Ethernet. I used to say the power cord was the most unloved, but important cable. Now, I update that assessment to the Ethernet cable. Review work forthcoming.
I can't wait to invite my newer friend who is an engineer who was involved with the construction of Fermilab, the National Accelerator Lab, to hear this! Previously he was an overt mocker; no longer. He decided to try comparing cables and had his mind changed. That's not uncommon, as many of you former skeptics know. :)
I had my biggest doubts about the Ethernet cable. But, I was wrong - SO wrong! I'm so happy I made the decision years ago that I would try things rather than simply flip a coin mentally and decide without experience. It has made all the difference in quality of systems and my enjoyment of them. Reminder; I settled the matter of efficacy of cables years before becoming a reviewer and with my own money, so my enthusiasm for them does not spring from reviewing. Reviewing has allowed me to more fully explore their potential.
I find fascinating the cognitive dissonance that exists between the skeptical mind in regard to cables and the real world results which can be obtained with them. I'm still shaking my head at this result... profoundly unexpected results way beyond expectation. Anyone who would need an ABX for this should exit the hobby and take up gun shooting, because your hearing would be for crap.
Douglas, what you are hearing is the direct output of the DAC. The upstream amp, cabling, speakers, room interaction, are all moot because they aren't in the loop.
People need to slow down and read what I'm typing because most are getting ahead of themselves.
If the Ethernet cable is altering the output of the DAC then it should be captured in the tracks I provided.
jinjuku, I have not listened to the composite track you made; it's not necessary. I am willing to accept that you were unable to get significantly different sound given your test. I am guessing that your system is sufficiently poor that it cannot resolve the differences well. That would be a logical explanation for the failure to distinguish between the cables, given my clear trials showing that ethernet cables carry different sonic properties.
I am not willing to accept that your test means: -I am not getting significantly different sound by use of a variety of ethernet cables. The differences are too pronounced to be the result of bias. The differences are on an order of seeing two very different shades of color. I have passed multiple double blind tests, and the threshold of difference in use of different ethernet cables is far beyond what I heard in the DBX testing.
-that your method of producing sound is superior to mine. You are suggesting your inexpensive setup is superior and better than the server I am using. Only a direct comparison would tell. In my experience typically cheap systems have resulted in poor performance.
Have you compared your performance to an aftermarket file server? If so, which one(s)? If not, then you are in no position to declare your digital setup superior. I suspect your setup is much worse, but I would have to listen to assess.
We who disagree with the value of high priced, "specialized" cables are not (really) saying we cannot "hear a difference;" we are saying that their is no difference to hear (once basic length/gauge requirements are met). We are your friends and trying to save you money and public embarrassment.
I’m afraid that your approach violates the basics of a proper ABX test. As ClarityCap’s OEM Sales Manager, I’m privy to research that we did with focus groups ABX testing coupling capacitors. This was done in conjunction with the graduate-level psychoacoustics dept. at a UK University. It’s critical to present listeners with a consistent sample and to allow them the leisure of comparing samples under their own control without the dissonance of toggling arbitrarily between samples. Redo the recordings and I’ll be happy to participate.
Good point Rodman. I know some folks cannot hear the difference, what is beyond my understanding as why they assert everyone else, with every other system, must have the same experience and reality. Very narrow and closed minded. I do so tire of those who must have the rest of the world be just like them. They leave no room for truth or real experience beyond what they assume and in rare instances tested for themselves.
Back to Ethernet cables. Everyone in my home could easily hear the difference in the two I tested. Now if I had an average system, then perhaps the system would mask those differences making it hard to discern. I completely understand why some cannot hear differences. No surprise at all really.
You need to re-read what I did: While I was capturing those two tracks I was ACTIVELY swapping out cables. Yes I was able to record tracks in their entirety while disconnecting Ethernet cabling and plugging another back in and as you can hear there was no break in the playback. Please let the significance of this sink in for a moment.
The tracks you are listening to are a composite of both cables.
@grannyring(et al) - As I posted earlier: (I believe Ivor Tiefenbrun(Linn founder) said something along the lines of, " if you haven’t heard it, you have no opinion". That just makes sense, which(to some around here) seems irrelevant.) It escapes me, why so many of you even reply to the posts of some on this site. Save your keystrokes. As milpai so eloquently asked, "Why do you give a rat’s ass, what they think?"
No foul. I’m a cable skeptic myself. However, I’m more skeptical about the high price of commercial cables than about differences in sound between cables. All DIY cables in my system.
Two nice hi-res files and lots of fun listening. I could hazard a guess as to which sounds the best, but for a meaningful test kept to one variable we need to compare identical songs across the two cables. Any possibility of your replicating that scenario?
Jinjuku = refreshing truth in a frothing sea of audio ignorance, expectation bias and other assorted BS. Well said, my friend! You can be my wingman anytime!
