Oh yes - HOW DARE THEY !!! 
Does that mean we will see a flood of Powerlines on eBay shortly 
1 Like
In relation to my own experience yesterday I would have to consider that by having a longer cable I was able to move nasty things that could produce noise further away from sensitive HiFi boxes and thereby improve SQ.
My longer cable came with my first BT Vision box Ethernet over powerline. Got rid of that 3 years ago!
Phil
ASA were spot on with their judgements
I trust Chord Company adverts are no longer misleading - they do make some decent cables so no need to make unsubstantiated claims. I use less expensive cables, which I think give better results, but a person’s perception of what sounds better is subjective.
For me if the data are successfully moved from music server to player buffer that’s all there is to it. Of course, you don’t want something that can disturb the environment in which the player works: a plastic RJ45 is less likely to do this than metal one.
Yes metal ones are less likely to break, but you could buy quite a lot of £14 fully qualified Ethernet cables for the price of an audiophile streaming cable.
1 Like
That seems logical to me.
1 Like
hey Peder, it should be interesting to compare to the DB cat 5 cable. I have the diamond too. For me the diamond sounds very natural, but who knows, perhaps this cat 5 will give some surprises.
Hey DB, trying to have an open mind, i want to compare your cat 5 cables vs my audioquest diamond. Can you give me the name of this cat5 please, i will order one?
It is an old cable I had from years ago from work and in reading just now what it had printed on it I found that a part that reads CAT5 is a bit worn and further investigation shows it was in fact CAT5e after all:
E257448 AWM 2835 24AWG 60C 30V VW-1 RICHLAND TIA/EIA 5688.2 UTP CAT.5e
Is the sheathing label with plastic RJ45 connectors.
I’m presently trying another CAT5e of different manufacture and construction that sound quite different but also good.
So I’ve - for me - so far found I like the CAT5e types (but they sound different) - the CAT6 sounds ‘nicer’ but seems to lose bass focus and general low-level detail and the CAT7 is very clear top-level detail but very distorted at HF and sibilant on voice rendition and kind of ‘closed-in’ sonically.
I need voice done without distortion and a natural dynamic rendition without sensing it is ‘constrained’ - a natural easy presentation - so far I’m only hearing this from CAT5 with CAT6 next but losing resolution compared to the CAT5e.
DB.
just ordered this cat 5e 1m, for 2,69 euros. I will report 
1 Like
Wrap it in some coloured nylon overbraid and add a directional arrow on some heat shrink at the cable ends and no one will ever know your dirty secret FR 
2 Likes
if this cable sounds better vs my audioquest diamond, i will be very very surprised. But i play the game, 2,69 eur is not risky!
…nothing I’ve discussed costs that much to try. Commercial consumer Ethernet is cheap. What took me this direction was not personally finding the expensive cables were better in my system.
The expensive cables can have more ‘zing’ to them and ‘quieter backgrounds’ but I also find them to exaggerate edges and smother low-level musical details with dark mush.
Some that I’ve not yet tried may amaze me at how excellent they are and persuade me to get, but I need to hear it first.
Also with the Ethernet cable I’m finding, just like the Analogue output cable, it needs some attention to cable-dressing and can acquire an edge to the sound if touching a hard surface en-route to ND555.
So mechanical aspects of set-up also don’t disappear just because it is the Ethernet lead - it seems anything connecting to the ND555 needs to be carefully implemented to get best results. It always ‘works’ any old way plugged-in right but I hear it sound better when it is done with care to cable-dressing.
DB.
What about some different lengths like 2m or 3m?
DB seemed to prefer 1 m vs other lengths, from what i understood. I just want to make a try vs my expensive one, but i really doubt, because i tried forrest, hanna( cheap one) cat 7, meicord opal with plastic connectors ( good sounding for the price), vodka from audioquest, and another cheap one. The diamond is well ahead for now.
