Ethernet Cables in for evaluation

I'm sure that's a legit concept, even if I've never heard of using them on ethernet cables. I personally have never gotten the sense I have any problems to solve in that arena.

 

Perhaps it is your streamer WiFi acting up... or it is the same device?

 

I have near used them on Ethernet (nor needed to) but I have used them on all kinds of other wiring. From low speed LonWorks cable, to even relay coil wires to prevent EMI from being induced from the Line voltage side of the relay to the relay coils then back to the electronics. They are a very useful tool, though you have to be careful to make sure you are not using them in a way that can be harmful. I could get into an entire diatribe about proper wiring techniques and shielding, but that's for another thread. Enough crapping in this thread already (not that any of it did not need to be said).

 

I think it has more to do with my home. Those jerks in the 1920's had the gall to build it out of sturdy materials vs. sawdust and drywall.

 

Only at 192K for me on the old Bluesound Node 1, but I think that was because the first gen Node was hugely underpowered.

 

My house was built in 1928. Two-story brick with a stone basement. Walls are all plaster on lathe or plaster on brick. Wifi didn't work that well. I installed a Linksys Velop Mesh wifi system using two nodes earlier this year that works much better than the old Apple Airport abandonware I had before.

 

My experience with Velop is a bit different. It worked great for me as far as coverage, but pretty lousy throughput compared to Ubiquiti. But I think it seems to have issues in bridge mode which I need.

 

I work from home three days a week and connected remotely via VPN. Part of my work is using a development tool chain hosted on remote servers, so I need to have really good network performance. I don't notice any difference working in my home office and working onsite. The topology to the computer in my office is:
AT&T 300Mbs Fiber -> (1st floor) AT&T Router -> mesh node ---> (second floor) mesh node -> Gbit switch -> 100' Monoprice Cat6 -> Gbit switch -> laptop.

 

I added clip-on RF chokes to my Ethernet cables to improve sound quality...

...of my AM radios, by preventing the cables from acting as antennas and radiating the RF interference my router causes.

They made absolutely no difference to the data going through those Ethernet cables.

 

Pretty much he same here, except i have the AT&T 1Gb fiber at home but only 300 at office (huge difference in cost between consumer and business!). I have 10Gb network connection between my iMac Pro and Server, but Gbe to the rest of the house. Both of my stereo cabinets have wired ethernet, though it is Cat5e. Cat5e is actually fine up to abut 150ft for Gbe. My problem with Velop is less you are using the router functionality of it, you can not use a wired backhaul which is a lousy design. Of course, since i have wire at key points, a couple good AP’s are a cheaper way to go.

I actually plan on rewiring the hose with better cabling soon. My ethernet is ru wit abunch of RG6 for satellite and I ditched that some months back. Slab construction two story home is no fun to fish wires through!

As long as we have morphed the thread into networking info, a tip fo the network rookies is to take some of that budget being spent on cables and upgrade your switches. The switches most homeowners use are very bandwidth limited. Yes, I have more gadgets than most, but my home has from 30 to 50 devices pulling IP’s at a given time - and its just the wife and me! I think most folks would be surprised.

 

My two switches are refurbished Cisco Catalyst 2960G 8 port. I got them for about $140, which isn't a whole lot more than a pair of 8-port unmanaged consumer switches.

 

Ferrites are useless blocking RFI so it is aluminum / copper foil, I found it the hard way installing BDAs for first responders
Ubiquity, netgear, linksys are good if you don't live in a city, if you live in a metro area are basically toys, same, found the hard way installing wireless in tall buildings and 200,000 SQ ft structures.
I have 1 meter ethernet cables priced at $3000 each 1 meter patch cord, manufactured for fluke testing equipment, does ethernet build matters yes it does for high frequency testing equipment, does it matters for 100 mbps ethernet transporting audio? I don't think so but some report it makes a difference and I respect that.

 

We're getting pretty far afield from Ethernet cable evaluations, gents, which, should I have to remind anyone, is the purpose of this thread.

If you want to discuss the vagaries of TCP/IP, switches and mesh networks, copper Ethernet problems or...."plaster and lath", my suggestion is to start another thread on that topic

 

Thanks for the on-topic information.

 

The confirmation bias in this thread is strong...

 

Has anyone else tried adding an ethernet switch between their router and streamer/DAC. I have a inexpensive NETGEAR GS105 between my Nighthawk R7000 router and my Auralic Vega G1 and I perceive added clarity - a general removal of slight haze from the sound with the switch added. I had read of others doing this but I'm not sure I understand theory behind why it works. Anyone? All I can seem to find is that by bridging the network between the renderer and the controller makes a big difference.

 

Wouldn’t this just be added more of the dreaded jitter/noise/non-quantifiable badness that your network cables would then need to solve?

 

One would think that's possible but this low cost tweak definitely worked for me and I'm not someone who just drinks the Koolaid. I honestly cant hear speaker wire differences but I can hear IC differences. I'm not sure if ethernet cables make a difference other than shielding differences...but without a question adding this switch made a notable improvement...for me...and my system.

 

No it doesn't.
What next? NFS warmer than CIFS? IPv4 more scratchy than IPv6? Larger MTU for more bass?

The data retrieval from a local or remote filesystem to RAM isn't in the audio chain. Don't delude yourself.

 

I hadnt seen this thread before but I feared it would happen one day.

 

There might be a chance the switch produces less noise than the router and by adding the switch you have yet another isolation between the router and the network player.

 

That must be awfully intelligent noise if it can deconstruct TCP/IP data packets, decode the digital audio data contained within them, process the audio to add a "slight haze", re-encode the audio, reconstruct the TCP/IP data packets, and then send them down the cable, without introducing any errors to all the rest of the data coming through the cable.

As someone with a college degree in computer networking, I find this entire discussion laughable. Audiophiles may know a lot about audio, but few of them really understand all the technical details of how Ethernet networking actually works.

 

You can’t claim you don’t drink the Kool Aid and then request somebody craft some pseudoscience to explain why adding a switch made your music sound better. Just have fun being a subjectivist.

 

Christ, I thought the other cable thread was bad, and then I found this one! This is utter lunacy!