Ethernet Cables in for evaluation

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Puma Cat, May 17, 2019.

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  1. jupiterboy

    jupiterboy Forum Residue

    Location:
    Buffalo, NY
    Thermal?
    Thermal might be the first line of inquiry in this regard.
     
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  2. TheVinylAddict

    TheVinylAddict Look what I found

    Location:
    AZ
    You paid $69 for 3m of ethernet cables? :wtf:

    Wait....... didn't I just see you on the Power cable thread, pumping overpriced power cables too............yeah, I get it now........ never mind.
     
  3. Puma Cat

    Puma Cat Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    East Bay, CA
    I would recommend you consider including the new Shunyata Venom Ethernet cable in your evaluation. When I evaluated it with the other cables I evaluated in this thread, it was clearly superior to all of them, and by a considerable margin.
     
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  4. Puma Cat

    Puma Cat Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    East Bay, CA
    There is (much) more to it than that, Dean. With all due respect, your comments are speeaking about this functionality as if were an IT application, and it is not an IT application. Its an audio application, and quality of the analog square waves that actually comprise "digital signals" and timing matter, and in a big way, in audio applications. Everyone is missing the fact that a data bitstream is not the same as a continuous music file bitstream. Data applications are not susceptible to EMI, RFI, and lack of galvanic isolation. They are not impacted by dropped packets, square-wave distortion, and clock phase noise. Additionally, the SMPS from music servers, routers, switches, etc. cause low-impedance and high-impedance AC leakage currents that impact the analog square-waves that comprise a music file bitstream. These also cause ground loops and a "smearing" of the analog square-wave "fingerprint" as well as increasing jitter and...last but not least, increased clock phase noise. Additionally, Ethernet cables are very susceptible to "common mode" noise from cell phones, Wifi extenders, tablets, computers, home smart devices; all of this has an impact on Ethernet cable audio quality. If you were here at my home you could very clearly hear the impact of the CN noise filter that the Shunyata Alpha Ethernet cable has on lowering the noise floor over that of the other cables I evaluated, and the even greater degree of noise floor lowering that the two CN filters on the Shunayta Sigma has on the presentation. It doesn't take magic ears to hear this degree of improvement.

    There is also the impact of parasitic noise, and the sh*tty clocks that are in consumer-grade routers/switches/NAS are also a deleterious impact on audio quality.

    With respect to continuing to take this original discussion off-topic (which, let's be honest, is still what is going on here...) I would recommend you take up your points with John Swenson, who is working with both Sonore and Uptone Audio on a audio-grade Ethernet switch. John has over 35 years professional EE experience in this area working for Broadcom and Cisco and his designs for the Sonore OpticalModule and now the EtherREGEN are intended to deal with just some of the problems I've listed above. Just head over to the Uptone Audio forum at Audiophile Style and you can read John's lengthy and informative articles on this for yourself.

    Kevin Deal also has a pretty good introductory level article on this at Upscale Audio: Why the “Bits is Bits” Argument Utterly Misses the Point
     
    Last edited: Aug 7, 2019
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  5. Josquin des Prez

    Josquin des Prez I have spoken!

    Location:
    U.S.
    Did you see my previous post? I tried your favorite Supra Cat8 cable in my system for a month, and I hear no difference between it and a $20 BJ cable. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. Neither are better in any way. And it's not like I don't have a highly resolving system and digital front end to it. I do hear differences in analog cables and other system improvements (like isolation), so it's not as if I'm impaired either.
     
  6. Puma Cat

    Puma Cat Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    East Bay, CA
    Yes, I read it. And the Supra Cat8 is not my favorite cable. The Shunyata Ethernet cables are, and by a wide margin...none of the other Ethernet cables I tried were even in the same zip code.

    If you don't hear differences in Ethernet cables in your system, then you'll have funds to put towards other discretionary audio purchases.
     
  7. vinnn

    vinnn Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    Being a professional in the technical side of operating systems, networks, software and data systems for the past 20-ish years this is hilarious... and absolute nonsense. Total word salad :biglaugh:

    DACs are important yes and the analogue stage of DACs particularly so. How data is read and prefetched to system memory before it is processed by the decoder is irrelevant.
     
    Last edited: Aug 7, 2019
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  8. drumandguitar

    drumandguitar Forum Resident

    Location:
    Birkenhead UK
    I wonder if it's the additional reverb from his now empty wallet that he is hearing that are making these 'huge' changes to his system.
     
  9. Puma Cat

    Puma Cat Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    East Bay, CA
    Its got nothing to do with IT applications. Its an audio application; the functional requirements are different.

    You can discuss it with John Swenson at Uptone. He's written at length about it....
     
  10. Josquin des Prez

    Josquin des Prez I have spoken!

    Location:
    U.S.
    Sorry, I thought I read you were loving the Supra Cat8. My bad.

    Anyway, I guess for you if it sounds better it is better, but your truth is not my truth.

    Score!
     
  11. Puma Cat

    Puma Cat Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    East Bay, CA
    That was before the newly released Shunayata Ethernet cables arrived. And, the cables with the CN (common mode noise) filter are really good.

    Common mode noise typically occurs from devices like cell phones, iPads, video doorbells, high-bandwidth CPUs and GPUs, etc, etc. In other words, all the stuff we have so much of in our homes these days, and has notable effects on digital signal tranmission. It causes, among other things, ground loops on both legs (positive and negative) of a circuit (which is why it is referred to as "common" noise), and thus, is insidious in the impact it has on signal transmission, particularly digital signal transmission.

