Ethernet opinions

@audphile1 how about a real review? Hans can’t figure out how to turn a switch on, let alone understand how it works. 
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMFQ3YvR3Eo&t=1011s

@carlsbad2  ok, so they deleted my response to you. Of course streaming and downloads are bit perfect, or it wouldn’t play. Which, in the case when you have high packet loss in true stream, is why experience a drop out, not something like a faint radio station would introduce, noise. 
 

But go ahead and explain, how is tcp/ip not bit perfect?

@clearthink factually flawed, how so? let’s dig into the technology and show me why it is factually flawed. Like I have said many times, once you give people enough rope to hang themselves, they do it willingly. 
 

@ghasley so first no one caches because it isn’t the purest stream, then everyone caches? Well, at least you learned something.

@cleeds even with overwhelming evidence from Roon, Naim, and Qobuz, you still chose to die on the hill of streaming. Oh well. Fun times. I mean if you don’t listen to service itself, or manufacturers, where do you get your information from?

@shtr74sims before you think he is too helpful, you might find it relevant @audphile1 understanding of Ethernet is that he thinks it is a paper smeared with peanut butter, dipped in sand and then crumbled. 

@carlsbad2 It is not true to start with. 

Of course streaming is bit perfect, and on top of that it is not streaming from Qobuz, Tidal and others. It's a download. You can educate yourself on the Qobuz and Tidal support sites like I previously mentioned. 

So, again, you don't know what you are talking about. 

But I'll humor you. How is it not bit perfect given encryption, DRM, and the TCP/IP stack? 

And as a side note, here's where things break down, asking people who know nothing to explain, and they start the name calling when you debunk every single argument with facts. @audphile1  ring any bells?

@shtr74sims yeah, there is a lot of people who wants you to waste money out there. 
 

on a different note, I am researching new streamers, so thanks for adding Bricasti to my list!

Another thread where people with 0 knowledge tell people to waste money. 
 

there is 0 theoretical improvements possible in a residential setting to “upgrade”.

there is no noise to remove. Ethernet noise floor is at -160 dB, so even if there was you have to be Superman to hear any difference, and only if digital noise translates to analogue, which is obviously does not.
 

There are no empirical evidence to support any claims made by anyone in this thread. 

the only recommendation is buy a decent cable that gives you a good connection, which you already have. Like someone else pointed out, cat 8 cables are for 10G links, and so far I have yet to see a consumer streaming solutions supporting 10G.

@carlsbad2 what do you think streaming actually is? Yeah, you download one song after another into a buffer. 
 

unless you of course listen to a radio station that has a true continuous stream. 
 

but, per usual, ignorance continues, and people who doesn’t want learn starts attacks like this….

@shtr74sims  I am sure he has, until you start putting out those pesky things like facts, then the name callings comes.

@carlsbad2 projecting much today? Qobuz is pretty clear about this. They even have a cache locally, so once you have listened to a song it is stored locally, ready for to listen to again.... 

It's readily available to learn about on their support site. 

Tidal is the same, also available on their support site. 

In summary, yes, you actually do not stream music from Tidal or Qobuz, you download and then playback. 

@audphile1 cant convince you that grass is green and the sky is blue, that we know. But fun fact, even Jay from Jay’s audio lab says don’t waste your money on Ethernet cables! 

@audphile1 lol, you are funny. You know absolute 0 about networking, and yet you hand out advice. And then you rag on an electrical engineer who actually know a thing or two. Funny stuff! Sad that people listen you and people like you, but people wake up when what you tell them turns out to be crap, as always!

@tomrk yep! It is sad however that this is where the industry is at.

@cleeds i never said that they are the same thing. I said that “streaming” from Qobuz, Tidal and others are not true streaming. You download the song in its entirety, and then playback from a cache. That is why simply why everything that “improves” Ethernet just doesn’t, and cannot do. Even OP said that the manufacturer said it doesn’t do anything. if you don’t believe me, look at their support sites and you will see what they say for yourself.

No one “challenges”, they just put a bunch of garbage out there that is not true. And then you give them enough rope to hang themselves… it is very sad that this is the state of the industry.

@ghasley bam! Name calling, as predicted! 
 

Do you think Naim is serious equipment? What about Roon? Hifi Rose? You have not published your system so I can’t give you a link to your streamer of choice.

@cleeds that is how the Qobuz and Tidal work, through song download. Streaming is a continues stream however, that is not what Qobuz and Tidal does.. Don’t blame me, and go check your  cache settings. What do you think a cache is for, just curious? 
 

@ghasley there is a difference there, DRM check needs to happen still. You would have to force the music offline to do that.

Tip of the week from Naim: ““Tip of the week: Does your music sometimes get stuck or randomly skips to the next track? The likely cause is a cache issue.
The Qobuz app stores songs in its internal cache when you stream them. Occasionally incompletely cached tracks don’t clear out automatically.”

https://community.naimaudio.com/t/top-tip-for-qobuz-users/15990
 

From Qobuz: 
https://help.qobuz.com/en/articles/10143-how-much-music-can-i-listen-to-and-manage-offline

“Regarding cached music - the music that gets stored on your application while you listen - you can decide how much space to allocate for this, or choose to deactivate this function entirely, in your app’s settings. Please note: it is not possible to deactivate the cache functionality on PC/Mac.”
 

and this is what I mean, you give people enough rope to hang themselves, and they just jump straight in neck first without doing any research.

@ghasley  there you go. Roon download per already posted link above. Hifi rose says in their support that you cannot turn off cache for Qobuz.

it invalidates the entire argument that cables or switches can make a difference. That is why it matters. If it isn’t a stream, how can a cable make a continuous improvement. Answer, it can’t. 

@ghasley you jumped right in, neck first, and as predicted went to name calling.

the issue I have is when  people genuinely wants to learn are told a bunch of lies and then spend money they don’t have to. There is so much snake oil in this industry, and this is literally a binary thing, yet people want to attach analog properties to a digital protocol, and when proven wrong, the name calling starts. 

More:” See an example of that in the attached graph from my Roon core playing 96/24 from Qobuz as a track ends and the next starts: a steady send rate to the playing endpoint, and a big burst receiving the next track. It’s all on 1Gb wired local network to the router, so that 140 Mbps burst is no problem.”

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/qobuz-192-not-working-despite-over-100-mbps/165568/8

@ghasley  so you say without knowing anything about my experience, so who is inflexible now?

@ghasley  you are wrong. You started out saying no caching, and when to everyone caches! So you learned something. That's a win. 

@clearthink factually flawed, how so? let’s dig into the technology and show me why it is factually flawed.

Let me start you off:

Jitter - since it's an actual download, jitter means nothing.

Noise from RFI/EMI - Somehow analogue noise is imbedded into the download? Nope, not how it works, the download would fail all sorts of checks, including DRM.

Clock - again, it's a download so it doesn't mean anything, and even it wasn't, all switches has clocks tuned to the speed of the network interface cards. 

@cleeds  Ok, now I see the problem. You never read what I posted. 

They call it a streaming service, yes, that is a fact. Also a fact, they actually don't have a continuous stream, your streamer/player download each song individually then play it back. That is how the technology works. Why do they do this? Quality. Lots of things can happen on the internet during a 4 minute song, very little happens on a local network during 4 minutes.

@cleeds  you are confusing the name of the service with how the technology works. Nothing has changed.

You can name it whatever you want, but that doesn’t mean anything for how the technology works. You still download the songs from a technology perspective when you are using a streaming service. Again, why? Because it improves the user experience.