ETHERNET CABLES

@dpcoffey

Listen to what DPCoffey is telling you.  Research Ethernet communications.  I have worked with the technology.  There is full error correction built into the receiver and error correction codes are sent with the data.  The received signal is quantized to a 1 or a 0 by a slicer.  At these short distance you are not getting errors and it will not improve your sound quality.  Spend you money on stuff that will improve sound quality.  

@12many et al

Nice of you to post your concern for how others may or may not spend their money. Additionally, its difficult to convince people who have experienced dramatic improvements in their audio enjoyment by optimizing their ethernet/digital streaming enjoyment that it’s imagined. Many skeptics have been converted…by listening. You may not be one of them.

Don't know what it is however I was at an audio show several years ago and they had a training room set up for the dealers. They were demonstrating the difference in ethernet cables. Lo and behold there was a difference. You can try for yourself with a cheap cable versus a name brand cable you will see the difference.

Assuming that digital send/receive protocols work as explained by the many network people on this site, then one thing that could cause Ethernet cables to sound differently from each other would be the effect of noise and shielding as discussed here.  Another review article I found stated:

The main culprit, as with all of HiFi, seems to be of RFI/EMI noise. Some Ethernet cables have filter blocks, proprietary shielding designs, higher quality conductors, and connectors. All of these design decisions seem to shape the RFI noise that ends up in the analog section of your components. There’s no way to completely eliminate noise – but manufacturers are finding ways to mitigate it.

It seems the higher CAT rated cables offer different and/or improved shielding.  Also, based on what I have seen, many of the expensive "audiophile" CAT cables being sold are of the higher CAT 7 or CAT 8 variety.  I have read about the Supra CAT8 Ethernet Cable being a particularly good bargain but other CAT8 cables may sound just as good, assuming the shielding results in the differences. 

I have used CAT 7 and CAT 8 and fiber for a 45 foot run from my router to my server and all three options sounded fine - I simply did not hear differences.  I simplified by removing the fiber and currently use just a single 45-foot CAT8 cable into a Network Acoustics ENO then into my server.

@dpcoffey
It’s not just 1s and 0s, the data rides in an analog signal which can pick up noise from various sources. This noise is clearly audible in a resolving audiophile system