Al, I think you may be right in your speculation that the reduction of EMI/RFI provided by the shielded cable is resulting in less jitter. That is consistent with the change in sound quality. If that theory is correct, the system now has a LOT less jitter.
I spent a couple hours listening last night and I continued to be stunned by the difference. I have NEVER experienced anything like this with any other cable. In the past, I've had two different $2k analog interconnects in the system, and they didn't have anywhere near the effect I'm describing. I currently have about $4k in power cords in the system, and they didn't result in a fraction of the improvement of this $7 cable. It's mind blowing.
FWIW, I very seriously doubt that other systems would be similarly effected by a shielded ethernet cable. My setup is so idiosyncratic that my results are most certainly not generalizable.
I'm inclined to conclude that there was a significant PROBLEM in the system that the shielded Cat6 cable has rectified, a problem that has gone undetected by me for years. Things have sounded pretty good, so when I listened to the system, it didn't sound like there was a problem. But this is such a dramatic effect, I must have been listening to/through this problem all along.
As a footnote, it's interesting that you mention intermodulation, because when I added shielding around the analog output stage, walling it off from the digital circuitry, I said to a friend: "It sounds as if there is less intermodulation." I'm not even sure I know what I meant by that, but that was the concept that immediately came to mind.
Bryon
I spent a couple hours listening last night and I continued to be stunned by the difference. I have NEVER experienced anything like this with any other cable. In the past, I've had two different $2k analog interconnects in the system, and they didn't have anywhere near the effect I'm describing. I currently have about $4k in power cords in the system, and they didn't result in a fraction of the improvement of this $7 cable. It's mind blowing.
FWIW, I very seriously doubt that other systems would be similarly effected by a shielded ethernet cable. My setup is so idiosyncratic that my results are most certainly not generalizable.
I'm inclined to conclude that there was a significant PROBLEM in the system that the shielded Cat6 cable has rectified, a problem that has gone undetected by me for years. Things have sounded pretty good, so when I listened to the system, it didn't sound like there was a problem. But this is such a dramatic effect, I must have been listening to/through this problem all along.
As a footnote, it's interesting that you mention intermodulation, because when I added shielding around the analog output stage, walling it off from the digital circuitry, I said to a friend: "It sounds as if there is less intermodulation." I'm not even sure I know what I meant by that, but that was the concept that immediately came to mind.
Bryon