Ethernet Cables in for evaluation

I think isochronous USB and UDP/IP have error detection, while not having built-in error correction. My experience with USB audio capture has been that short sections of audio are simply dropped.

 

True however wasn't it concluded upthread that Roon stopped using UDP and replaced it with TCP?

 

Correct. Roon RAAT uses TCP now.

 

Can't.

My home is a wifi black hole....can't get continuous WiFi from the room the Mac Mini is in to the living room where the stereo is.

Besides, a direct connection sounds considerably better, especially when I went from copper Ethernet to OM1-specification optical fiber.

 

Twisted pair doesn't protect against common mode noise nor does it prevent high-impedance leakage currents from having an audible impact on jitter and clock phase noise.

 

Riiiiggghht.

Next time you're in the SF Bay Area, swing by and you can hear for yourself how superior a Shunyata Ethernet cable is over anything else I that I have on-hand (including those ghastly Belden cables).

 

But your computer itself (or any other digital media device with network connectivity) generates far more electrical noise and interference than anything that your Ethernet cable might pick up. It's not like the Ethernet port is going directly into your DAC, like SPDIF or TOSlink on a CD player. It first has to go through the entire data path of your computer's CPU, RAM, and I/O bus before it gets anywhere close to the DAC. And by the time it gets there, if your DAC is so crappy that it is prone to picking up electrical interference and passing it through to the audio output, you're going to hear it exactly the same regardless if you have your Ethernet cable plugged in or not.

And TCP/IP is buffered, so if there is any jitter in the data you're receiving through it, it's the fault of your computer's NIC, not of your Ethernet cable.

 

I'm in SJ, let's do some blind tests!

 

How awkward is it going to get when we can't hear any differences? Are you going to call us deaf?

 

You know, looking at the OSI model, frankly it's embarrassing how much time they spent on the upper layers. Didn't those fools understand this game is all about the physical layer? Any idiot knows you solve these problems with expensive cables, I mean c'mon folks!

 

I've read this several times and still can't believe you meant to say it.

By definition, distortion (harmonic or otherwise) is something that was not present in the original recording. How can natural harmonics, which form part of the original recording, ever be detected as such by the playback equipment? It's all just the recording. Anything that's not in the recording, but created by the playback equipment, is distortion (or noise...) There's no "differentiation" of "naturally occurring" harmonics taking place.

 

4K video and 5.1 audio streams just fine from Outer F'n Space with DirecTV. And what happens when it rains? Does the picture get cloudy? Does the soundstage get smaller? No .. it all goes away.

 

How awkward is it going for to be for you when the difference is as obvious as night and day?

 

That's why my computer is another room.

 

Not at all, because there's zero chance you or anybody else could pass a double blind test of ethernet cables because they don't made the slightest difference.

 

Riiiggght.

Just like all tubes of the same exact specification sound the same.

Your comments remind me of the graduate Protein Biochemistry professor who was adamant that only proteins could catalyze biochemical reactions when I mentioned to him that RNAs could catalyze also biochemical reactions.

6 years later, Thomas Cech won the Nobel Prize for catalytic RNAs.

 

You're right, I did not express very well what I was trying to say. The naturally occurring harmonics will be present in the source recording as you correctly pointed out. What I was trying to say was that THD (unless really excessive) provides little indication of what an amplifier will sound like...it's really the spectrum of that distortion that moves the needle in terms of what your ear's perceive. So for instance a single-ended amp tends to have more even-order harmonic distortion while push-pull amps tend to cancel even-order harmonics (leaving odd-order distortion) and each produce a different sound that most people can differentiate. This spectral difference can't be gleaned from a THD number and in some cases a higher overall THD may actually sound better to certain people.

 

Does this have anything to do with farts? My diabetes medicine gasses me up badly.

 

Thanks for the clarification, and I agree completely with the part that I underlined above.

 

Kindly keep IRL science out of a silly discussion about how you think you can "hear" ethernet cables because it makes you a more hardcore audiophile - TIA.

Also, WTF - was I supposed to be impressed by the big words?

 

This is why I stick to turntables. I dont need to understand Biochemistry.

 

What layer of the OSI model does a tube run at?

 

Huh? Who said that? Seems like it has nothing to do with this discussion. As does your professor.

 

I hear what you mean, and I think that is cool and very reasonable.

For me, when people share a personal anecdote, or say things like "for X cable and Y system and Z listener(s), there was no audible difference" or "I don't think X will be audible under Y constraints because of Z studies," that is all A-ok for me. I like seeing things like that from posters like @Archimago and others. I have two triggers: when people overgeneralize "I have these data points and will extend this to a general absolute truth" and "science says...(something science doesn't say)". I'd like to think that if we could tease out the sub-pieces of the arguments that we would find more common ground than we might think. Maybe I'm a hopeless optimist.

If I do jump in, usually I am arguing for physics theory or differences in the physical world, and not if those translate into audibility under any particular set of conditions, though sometimes I try to help guide people how those could translate into audibility. I hope that makes sense. Just like how over-generalizing anecdotes into theory is incorrect, over-extending measurability into audibility is also incorrect. Different things will measure differently if you look close enough, but that does not mean it will make an audible difference. for some source material/systems/rooms/listeners it might not, for some it might.

 

Delightful. Another in a string of straw man arguments from you. Now you’re tenuously associating yourself with a Nobel prize winner? You avoid the excellent and well-supported point that @Rolltide made.

Your self-described status as a “professional scientist” is betrayed by your complete disregard for the reality of existing tests, challenges and experiments that all show without equivocation that in any test in which listeners are unaware of what cable is in use at any given time they can’t tell one cable from another. The accuracy of their guesses is no better than flipping a coin.

A professional scientist of any repute at all should at the very least acknowledge such information and the associated realistic testing and, again at the very least, conduct an objective (and thoroughly blinded) experiment of his own. You seem unwilling to do that.

I and many others have done the tests, experiments and listening challenges with a wide variety of ethernet, speaker, interconnect, digital coaxial and AC cables across a very wide range of prices and in a wide range of systems from the best of the budget systems to the best of the high-end. You haven’t. Do us a favor by meeting us at least halfway by doing what any good scientist should. Do the experiment.