Ethernet cables

With due respect, just for balance of message, an actual computer network engineer will tell you that any adequately designed cat 5e or above cable, within spec., will deliver the same sound.

Secondarily, be careful with Cat 8 and such - for reasons having nothing to do with data transmission for audio, their shielded design can actually be counter to the desire to eliminate the supposed "electrical noise" that networks supposedly carry. I’m not saying I believe in that, but the point is, you don’t just buy a "higher number" cable and think you’ve got something.

Any network tweaking, should you lean in that direction, should be done well after you have optimized your DAC (more critical) and streamer (less so) and digital source material (very much more so than anything else!).

I’m not an ASR fanatic by any means. But you absolutely cannot apply analog audio logic to digital anything. It’s important to understand how these things work well enough to focus on the things you can affect. Network switches, cables, regenerators, eh, if you don’t hear dropouts, the data is getting there.

With due respect, just for balance of message, an actual computer network engineer will tell you that any adequately designed cat 5e or above cable, within spec., will deliver the same sound.

I’ve seen more than a few “computer network engineers” here proclaim that a streamer can’t possibly make a difference either.  Horse hockey.  Bottom line — use your own ears. 

I know you've asked about the cable itself, and there are many suggestions already.

However, for not too much more, I strongly suggest integrating a fiber switch into the mix. It will likely make a more significant difference than just upgrading the Ethernet cable. 

You don't need a fancy switch. Something like the TEG-S51SFP from Amazon, along with decent shielded Ethernet cables, is a great start. All of this can be had for a few hundred dollars at most.

Good luck!

With due respect, just for balance of message, an actual computer network engineer will tell you that any adequately designed cat 5e or above cable, within spec., will deliver the same sound.

Any dietician will tell you that two steaks with identical fat to protein ratios will provide the same nutrition and taste the same. They are wrong and so might be the network engineer.

But you absolutely cannot apply analog audio logic to digital anything. It’s important to understand how these things work well enough to focus on the things you can affect. Network switches, cables, regenerators, eh, if you don’t hear dropouts, the data is getting there.
 

@jji666 digital signal is carried by analog signal in the case of copper Ethernet cables. And because of it there’s a good chance that your Ethernet cable is susceptible to RFI and EMI injecting garbage. You will have different streamers dealing with this differently. You really have to look into and understand how this interface is implemented. Digital signal going into the streamer gets then processed and converted to a signal the DAC will understand. That’s the other part of the streamer design. Then, depending on the interface you choose to use between your streamer and your DAC, what will impact the final result is the clock in the streamer, if you use SPDIF output, or the USB processing and clock in your DAC if you’re using USB interface. You can simplify it all you want and say it’s all 1s and 0s, but it doesn’t change the fact that Ethernet cables matter (less so with a very solid streamer implementation), and streamers matter as much as the DAC. 
I do agree though on components first approach. I wouldn’t be buying a $2,000 Ethernet cable hoping that it will make a $500 streamer sound amazing.