    From Wikipedia:
    "Common mode noise is noise in which a noise current that has leaked via a stray capacitance or the like passes through ground and returns to the power supply line. It is called "common mode" noise because the direction of the noise currents on the positive (+) and the negative (-) sides of the power supply have the same direction. A noise voltage does not appear across the power supply lines.

    As explained above, these types of noise are conducted emissions. However, noise currents are flowing in power supply lines, and so noise is radiated."


    Here is a diagram distinguishing common mode from differential mode noise:
    [​IMG]
     
  12. rich100

    rich100 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Middle of England
    Crikey, people spouting that ethernet cables affect audio quality are completely ignorant of what ethernet actually is and how it works, its simply a reliable method of passing data that has already been encoded at the session layers and passed down to ethernet. If the devices/software at either end can't provide QOS suitable for your application that's another problem, but the cable won't be it over such a short run unless you made your cables of spaghetti. The data packet is a completely different beast to audio signals. Next they'll be saying enabling jumbo frames makes it louder.
     
  13. rich100

    rich100 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Middle of England
    That article seems to completely disregard the send/receive mechanisms of ethernet, ethernet is not pushing digital data directly into a dac, something in that dac/NIC is having to unpack the data packet before it gets delivered, its not a digital audio signal, its a data packet. There are network systems that deliver data measured with latency in terms of nano seconds, I doubt they spec esoteric cables as guess what, it uses the dirty internet where its beyond control, its all about the software/hardware config at either end of the pipe.

    Anyway the article seems to be trying to push the same concepts of digital coax/spdif onto ethernet, not the same at all. If a packet drops out, I suspect you'd hear a damn site more than a slight bit of noise, more like complete drop outs with choppy sounds.
     
  14. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    But the data throughput capabilities of digital cables are *far* in excess of any music source feed. What is there in the data handling requirements that aren't already catered for, and exceeded?
     
  15. Josquin des Prez

    Josquin des Prez I have spoken!

    Location:
    U.S.
    No, it's just a data application. There is no audio transmitted on your ethernet cable.
     
  16. Puma Cat

    Puma Cat Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    East Bay, CA
    No, its not just a data application.

    The audio "signal" is in the form of analog square waves.

    The impact on timing, the jitter, the impact of low-impedance and high-impedance leakage currents, and the clock phase noise on these analog square waves are audible. As are the impact of EMI, RFI and lack of galvanic isolation. If the latter did not matter, I would not have heard the significant improvements I did when I installed optical fiber in place of copper Ethernet.

    Power cables don't carry "audio signals" as well, but the benefits they provide are well-established, particularly with respect to their ability to deliver dynamic transient current delivery, and to attenuate noise, including parasitic noise. An interface doesn't have to carry "signal" to have an audible impact on an audio system's performance.
     
    Last edited: Aug 7, 2019
  17. How much EMI and RFI are you experiencing at your house to cause this much interference in standard Ethernet cables? Must be like a war zone there.
     
  18. Puma Cat

    Puma Cat Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    East Bay, CA
    Want to find out how much you have in your home? Just download the free EM Detector app for your iPhone. You can find out for yourself.
     
  19. Josquin des Prez

    Josquin des Prez I have spoken!

    Location:
    U.S.
    I also switched from copper to fiber, but to get faster internet speeds. It made no difference to my streaming sound quality. But it sure made a big improvement for my VPN performance, and that's using cheap Monoprice cables.
     
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  20. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    Long ago, some people decided every length of any sort of wire even tangentially related to playing music comes in good/better/best flavors. Their belief is non-falsifiable and there's nothing that can be said to change their minds. Best to just leave it be.
     
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  21. Puma Cat

    Puma Cat Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    East Bay, CA
    Those interested in the impact that various factors, including Ethernet cables, leakage currents and Ethernet switches can have that produce audible effects on a digital streaming front end, I recommend you fully read these posts by John Swenson of Uptone Audio. Swenson is the designer for the Sonore microRendu, UltraRendu, OpticalRendu, the Uptone Audio LPS-1 and 1.2 linear power supplies and the forthcoming EtherREGEN switch.

    Sonore opticalRendu

    EtherREGEN: We are getting much closer!!
     
  22. rich100

    rich100 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Middle of England
    No it isn't, in ethernet terms it is encoded as information within an IP packet.

    If a musician plays from a clear computer screen, or a ratty old crumpled sheet of paper, so long as he can see the same information it makes no odds to the output.
     
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  23. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    It's always good to read about technology from the people selling it to you. They have your best interests in mind, you see.
     
  24. Puma Cat

    Puma Cat Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    East Bay, CA
    The "bitstream" is analog square waves. Read this article on Wikipedia and the post by John Swenson referenced above: Digital signal - Wikipedia

    [​IMG]
    A five level PAM digital signal
    In digital electronics a digital signal is a pulse train (a pulse amplitude modulated signal), i.e. a sequence of fixed-width square-wave electrical pulses or light pulses, each occupying one of a discrete number of levels of amplitude.
     
    Last edited: Aug 7, 2019
  25. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    I'm thinking this is the cable equivalent of MQA...
     
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