensive router to necessarily be better in that respect, and it very conceivably could be worse.

Regards,
-- Al