Ethernet Switch and Cables Mania

Wrong. No equipment details in my profile.

It was in nd555 impressions, in August or September

1 Like

Well after a whole morning and bit this afternoon. I am done with my experiment. I ended up only doing 6 in the end and dropped one of the cat7 cables as I ran out of time and was getting a little tedious. So these where what I tested

  • 1.5m Blue Jeans Belden Bonded Cat5A - my standard cable
  • 1m DesignaCable Belden Catsnake Cat5a - bought for the challenge
  • 2m No name CAT 7 - was in my currently unused pile
  • 1m No name Cat6 - was from work
  • 1m Van Damme TourCat 6a - bought for the challenge
  • 1m WireWorld Starlight - bought for the challenge

All cables have been in use they are not fresh out of the packet, not that I actually believe this makes any difference and from what I heard of the Starlight the first day it sounded the same today, same for the Van Damme, CatSnake etc.

All cable where plugged in to the cisco and I used the same route and port every time.

I chose three tracks to listen to in the same order with each cable :

Laura Marlings - Soothing from Sempa Feminia, the bass and percussion on this track is just so good it always gets the foot tapping, it also has subtle nuances hidden away that are easily lost. Lauras voice is also stunning and rich.

Sufjan Stevens - Chicago from Illinoise, there are so many layers going on this track and with its mix of brass and strings is just lovely to get lost in. I used this as towards the end there are layered vocals that are not always easy to make out.

Spiritualized - Come Together from Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space. A great rock, blues number that wigs out in all the right places mixing gospel choruses, brass and fuzz. Again this track has a lot going on so not always easy to flow if sounds bad.

To say this was difficult is an understatement, there really is not much in it and its not easy to really hear that much of a difference n some tracks. There was definitely no clear night or day difference, they all sounded good, none sounded terrible or broken. But they did have subtle differences.

Oddly they all performed about the same for the first track maybe a few had slightly tighter bass or the bass sounded a little more forward, and others accentuated some of the more hidden strums but itā€™s so subtle. But no clear favourite hear at all I would be happy with any of them.

Moving on to Chicago my second track and here things start to show up a little more. Its a track that can be bright. Hear the BJC, Catsnake, Wirewold and the Cat7 sounded much better and smoother than the cat 6 and Van Damme. The cat6 was a tad brighter but had much more bass presence, something the others all lacked. The Van Damme whilst not bright lacked something maybe a little sparkle. The Wireworld was a tad brighter than I would like but brought something else out in the midrange that was appealing. The catsnake, cat7 and Wireworld did a really good job of bringing out one of the main rhythms and the overlapping vocals at the end where much clearer with with Wireworld and Catsnake. Its really hard one again to pick which was better here.

So on to the last track Come Together. Well this is where it got really interesting and its this song alone thatā€™s really broke the pack up and left only two in the running as they ended up handling it better than the others, which where a bit dull for this track. Again none of this is night/day new box type difference its subtle and I bet if I was not focusing as hard I would not notice. The Catsnake and the Wireworld however did seem to rock with the music far better, so much more musical, increased separation, more distinct solid bass it sounded more alive and less compressed to. But one clearly brought the guitar to the front and centre after the first chorus as it wigs out. Now its still not a massive gap between the Wireworld and Catsnake but the Wireworld clearly won out on this track for its representation of the guitar being clearer and more forward.

I returned a few times to Wireworld and Catsnake cable and played the tracks again and again. And its just so tough to choose an outright winner but just on the one track alone its the Wireworld. Now whether this difference is worth Ā£200 extra is up for debate. Personally I donā€™t think it is I dont think it wins out clearly on everything I heard and at this increase it really should. Not sure if I will keep it just yet I have 55 days left to decide. The Catsnake and all the rest will stay as they are all good in their own right and cost less than the Wireworld all together.

I decided to also take readings with REW using a frequency sweep so their is some empirical evidence that each cable does seem to have different influence on the audio signal thats output. You can clearly see from the images below the Wireworld has a significant bump in the sensitive frequencies, this maybe why it sounded better for the guitar in this case. The others track quite similar overall with the catsnake and the cat7 also having slightly different boosts in the sensitive area.

)

One more thing is that dressing of the cables had 0 impact on anything sounding any different. this was my last experiment with all of them, on the floor over other cables touching other cables, made no change.

