Ethernet cables

Good advice here from @Soix, @audphile1, @Lalitk, @ghdprentice, @ghasley  and others!  If this was discussed I apologize!  I would scrap the wall plate.  It is nothing but a cheap connector stuck in a wall plate.  You can remove the plate, disconnect the wire in the wall from that  and then do much better.  I like the JCAT Net Isolator as a good coupler.  There are others.  For esthetics you can pop out the stock connector and run the wall cable through that hole.  Then I agree the cable from there to the streamer is most important  I use a Muon Pro Ethernet Filter System which has their high end ethernet cables on each side.

@jmeyers I appreciated you posting your experiences with the Shunyata Ethernet cable. Very interesting read. I just have not taken the chance to buy an Ethernet cable at that price level.

@macg19 yes and they are designed to work together to eliminate different types of noise.  Preorders are being taken on Mark’s Verafi site now.

👍 @tksteingraber Is Main Stream also from Verafi/Mark?

@macg19 60 Hz is not in Snubway’s range.  (200-600 Hz) I would still  give Snubway a try it can help in other ways.  Main Stream is a new plug shipping in July and it addresses lower Hz 20Hz+ line noise. Both are reasonably priced and returnable. 

@mclinnguy Thanks for the reminder about Uptone - I think last time I looked they were not shipping.

@tksteingraber Thanks, will check out the thread and take a look at Snubway. I have a Purify and a SDFB although it really belongs with your amp. I had it converted for my DAC because my current integrated has an internal fuse and no specs in the manual. Mark is great.

I don’t think Snubway will address my primary mains concern though which I’m pretty sure is 60Hz noise. (I’ve got a lot plugged into a single 20 amp duplex and no easy way to add a dedicated circuit - rented house).

I hear a faint hum from my DAC and onboard MC phono module (both single ended / RCA only). Zero hum from my GoldNote phono using the balanced output but it died and I’m waiting on its replacement from the distributor.

@macg19 check out the SmoothLan ethernet filter thread started by ozzy.  Also, I just received a Snubway filter from Verafi Audio and it absolutely made a significant improvement.  I didn’t expect that kind of improvement. Removes switched power supply noise in your environment. Decware forum has a thread with all positive feedback.   

@macg19

I tried the Everstar filter, waste of money, sent it back, but I’m going to try the iFI filter as I only have the Cox Panoramic device and I’m sure it’s noisy.

I’ll send it back if no improvement.

Exactly. Zero risk. I recall Alex at Uptone saying that with his 30 day money back guarantee he had sold over 3000 etherregens, and had just 3 returns. If that isn't proof the filter works I don't know what is.

Think about twisted pair, coaxial, fiber, satellite, multiple servers, firewalls, bridges, routers, optical/electric conversions, and back again between your house and the streaming server. Data is sliced into packets, transmitted via different routes, reassembled back at your router.

Will another 10 ft make a difference?

Ethernet does not lose anything. Anything lost is retransmitted and recovered. Nothing is changed or anyhow lost. Else your legal documents in remote cloud could change during transmission :-)

I didn’t believe in audiophile Ethernet cables either (just 1’s and 0’s right?) - I had Blue Jeans, and thought I’d try a returnable Cardas Ethernet which surprisingly did sound better, so I ordered a DH Labs and tried them side by side and sent the Cardas back. $200, I felt was well spent. My take was as I know I have a noisy environment, the shielding helped and the connectors are really well made.

I would not bother for a background music set up though.

I tried the Everstar filter, waste of money, sent it back, but I’m going to try the iFI filter as I only have the Cox Panoramic device and I’m sure it’s noisy.

I’ll send it back if no improvement.

Shielded ethernet cables have a layer of metal shielding around the cable, which protects against EMI (electromagnetic interference) and RFI (radio frequency interference).  The shielding helps minimise the effect of interference, making the signal clearer and more reliable.

These signals are encoded using a technique called pulse amplitude modulation (PAM), where different voltage levels represent different bits of data. The electrical signals travel through the copper wires, and the receiving device decodes them to retrieve the original data.

