As I understand it (which isn’t saying much) the theory is that it stops interference getting out allowing it to sort of bounce around within the shielding
The changing currents in the cable couple with electrons in the screen so there will be some energy dissipation. The twisted pair construction causes a certain amount to cancellation of the electromagnetic effects (interference as you put it). The screening is really there to protect the signal from outside electromagnetic effects.
Phil
I also still have a Vodka connection for Switch to Melco. But the key connection with the ND555 I have reserved for the Chord Music, and it is too my ears light years ahead, while some of you will respond also pricewise.
I don’t regret that I bought it in this combination.
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Right, that’s roughly what we get from the specs. But how UTP cabling, non shielded, would end up providing better results keeps being a mystery.
Possibly. Or possibly providing a path for ground plane modulation.
When I installed network cabling throughout my house I had initially considered STP as the obviously better solution, but then read a bit more and realised it wasn’t quite so simple, and that indeed for data transmission in anything other than a really problematic electromagnetic environment UTP was perfectly adequate , so went for Cat 6 UTP (or may have been 6a - I can’t remember).
At that point, some years before going over to streaming, I was unaware of the potential adverse effects of RF on the performance of DACs, whether superimposed on the data stream, or via ground plane. (However, my use of a network in streaming music, from my own store which is all I do in serious listening, was short lived, now my music not going across the network at all, so the consideration is irrelevant to me.)
There is no particular reason why any one specific Ethernet cable should sound better or worse in any particular system in any particular location.
The electrical characteristics of the particular cable interact with (filter and ‘tune’) the noise characteristics of local environmental noise, and the inherent noise emitted by the equipment; this reshaped noise then interacts with the noise sensitivity of the Streamer / DAC / analogue preamp circuitry… So unless you can predict all that lot, then whether a cable works better or less well is pretty much a lottery.
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This is probably the best, more accurate, explanation one could provide. I had the same thoughts. This is, in end, all about noise shaping.
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The simple answer is that the two conductors in the pair provide a degree of self screening depending on the amount of twisting.
Phil
If shields (made of foil or other materials) can keep various forms of electromagnetic noise out of a cable (or out of a cable within a cable) - then they must also be able to keep various forms of electromagnetic noise within a cable (or within a cable that’s inside another cable).
So the question is whether the shields keep more and worse forms of noise out of your cables, than the forms of EM noise they keep flowing along inside your cables.
And that depends on the electrical environment of your particular house, room, equipment, cables and system.
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Phil, this is nearly a truism 
UTP, FTP, STP, SSTP, SFTP, all these construction flavours are twisted pairs acting as they should.
My guess is that @Xanthe has provided us with an interesting answers and explains all those different experiences with cables.
Yes, systems need to be synergistic (sorry for another truism). @Mike-B also pointed another feature that powering a network from multiple mains rings may introduce audio issues. Maybe that is why Power over Ethernet helps some users.
Phil
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The very complex electrical interactions in an electrical supply system feeding a very sensitive hifi system add an element that is hard or impossible to reliably predict (as we discussed in detail a few thousand posts ago).
So yes - how a cable will work in your system is a bit of a lottery.
But it’s not a complete lottery.
Some cables are still better or worse than others - i.e. if we tested cables in a large number hifi systems not all cables would give equally good results.
So when I replaced the extremely cheap and ‘free’ isp cables with BJC in my system, one of the reasons SQ improved was presumably because the BJC are very well constructed from good quality materials and thoroughly tested.
Whereas the cables they replaced were none of these things.
I’d be extremely surprised if the very cheaply built cables I had would have resulted in better or equal SQ compared to BJC if tested on say 1000 hifi systems.
But the interactions discussed above mean that some of the cheap cables might well have given better results in a few of those hifi systems.
… earthing different endpoints on a network from different mains rings may introduce audio issues.
To make this clear - this applies to installations that have an STP screen that is interconnected between different endpoints that are on different power circuits.
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Yes, but I’m using a Sonore OpticalModule.
Thanks - I’m interested in what that does in different types of systems, so please do say a but more about how it works in yours.
Are these are used with and without OpticalRendu units?
Mine attaches my Roon Nuc to my Melco S100 switch which has 2 optical inputs, the other goes to a Cisco switches optical input which it the route to the rest of my network. The difference between optical and copper is subtle and I suspect will be very dependent on the other components but for me the sound is a little cleaner on classical music attack and decay of notes is better and it makes a some difference on poor recordings making mp3 sound less mp3.
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Try putting a ferrite core at each end or just one end, you may or may not like the effect that has.
Still don’t understand that first sentence, which repeats your earlier post.
Do you have 2 optical modules or 1?
I have, I was one of the first-ferrite pioneers.
I also use ferrites; I tried using ferrets, but they ran off with the data packets! 
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