The Sigma v1 Ethernet cable turned out to be a complete failure due to its aggressive filters. It significantly reduces high frequencies and cuts off depth and instrument resonance. Its only advantage is that it makes the sound more fluid and soft, but overall, I regret buying it. The Wireworld Platinum 8 Ethernet cable easily outperforms it, and the price difference between the cables is almost double. The Sigma-X, however, is an excellent Ethernet cable. Shunyata has completely reconfigured the filters. The sound is very clean and spacious, the black background is captivating, and the timbre and tonal balance are even. A very high-quality cable. Well worth the money.
How does a cable that transmits binary data, know which data to filter? How can it change the analogue sound output?
The cable is just transporting data from A to B. I can understand that poor quality connectors might corrupt the data, but that is about it.
Was there ever a Sigma v1? Mine’s a Sigma v2 and used with my ND on 3:8 gave the best sound I’ve had to date. That includes numerous attempts with some very expensive linear power supplies on my switch. With Sigma installed there was a major improvement in high frequency detail, an instant increase in both image depth and image width with a tonal accuracy that I’ve not heard with any other cable.
However, the shift to 3:10 and even 3:11 destroyed this very delicate balance to the point where I removes all switches, cables, powers supplies and other assorted gizmo’s and had the ND connected direct to the router. This allowed me to listen to music but it was not even as good as my Node. It was the carful tweaking of various aspects that eventually allowed me to reinsert the Sigma. I got back to a point where I was reasonably happy with streaming again.
I then read a thread about Cisco’s and how good they sounded - I have two of the big grey Cisco’s in my workshop, so decided to try them again. Same conclusion as before, in whatever configuration I tried they sounded terrible compared to the EE8 switch. It was at this point I decided to buy one of the small blue Cisco’s just in case the two I had were duff. As it turns out piggy backing the small Cisco with the EE8 and then installing Neet 1008 was just sensational. Another level of noise was completely removed and I’ve been very happy with 3:11 ever since.
What this does prove is that as good as Sigma is it can’t deal with all levels of noise. What I still find true with Sigma is that it’s the most transparent, musical and analogue sounding cable I’ve tried. The instant I take it out of the chain and try something else my musical involvement and the musical experience drops back at least six notches. In fact it’s a little bit like removing one of the power supplies on the ND.
I’ll leave others more qualified to explain but even though it’s digital information it’s still in an electrical system, which can be corrupted by noise. If I’ve learnt anything about the digital domain it’s not to underestimate how sensitive it is to everything!
I find it so strange that people can hear so different things with the same cable. I wonder what that is about. It’s one saying “It just lets everything through” and another “it chokes the music”
Is it retail and competition trolling in forums? Or lack of reference and testing maybe. If you have one guy tested 3 cables and another one tested 10 then you might have different reference levels of what “lets everything through” can be.
I presume it is all about the quality of the connectors.
I still cannot get my head around the fact that the cables can have effect on binary data in any way. Maybe the data gets corrupted by bad connections, but this will be random and non consistent between different users.
I swapped out a cheap USB cable that connected my Phonitor headphone amp and replaced it with a pretty Chord one. I cannot hear any improvement. I am using a Heddphone 2GT headphone, which is a very revealing headphone.
These are unfortunately very problematic statements. “ let’s everything through”, for instance, does not make any sense to me. We do not know the ground truth about how the music was recorded, unless we were lucky enough to be there during the recording.
So how can we even know what “everything” is? This is not just about detail, it is also about space, reverb, tonality, pitch, timbre etc… it always amazes me how one can be very very happy with a certain SQ, just to discover later that there were substantial artistic manipulations in the music which one could not hear because the setup had concealed them.
Most of these comments, I cannot take seriously any more.
Because we do not know the “everthing”, none of us knows where we are with our systems regarding the ground truth of the recording. We are in search for improvement not knowing what the ultimate prize is and how far we have progressed.
Hence, I think the journey itself is the goal, and the ability to enjoy and rest along the way is very important
I suspect we are encountering deceptively complex interactions in our systems.
I’m active in a thread elsewhere regarding a TP Link WR902AC travel router being used to air-gap music servers. It’s dethroning quite a few mega-buck network appliances and devices. It’s ~30 quid.
And the data set of informed observers (whose bias, if any, would be AGAINST a device of this type being anything but horrible) is growing quickly toward a critical N sample size.
We live in an analog world. Digital is an abstraction.
Unfortunately there is no short answer to your question but many things do impact the digital domain. It’s not really about the quality of the connectors, although I suspect connectors will have their own unique sound. It more about avoiding noise, which can creep in from your switches, your router, even RF noise can get in via your cables. This noise makes the DAC work harder, which in its self generates more noise. It’s a bit self perpetuating, which is why you tend to find people using lots of solutions, including going to optical and back again but even this doesn’t guarantee a noise free environment. The fact you can’t hear the changes on your headphones doesn’t mean they aren’t there, it just means you might not have to worry so much about it.
My experience with Sigma-X has been very similar - expansion of soundstage and incredible tonality, to the point that I consider it mandatory, the ND555 is on another league with the sigma. Similarly with NSS33 and the Alpha V2.
I did not try AlphaX with the 333, I tried AlphaV2 and found the synergy was incredible so did not spend the extra $$$ for the Sigma. With the ND555 I’ve tried AlphaX and SigmaX, and the results are night and day, the ND555 needs sigma.
It’s a common fallacy (which I had back then too) to believe there is just binary data which won’t make any difference. Things are not that easy for a detailed technical explanation but I think you might find this helpful: https://youtu.be/FQFjFbjx2Sw?si=VuDUH42HD0DDPC7c
It seems slightly strange though that there is this one ethernet cable that does the trick and no other manufacturer has caught up. It’s odd. Scratching my head ..