True ethernet uses PAM where data information is encoded in the amplitudes of signal pulses (modulation) mapped in one of 4 voltage levels -2 -1 1 2 v. Good copy/paste work though.

essentially it is an analog signal

Fundamentally different. Analog signals being continuous/digital signals.being discrete the closer it gets to absolute continuity the better the s.q. but achieving "limit to infinity" not possible although free from signal noise. Watch the following vid and keep up the good work.

@atanarjuat99 I am now seriously considering an SoTM switch as a replacement for my current unmanaged Luxul switch. Are you satisfied with your SoTM switch? Were others under consideration?

@jmeyers +1

Just to chime in on the effect of ethernet cables. I switched out the cable from our SoTm network switch to the TV, temporarily replacing it with a Snake River Audio ethernet cable. My partner who normally does not notice cable differences could not believe the improvement in picture quality. I was instructed to immediately replace our other ethernet cables with the SR ones. 

Main message: cables matter! 

@classicrockfan just so you know…

In the case of copper cables, data is transmitted through electrical signals. The cable consists of twisted pairs of copper wires, with each pair carrying a different signal. These signals are encoded using a technique called pulse amplitude modulation (PAM), where different voltage levels represent different bits of data. The electrical signals travel through the copper wires, and the receiving device decodes them to retrieve the original data.

Because this is an electrical signal (it’s voltage) which is the same as your signal interconnects, it is susceptible to the same elements (RFI and EMI) as your analog signal because essentially it is an analog signal. Go crawl back under your classic rock again and stay there. 

Supra CAT8 Ethernet cable is reasonably priced and is, in my opinion, a quality product. I bought a couple of 1m runs from Holt Hill Audio in Boston - happy I did.

I rarely respond to a poster whose raison d’etre appears to be to disparage others. That said, “CFR’s” snake oil obsession reminds me of someone who loudly and often proclaims it was impossible for humankind to have walked on the moon because he hadn’t done so personally. Until I actually installed the Shunyata Sigma V2 Ethernet cable in my own system, I had never imagined the easily discernible positive impact it can make on a high quality audio system. It is obvious CFR has never tried this cable in his own system, which is sad.

By the way, I have no economic interest in Shunyata. I am just an aging audiophile who wishes to share this personally exciting audio experience with others on line here.

@mclinnguy 

it is a real review from a real electrical engineer

PS Audio Lan Rover

This person wrote that snake oil review as an influencer not as an ee. The only technical line mentioned was "The best part is the inherent galvanic isolation provided by the network." The rest is to praise " has HUGE sonic benefits...  PSA: Quite an elegant sound." I'm not surprised because America is full of dishonest doctors/lawyers/engineers (sadly). Galvanic isolation means "no direct conduction path" to swamp out noise and most DACs have this filtering function built in. So do not get fooled.

@soix

+1

I was in IT most of my career and managed global IT infrastructure teams an worked with hundreds a electrical design engineers, most are so belief driven that they would not allow themselves to hear a difference because it could not be true. I have some friends and colleagues that have listened and become audiophiles, but they are far between.

I just did a thorough search of all the internet audio forums. This is the 2,134,567th thread devoted to this topic. After the 5th one, nothing else has ever been said that wasn't said before. Yet, here we are again. 

Next time, I suggest doing a search for this topic rather than starting yet another  thread on the same topic which elicits the exact same responses as the 2,134,566 threads that came before this one. 

I want to comment on jji666's really thoughtful post earlier this morning, in particular his mention of RFI and EMI "contamination" of the digital signal -- to which I wish to add "common-mode noise" as a further corrupting contributor to that signal. Earlier this month, I was fortunate to obtain a very high-end DAC, a Bricasti M21, with its own internal media renderer, ultra-high-precision internal clock, etc. (heretofore, I was using a Lumin T2 streamer/DAC, which was good but hardly spectacular). Immediately, I was amazed by how much better the Quboz- and Tidal-streamed music sounded, and this was while keeping my "old" Ethernet cable, which is generally considered to be fairly decent and cost me a little over $200.