He has a Melco music store with a dedicated streamer port. You could put your switch further away from the HiFi.
i tried a lot of places, this one is the best . The power cable of the cisco is even on the same powerblock as hifi, because it’s better sounding ( to my surprise because of the stmps inside).
I found 1m plus a bit seems the way to go so far. I’ve not tried greater than that as there are a set of compromises to be had - not touching the floor between my music server Melco box (on Fraim) and the ND555 in the next rack being one of them.
I did try 0.5m CAT6 vs 1m CAT6 and preferred the 1m - I was assuming (wrongly) that CAT6 was the way for me to go when I did that test. Now I’m back to CAT5e as my reference and it sound good so between just enjoying music with that I’ll also try different CAT5e types and lengths ahead as these are not that expensive and interesting.
Again - at some point a HiFi Ethernet that really impresses me may come my way and I’ll tell you if I find it is better. Given my system cost I’m not exactly shy of using a good cable and trying to scrimp on cost here, but just not finding the present HiFi Ethernets I’ve heard or the CAT6 or CAT7 musically better for me.
I always say ‘for me’ as some of the effects imparted by cables I didn’t like may please another and be what works for them.
DB.
you seem to use a very old model of cisco switch. Don’t you want to try a newer one, like the cisco 3560 or 2960?
Just curious…
I’ve copied a fragment from your recent ND555 Impressions thread
This is the ‘free’ Ethernet cable that came with my ‘BT Homehub’ router. The Router itself feeds by a 10m CAT5 cable a Cisco 2940 switch which can only do 100 Meg out - that in turn feeds by a 3m CAT5 the Melco Music Server, which in turn, via the cable above mentioned, feeds the ND555. Just for context. The Cisco switch is just used for the HiFi and nothing else to segment-off all other house Ethernet traffic from the HiFi as much as possible.
I assume your switch is a reasonable distance from the hifi, like close to 3m. @frenchrooster does not a a Melco which I am sure keeps RFI and EMI to a minimum. Not that I have any reason to think that in general Cisco switches are bad.
I used to have my BT hub 1.5m meter away from the HiFi. Then I converted to 3 racks and the nDAC moved to about 0.75m from the hub. At first I couldn’t understand why I didn’t get a SQ improvement!
Now I’m more careful and don’t take unnecessary chances.
All cables provide opportunities for unwanted signals to travel from one box to another. ND555 has a music cache so data is not travelling in during playback.
Phil
1 Like
This does help. My Dealer who did more testing of this with respect to say NDS did suggest this aspect of ND555 helps it. But I use ND555 and I still hear all these effects so it just reduces the effect and does not eliminate it entirely.
As to the reason for the old switch - it was suggested by others that an old model with an in-built linear supply sounded better so I use it in part for that and it does not play a key part in my system (I use it just to segment-out the HiFi stuff), as the Melco contains the switch integrated with its own music database in one box - essentially it is a one-port switch with a ‘noisy’ input and ‘clean’ output.
This device divides people with some loving what it does and some viscerally hating what it does. I like it but it does present a ‘lively’ presentation of the music - how I don’t know or understand but it is there and the first device that made streaming ‘work’ for me.
A lot of things impact sound quality and Melco is a purist engineering approach to removing some compromises from the commercial devices that otherwise find their way into our HiFi. I’ve tried routing the Melco via the switch (to hear what the switch does) instead of direct-connection and it has a ‘lumpier’ more murky sound that I always thought streaming systems had to have - until I heard they did not have to have that effect in there.
But a better switch in the case where it is feeding my ND555 direct - definitely I’d use something far better and with a custom linear supply if I had to.
DB.
2 Likes
I’ve run a Cat6 ( initially impressive) for a while but found that sibilance was exaggerated, enough to draw your attention to it and on some albums be quite distracting. A change to some 5e (26awg) has provided a more natural balance.
I’ve ordered a couple of Cat 5e 24awg cables and will see how it goes.
1 Like