Agreed! You tired, old, cable naysaying cavemen please let us, the enlightened, talk about Ethernet cable. Yes I did run 50 feet of Tera $30 Ethernet cable and sounds better than my also cheap cat 5 cable...period. IT has no answers, just adherence to conventional wisdom and closed minded thinking. Go away!
There, I said it. Most likely the most direct language this long time and active Agoner ever used. However you guys do tire me with your telling me I am not really hearing, tasting, smelling, or seeing something you have bias not to.
(Sigh) For this thread it would be nice to confine the "great cable debate" to Ethernet-- which is at least a fresh context for cable discussions. To paraphrase The Kinks, other Kable Kontroveries are sufficiently covered in the archives.
I'm copying this comment from another thread about speaker cable and pasting it here:
I've experimented with cables over the years, and have come to the same conclusion that the founder of Monster Cable finally fessed up to: expensive cables are a gimmick conjured up by marketers who figured out that audiophiles will pay a lot of money - even an insane amount of money - for wire (those with wife problems need look no farther than what can be wasted on speaker wire). IMHO, the discussion around interconnects are akin to a theological cult.
Unless they are are really cheap wire bought at a hardware store, it's not gonna amount to a hill of beans. The Meineke muffler slogan applies here: "I'm not gonna pay a lot for this speaker (interconnect, etc) cable!"
Old_scribe, could it maybe be that Cable Theologians are also suffering from confirmation bias, otherwise also known as the placebo effect (I spent a lot of money on it, it must be good!)
jinjuku, an interesting test! Let me see if I understand this correctly; you used the "twin CPU" method, ie. one tower for a library, and the other for the file playback? That is what I presume when you say, "I set up a second machine..."
I have an interesting story to tell; a local computer audio enthusiast came to help set up my Mac Mini server years ago. He brought his entire two tower PC system with special software, HQ Player. We listened to his expensive, $3K+ file server system. Then on a whim he said that HQ Player also had a Mac version. We downloaded it on trial, played it and in comparison the stock Mac Mini with HQ Player was indistinguishable from the more expensive, much more complex digital server using two computers. That taught me fancier setups are not always better! So, my experience is the exact opposite of yours. I found that much more complex digital sources are not always better. Further, if they are insensitive to wiring changes, then I would not be much interested in them.
So, I'm not overly impressed when someone puts up a very involved computer server regardless of cost, given that a stock Mac Mini performed the same given the same software. However, the Mac Mini was sensitive to cables, both power and digital links. My goal is to build better sounding systems, and if any product/method is incapable of it I don't think it's terribly good.
+1 dynaquest4, well said! milpai, have you considered all the $2 cat5e/6 or fiber cables in the path between your system and Tidal or where ever you are streaming from? Trust me, I have worked in HUGE data centers that move exabytes of data (1s & 0s) around and NO IT guy ever thinks twice about the possibility of a cable effecting sound. We make the cables, test them to make sure they conform to standards and thats it.
Ethernet is a data cable. It's not an audio cable. Computer playback is buffered. Heavily. There are two buffers on the NIC itself for starters. Then you have either the USB or PCIe bus the EtherPHY sits on, then RAM, then back to buffer on the USB bus and buffer in the DAC itself.
The data has been copied multiple times.
As an experiment I picked up a $330 12 foot 'CAT8' Ethernet cable and I wired up 315 feet of generic CAT 5. All into a managed layer 3 switch with LAG and a $18 dual port Intel Server NIC (New pulls).
I setup a 2nd machine with a mastering grade ADC and captured tracks while playing back. Relying on the 6 seconds of JRivers default buffer to immunize the system from a break in play.
I posted two tracks and so far no one has been able to tell me how many changes were made, when the changes were made, what cable was in use.
Remember this is $0.30 generic CAT5 at 315 foot vs $27.50 foot at 12 feet CAT8.
If your high end streamer is affected by this then I don't have many good things to say about said streamer vs a $230 Quad Core, Passively cooled AMD Kabini system with a $18 NIC.
I agree with tubegroover. A live performance is a whole different animal from a studio recording (and a "live" recording is actually a third). Hmmmmmm...and a well recorded concert Blu-Ray performance is, I guess, a fourth ("Hell Freezes Over" comes to mind). All are different. Asked to choose, I’d likely say if I could only have one it would be a well done studio recording which allows take after take and post-recording mixing by experts to achieve what the producer believes is the best acoustic performance that the recording/mixing will allow.
And before I’d cough up ridiculous amounts of bucks to buy cables that accomplish little (if anything), I buy more music!! :)
schubert, you obviously need to join a car club to gain appreciation of the auto. ;)
I'm not interested in discussing the need for nature; I enjoy taking walks outside, and I recommend you do as well if you think you're losing touch with nature. It seems you can't (don't want to) focus on the topic, which is building superior audio systems. So, I'm done with this conversation. :)
tubegroover, you are on track. I am not intending to suggest that the recreated performance actually can capture the real thing, but will always only be an approximation. However, you and I realize that there are many more levels of sound quality than the subjectivists think. I desire a level of sound quality that can allow me to suspend reality, the same way that suspension of reality is the order of the day in movies. If the movie was poorly made the suspension of reality is poor. In the same way, if the system is poor, the suspension of reality when listening is poor.