A few days ago, I visited one of my two local high-end audio equipment stores and mentioned to the owner how delighted I was with my new DAC. He asked what cable I was using; when I told him, he excused himself, and, a couple of minutes later, he came back with a cable that he said would make a real difference in my system. It was Shunyata's Sigma V2 Ethernet cable, which he just gave to me (with no deposit) to try for a bit and see whether it made a difference. What is unique about this Ethernet cable is the two noise filters embedded within it. That evening, I replaced my own cable with this Sigma one, and my jaw dropped. The most immediate improvements were vastly more clarity and much better-defined bass. I might best describe the clarity is by saying that I could hear elements of the music that had previously been obscured. The next night I begged my darling wife. who is totally uninterested in my audiophile hobby despite the fact that before we were married she was a professional singer, to listen to the effect of this new cable. First, I played a track with my old cable and then with the Sigma one (without telling her which was which). She said she definitely preferred the "second one". Then I switched the order and played "Layla" (she adores Eric Clapton's guitar work). About 10 seconds in -- with the old cable, after first hearing Layla with the Sigma cable -- she called out "Stop! I can't listen to this version any further. It sounds DEAD." I switched back to the Sigma cable, and we spent the next hour or so playing a number of her other favorites, during which she repeatedly mentioned that they sounded "real" and "lifelike". Over breakfast yesterday morning, she asked when I was buying this Shunyata Ethernet cable. When I told her it cost $2,000 MSRP, she didn't bat an eye, pointing out that I had just spent $16,000 on a new DAC and that money would be wasted without this Sigma cable. I was nearly dumbfounded hearing that from her (but I bought the cable that same morning).

I still believe that most Ethernet cables -- whether a good cable like my predecessor version or one costing thousands of dollars -- perform similarly. What makes the Sigma cable different (even from the other Shunyata Ethernet cables except for their Omega one) is its embedded noise filters. RFI, EMI, and common-mode are real, and they negatively impact what you hear in the playback of a music stream. This Shunyata cable is insanely expensive, but it certainly does work. However, I understand there are very moderately priced line filters from companies such as iFi that I urge everyone to try in their system at least as a start.

Guys, the fact is there are as many or more knowledgeable folks who disagree with your network logic as agree.  You just all happen to collect and represent a vocal majority here.  That’s all fine but it’s important that newbies know that it’s far from universally accepted.

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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.

Hi mwh777, thanks for the topic,

Without hesitation DH Labs Audiophile REUNION Cat 8 Ethernet cable.  See my posts elsewhere here...and others.  The terminations (the secret sauce I suspect) are the best fitting ever experienced for ethernet.  For streaming, akin to a preamp upgrade. 

More Peace.  Pin              (bold print for old eyes) 

I changed everything in my house to Phizli cable. Cost is only pennies more than your average cat6 and is available in all sizes on Amazon.  My entire house is now at 10Gbe, both copper, and fiber, and I”ve no problem. I have 32 ports in use, plus 6E WiFi, and am using Dell10G and Zyxel multi-speed switches.

Omega Micro Ebony CAT8 is a great 'inexpensive' cable.

MWJ777

Great place to start is the Supra Cat 8, it's a really good cable for not much money. Just make sure to buy it from a good dealer. Madisound is a certified reseller, as is Sjofn HiFi on eBay. I use several Supra cables in my system, where I don't need really high end cables....they are very underrated 

hey crock fan, 

Maybe you should read this- unlike ASR it is a real review from a real electrical engineer

PS Audio Lan Rover

@mwh777 I own the Supra, which has been built by Audio Sensibility with the Telegartner connectors. It is sitting on the floor currently ever since I bought the sotm dcbl cat 7 cable. The sotm improved the sonic quality, but it is so very slight for the money. The Supras are pretty reasonable in price so if you were to replace 3 short links with this it wouldn’t hurt, but again for background music I/you probably wouldn’t know the difference.

AS Supra

Good decision. I think the Supra and LinkUp will be close. I tried Supra in both the regular original termination and the one upgraded with telegartner connectors. And both performed well. 
 

