Hi Michael,
Saw your comments on the designacable site concerning the cat5. Do you have it in your system?
Hi there! Answering both your questions in 1:
I replaced the CatSnake Cat5e with the Cat6a, which was more detailed and dynamic in my system with the same tonal fidelity and greater textural detail, also slightly lower noise floor. The sheaths are exactly the same as far as I can gather (thatâs what CatSnake refers to).
I asked DesignCable if they could make me up the cables withe the CatSnake Cat6a (they didnât do them before) with a plug that wasnât the Metz/Telegartner (which is what they wanted to use), and this is what we ended up with (floating).
What motivated my request was that some of the Cat6a and other shielded cables (floating) I had tried had a lower noise floor and more detail than the Cat5e but couldnât match it on texture. I had no idea how much of this was due to the stranded cables (as opposed to solid in BJC, Audioquest etc) and how much to a potential contribution of the CatSnake jacket, but I thought combining them with the additional shielding in the Cta6a even if floating might make a difference in addition to the higher twist rate of Cat6a. Whatever the reason/s, I found it a better cable in my system.
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Thankyou for your clarifying answer. I was about to order one but wonât now.
It came to my mind when I unpacked the cat6; It had the thicknes /looked like a (popular in the Eightees ), thick rubber interlinks âdiode cableâ, most of them verry bad SQ.
Maybe, though it may help anyone trying to make sense of the often rather random seeming experiences⌠
Best of luck with that, but Iâm afraid any cable thread on a forum will always be a string of random & mostly disparate experiences.
Getting some posters to indicate even what the network components they have has been difficult in some cases.
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You mean switches modem ect by ânetwork componentsâ I guess?
Yes exactly; cable, switch, server & renderer can - but not always I hasten to add - have different interaction effects on the sound.
e.g. Iâve found on a number of occasions different effects (sound change perceptions) when comparing the same cable or switch on different systems with Linn, Cyrus & Naim players.
Like a âcharacterâ or specific âsignatureâ sound of the tested device is changing when plugged into different brands?!
It seems that way: my audio-nerdish friends & I have swapped things like cables & other network components & have sometimes ended up with different effects, or at least differences that we can agree on.
Over time it seems the Linn K-DSM is less sensitive to ethernet cable changes than is my NDX, but that was not the case with switches. Why, who knows, it got into grounding & other complexities & in the end decided to just accept what it is.
This is what I notice in comparing audio devices generally.
I was running with a long Cat5e no name cable from my switch upstairs, through the floor to my NDS (and now Innuos) downstairs for a long time.
I then added a non hi-fi switch for every other network item upstairs and moved my Cisco downstairs to within 1 m of my system, thus opening up the opportunity to dabble with different cables.
In all honesty I prefer to just listen to music rather than be constantly tweaking, so first configuration from the Cisco -> Innuos -> NDS was with AQ Cinammonon both final legs.
Then I moved to AQ Vodka on both final legs.
I definitely preferred the Vodka (I had all these cables already so it was easy to do).
I then borrowed a Chord Epic streaming cable and a Chord Signature Tuned Array streaming cable from my dealer to test out.
I ended up with Cisco -> Innuos with AQ Cinammon, and Innuos -> NDS with the Chord Signature Tuned Array.
Just sounds really natural, a definitely more â3Dâ sound, very smooth, Iâm rubbish at explaining how things sound as you can tell.
I really cant see myself changing this for a while, very happy with the change.
A bit like @IDAK I thought about âMusicâ cables but there is no way I could justify that kind of cost, didnt tempt me to try as one of those is made of âunobtainiumâ to my budget!
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oops, thats a typo, ended up with Cisco -> Innuos with AQ Vodka (not Cinammon), and Innuos -> NDS with the Chord Signature Tuned Array.
To answer your question @PatM, I thought the Epic was smoother than the Vodka, but not enough of a difference to warrant me changing it.
The Signature was though.
Like your comment about the out of reach materials by the way
That prompted me to add those terms to the hifi mumbo jumbo thread!
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Iâll openly admit it was arrogance that led me to let Music through the door. I asked a friend to bring his to a listening session. Along with another former Forumite, we agreed after a couple of hours playing each otherâs music that the system was sounding sublime.
And, I thought, unimprovable. So letâs hear this âmagicâ Music then. The three of us agreed, replaying pieces from earlier in the evening and then reverting to my previous cable (Chord Indigo SA), that it had become even more sublime.
Bah!
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Id love to hear it Nick, Im just scared to do so!
I bet it sounds fabulous
I still had to convince my wife that the horrendous expenditure was justified, so I blind tested her and (separately) another friend, and âmuch betterâ was the verdict from both.
Is it truly worth it? In the context of my system, where the black boxes are all maxed out (short of a Lottery win and Statement), and my finances (Iâll be dead sooner rather than later and the kids are sorted) then yes. But itâs a call Iâd be reluctant to make on behalf of others!
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Well, if you guys think youâre crazy, I just rolled the SFPâs and fiber cable on my Sonore opticalModules, going from multimode to singlemode (cheap TP-Linkâs to refurbed Finisairs and using 10db attenuators on the send side). I canât A/B single to multi because I need to use the previous MM cable to pull the new SM cable thought the wall/floor. But to me it sounds more relaxed, less glare-y in places and all hangs together better - less fatiguing. Which had me thinking my ânewâ BD 160 was truly in need of a recap but I think it was just revealing the source more. The consensus over on another forum has become that single mode is better than multi, something to consider if going down the optical path, and I would agree.
(The recent 160 addition has pointed out to me as well for the first time how I could probably use a better pre than the V1 as well, and even go up the renderer chain, but for now, just canât go there, so little tweaks like changing SFPâs, subtle as they are, give me some satisfaction).
I read this thread with great interest.
but
I did not understand (or did not see) whether a switch between the Switch and the Stream / NAS was reflected in an OLIVE-based system?
For clarification purposes-
NAC52 / SUPERCAP / NAC135 / UNITI CORE / ND5XS2 / EE8SWITCH
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cables between
Your name were my Celestion speakers 35 years ago