Doug I’ve given up on trying to correlate the quality of sound replicating reality in any way. For that to be even remotely attainable it would first have to start with superbly engineered recordings. However, I am as you are, in the subjective camp. The objectivists are bound by their beliefs, and in the case of a few posters here, their education and biases. I don’t know them but their comments are typical of folks with preconceived ideas based on prevailing engineering dogma and also possibly what they can’t hear, if they even tried, nothwithstanding Al Marg’s excellent rebuttal. Obviously Al articulates in his typically lucid manner in what might be the cause of why we hear differences/improvements in something as seemingly inconsequential as an ethernet cable.
Doug I like you am interested in an aesthetically pleasing experience. I unlike you, at least it seems based on your comments, have no delusions that reality of a live performance and enjoyment of playback of a performance are really two unrelated experiences, one the experience of what an "audiophile" is attempting to achieve via the dictum of "The Absolute Sound" the other connecting to a musical performance in a meaningful and profound way, they are to me two distinctly different objectives. But as I have commented to others with objectives similar to yours, enjoy your journey!
Few realize it but the auto culture is driven by marketing forces who make their thought seem like your thoughts . Many/most humans are perfectly content to remain in one area all their life . Some are forced to move by circumstances . Many of us, including me, are so far alienated from nature that we move in search for something to fill that void ..
schubert, the sense of exploration/travel I suggest is also, "an inherent , built in hard-wired element of being human in all places in all times," as well. How it is conducted, by walking, bicycle, train, plane, or car varies.
You suggest that music is an inherent , built in hard-wired element of being human in all places in all times. I agree. How it is conducted/enjoyed varies just as travel, by instruments, voice, performing, being an audience, or technologically listening to it reproduced.
In other words, I find your analogy faulty, as both impulses, the car driver and the audiophile, use technology. Tell a person with a 3 hour commute each day that the experience of driving is not important. Perhaps for you and me it is not, but that is not so for all drivers.
Similarly, perhaps it's not important for you to have a technologically advanced audiophile experience. But that is not the case for many such as myself who wish not to simply get from point A to B in terms of listening as cheaply as possible and without a high regard to the aesthetics of the experience.
Music is an inherent , built in hard-wired element of being human in all places in all times . Riding down a concrete strip in a machine is not . The former is important, the latter is not .
schubert, so from your response I take it that the condition of the experience riding from point A to B is immaterial. We here at Audiogon are engaging in what is supposed to be a highly aesthetically pleasing activity. We have too many people attempting to declare that mediocrity is supremely good. I disagree. :) Will a Jetta get you to the location "as well" in terms of the experience? I don't want a luxury auto, but I do want a luxury system and listening experience. :)
tubegroover, at least for me what it has to do with music is the quality of the sound dictating the perception of reality, and consequently the enjoyment.
These conversations often leave me wondering, what does any of this have to do with enjoying recorded music? On another note, Doug, great response, a classic example of objective vs subjective philosophy. It’s another aspect of what makes this hobby so enjoyable, folks with different perspectives.
Audio gear that is 100% totally sensitive and completely transparent to the audio signal (music) with zero distortion or coloration or any artifacts from power, Ethernet cables or other external non-musical factors is JUNK?
OK. Now I have that straight it is clear we are not pursuing the same high-fidelity hobby, as in the highest fidelity to the music or source signal. I do not understand why music enthusiasts would want to hear effects from cables, wires and vagaries in power rather than the purest cleanest music as faithful to the source as possible..... but to each his own.
I think the point is that we can hear differences. Fortunately I have a setup that does not emphasize minute differences in wires or the digital source or power cord or whatever extraneous. All the focus, accuracy and precision is on the source music.
Having the right equipment is the major battle. Band-aids will always be band-aids.
At this time one of the favorites is WireWorld Starlight CAT8. That may not end up the overall favorite when I am finished with the survey. That's all I will give up until the survey is published.
I see Supra Cat8 sold in bulk. Is that the cable? Or, is there another model which is Cat8 and superior?
Douglas - please tell me the cable you are saying is your favorite. I now have 4 different ones and I continue to develop my preferences, I want to add your favorite too.
To those who believe we are wasting our money -- the accuser speaks of himself. Either you or your system is incapable of hearing the differences. I could not hear the difference in $1000/meter and $2,000/meter interconnects until I did a significant upgrade in both electronics and speakers. Now the difference is easily noted. So wake up out of your self depreciating trance.
Yeah, the Tera Grand was just a little too much on the warm side for me even though the bass was great. The Supra is just a bit more detailed and neutral in my system.
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
