Strange. Mine does, it’s faint but it’s there.
Where about on the plug?
Thanks
Graeme
Thanks!
G
You are not alone, I’ve come across a number of C-Stream cables, some with a black dot, others without.
I have a Shawline Ethernet cable with no dot, I had to revert to the “signal path matching the writing” method.
Yes, the EE8 is very nice. I trialled 1 and bought 2.
The EE8 is causing me to do something I haven’t done in years - buy CD’s! I’ve always bought on vinyl for ‘serious’ listening. That’s now changed. CD’s are so cheap these days and with the EE8 in the mix, I prefer the bog standard rips to HD streams/DL’s.
I hadn’t realised that the C-Stream was directional but I did listen to it both ways round and definitely preferred it in one direction over the other. The effect was similar to that of turning the mat on an LP12. Just noticed that the black dot on mine is in the EE8 switch with the other end going to the source. I still can’t get over the impact both of these have had on streaming SQ. Amazing!
I’m not sure that relying on the direction of the writing is reliable. As I said earlier, on my C-Stream cable the writing runs from the end of the cable WITHOUT the dot, whereas others have said theirs runs from the end WITH the dot. I know my cable is genuine as it came with the 8Switch and I bought it sealed brand new from an official distributor
BTW I reached out directly to Chord Cables via email and I got a response "Yes the cable is directional, the dot on the C-Stream streaming interconnect that came bundled with your EE8 switch
is to denote the source end.".
From that I assume source end means router ?!
Actually that’s really helpful. Holding my two plugs side by side I can see that one is the tiniest bit darker with a pin head dot.
My life is complete.
Cheers
G
PS Text running the opposite direction to ‘signal’
Yes, I would agree that source means the direction the information is coming from. So, agree it should be router to EE or EE to streamer.
I would reply and ask them
BTW what do you guys make of the ethernet switch testing at audiosciencereview ? Amin the guy that does the tests lambasted ethernet switches like the Bonn 8 that the 8switch is a derivative of. He used sine wave testing to show the switch makes no difference and both he and his fans in the accompanying forum thread basically have a good laugh at anyone believing in switches, essentially arguing that any difference heard is pure placebo effect. I don’t buy it myself - I believe my 8switch has made a very easily noticeable difference (in a good way). And I don’t listen to sine waves…
Which checks (edit: at most and poorly) the accuracy of the transmitted bits. However, nobody ever said that the transmitted digital data differs. it obviously does not.
The hypotheses about possible differences always circle around questions of analog noise on the cable influencing the streamer. This may or may not be hogwash, but one will not find out with sine waves.
I don’t think it’s hog wash… there are many designs patters and specialist industrial scale componentry to precisely deal with it… btw I have not seen any of the so called ‘audiophile network’ devices uses these specialist devices…
I think consumers are perhaps more experiencing the effects of circulating common mode currents due to poor EM hygiene in the home… this design white paper is quite a good tutorial.
I was not saying that it is. I just left the possibility open to emphasize that the used sine wave method is not a suitable test at all
Well that I totally agree with
Having discovered the black spot I tried the C-Stream again in place of the BJ-Cat6a and it didn’t last long! The BJ is so much better it’s not even funny.
G
The confusion in some posts is that source end means the end where the signal originates.
But some people perhaps mean their hifi ‘source’, which could mean their streamer?
And the other confusion around ‘source’ is whether your music originates from a server on the wider internet or a server on your home network. In which case there may be various directions that noise is coming from into your hifi, depending on how you have wired up and where the EE8 is.