Thanks everyone for your input. As per usual, the opinions ranged from the naysayers to the over the toppers. One cable that has not been mentioned here is the Supra CAT 8 ethernet cable. Jay Luong at Audio Bacon was very impressed with it even in comparison to much pricier cables. See page two of his cable reviews.

I think that I will order one Supra cable and one Linkup cable for comparison and then go from there.

+1, @audphile1 

The effectiveness of LAN filters largely depends on the implementation of Ethernet in your streamer and home network. I’ve used tested few of these add-on filters including iSilencer, iSO-Cat7 and Net Isolator ahead of N20 or N30SA….I couldn’t hear any appreciable improvement. I am also using a very high quality Ethernet switch ahead of my N30SA, another possible reason why these LAN filter were so ineffective in my system. 

@lovehifi22 I have mine plugged into EERO access point. Then Purist Audio Cat7 from Silencer into Aurender N200. I’ll be honest I could barely hear any difference with and without the iFi unit in the chain. Tried it into the Aurender as well. I figured cleaning up the signal right at the EERO output made most sense to me. Keep in mind the results will vary based on how good the Ethernet implementation is in your streamer. Aurender happens to have a solid isolated implementation and I attribute the very negligible change to this. I never tried using two Silencers since the results with one were barely, if at all, audible. I left in because 1) it’s not expensive and 2) it did no harm. But again, pretty sure the results will vary in each installation. Try one first. You can return it if it doesn’t work.
I also second @lalitk on LinkUp cable recommendation. Excellent cable that’s solidly built and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. I have this cable and can say it’s a bargain. Not as detailed and lively sounding as the Purist but also not as expensive. 

Except for audioman58's spew of absolute nonsense, I am so glad that no one on this thread has suggested $500+ snake oil Ethernet cables.  It gives me hope for this group! 

I agree with @rcm1203. Replace all your Ethernet with cat8 cables from Amazon. They’re all triple shielded and will definitely improve things. And they’re good for 10G. I changed everything in my house to Phizli. Cost is only pennies more than your average cat6.

I have a 4 server 2 desktop plus Orbi 960 system running up to a full 10G across a Dell 8024F switch. Cleaned up all my streaming stuttering issues too (Sonos) .

Also don’t go with your isp routers. They’re useless and can provide you a decent firewall and high speed at the same time.

I’m possible way above most of what people are using in that I’ve got a 2.5Gb symmetrical fios feed from Ziply (I’m in Washington), use a SonicWall TZ470 for my router/firewall, and use various multi-mode (1/2.5/5/10) and single mode (1G) SFP+ GPICs as the switch is a 24-port SFP+ switch (I use Cisco, SonicWall, Finisar)

Digital don't care about your fancy (read: stupid expensive) cables. You can't improve or make worse 1's and 0's. Why do people believe such nonsense? Oh wait, it's like religion. You have to have faith because there's no science behind it.

I was intrigued by audphile1 suggestion regarding the Lan Silencer. The pictures on Amazon show it placed right behind your streaming component. I get that. 

The question is does it make any sense whatsoever to have two or more of these devices?

I'm not trying to waste money, just wondering. 

Thank you!

As far as the cables, since you specified "casual listening" for streaming, other than a lower cost filter, as some have suggested, I wouldn’t spend any money at all for different ethernet cables. I think you would get more benefit from ensuring the existing ethernet cables are separated a several inches away from other electrical cables if run parallel than upgrading them.

I just finished replacing all my cat 6 cables, including a 50' run from my router to my setup with cat 8 cables from Amazon. The quality seemed to be excellent and they are very pliable. Both feeds to my net connected gear terminate with iFi LAN Silencers. I haven't really noticed any difference in the sound quality, but a required update to my streamer seemed to be noticeably faster. I also haven't experienced any 'drop outs' in the stream since changing to cat 8, which is what prompted the change in the first place. I was originally using a standard flat ribbon non-shielded 50' cable. Router is a Linksys Max-Stream AC2200. Service feed is from a Verizon Internet Gateway. I use an unmanaged ethernet switch, also from Amazon, at the gear end of the 50' cable.