7 Likes

You mentioned somewhere, I think, that it is possible with the 2960 to see problems such as dropped packets etc. - presumably using the interface through the LAN port. Could you give me a pointer to how to look at these things, please?
Thanks

Yeah!

Thank goodness for that!

3 Likes

And after that exhausting test, I jjust put on the new Jeff Goldblums album to relax to with the Wireworld in place. I have had to put in the Catsnake instead as it was just too bright and the piano sounded off. So I now conclude there really is no overall winner in all this ethernet lark They all seem to work differently with different music not one cable to rule them all.

3 Likes

:small_blue_diamond:@Hmack,ā€¦Do you mean with that comment,.that it looks like this behind your music-system :grin::joy::grin:.

/PederšŸ™‚

Now - thatā€™s quite tidy!

Actually, my main system is not quite as bad as that, but the picture probably quite accurately portrays my 2nd (AV) system.

1 Like

Try this guide


Itā€™s comprehensive, as there are many ways of connecting.
One connected, you want want to look at

show interface <x/x>
And you will see the stats for the port <x/x>

1 Like

Fantastic - thanks Simon. So far no errors on any of the ports, which is good.

I may have mentioned before that I took possession of the Ansuz X-TC PowerSwitch from my local US Ansuz distributor and dealer (Next Level HiFi) about a week ago. This took the place of my Cisco 2960G switch. Right now Iā€™m using the Supra Cat 8 cables connected to my NDX2 and SuperNait 3. Din5 between the 2 is an Ansuz X Din5 to Din5. Power cord on the PowerSwitch is an Ansuz X 2M 15a. Power foundation is an Ansuz Mainz D2 with a 2M A2 Power cord to the wall.

Initial impressions after installing the X-TC PowerSwitch was the noise floor dropped again. Itā€™s like I added another Mainz to the system. The musicality is so much more after replacing the Cisco with the Ansuz. Iā€™ve heard things in songs I never heard before. Low end detail is a lot tighter and overall image depth has widened and deepened. I really had doubts whether this was gonna make a noticeable difference over the Cisco and yes it did.

BTW, I tried to replace the Supra 8 with two BJC 5ft Cat 6a and afternoon listening for a few days noticed that I lost some high frequency detail so I ended up going back to the Supras until I get some Ansuz Ethernet X leads.

Now maybe I am noticing these changes because I already have an Ansuz foundation. Would be interesting to hear from someone who is not using them as a power foundation. My gut says it will still benefit the system as a whole. Very impressed. Next stopā€¦ A2 PowerSwitch. Lord help meā€¦ :flushed:

1 Like

A Vodka and a pair of jeans has worked out the best for me here. On that note, Iā€™m glad I have purchased the BJCs as this has made me realise how bad the Cinnamons are, where l have consistently found them boring. Iā€™m not a fan of the Cinnamon cables at all. The Vodka however Iā€™ve found consistently excellent, much better than all BJCs in my system. Both my partner and I agree on this. I have consistently liked the Voddy ever since I got it and now itā€™s married with BJCs, my journey is now over.

Back to the musicā€¦

4 Likes

Until you decide its not, your track record is a little up/down in this area Stephen :slight_smile: based on your posts on the ND5XS thread.

3 Likes

Yes that is of course true but Iā€™m certain on this one. When I plugged the Vodka in last night even my partner said straight away ā€œwhat have you done? It sounds a lot better now.ā€ it wasnā€™t subtle.

The Cinnamons I was using before BJCs however are gone, thereā€™s no contest in that arena.

Well from my experiment today I did not find that with the Wireworld which is similar priced cable to the Vodka. 6 cables no wow thatā€™s massively different from any of them.

2 Likes

:small_blue_diamond:@CrystalGipsy,ā€¦If your Wireworld Starlight was new,.I still think you should let it run-in/burn-in 24/7 for at least 7-10 days.

If you have read @Darkebear adventure with his AQ Vodka,.then you understand what I mean.

:small_orange_diamond:Ps: Thanks for an interesting report.

/PederšŸ™‚

1 Like

It was in for 3 days prior to testing and did not change all in that period. All the cables had been used for testing as I said in the post they are not fresh out of the packet.

1 Like

:small_blue_diamond:@JNelson2000,ā€¦Thankā€™s,.very interesting report.

You do not have any internal image on this switch.?
Itā€™s always interesting to see what they look like inside.

/PederšŸ™‚

No

1 Like

Do you know the cost of the Anzus powerswitch supreme JN ?