And if you use the same cable directly to your router you find the EE8 still adds to the performance?
Yes but thereâs still digital data coming over the USB and there is no DA conversion in the Mini/Nucleus
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Yes, but you know what I mean - the RF as such is not mythical, but whether it has that influence over an ethernet cable is somewhat mythical.
Got it, itâs a very good point - No DA conversion in the Mac Mini/Roon Nucleus, unlike a streamer.
Those decisions can be measured obviously, they are not doing anything magical that can be heard but not measured. The type of noise we are talking about in this thread is especially suitable to being measured, since itâs actual interference (sinusoidal or white noise).
Meridian offer two Meridian-branded ethernet cables. They claimed that listening tests showed that they sounded better.
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Hi frenchrooster,
Actually, my post was meant to be mostly, but not entirely tongue-in-cheek.
I do believe that some people like yourself can potentially hear differences that I myself cannot. I also get quite annoyed when people on other forums post that there canât possibly be a difference between switches/cables/DACs etc. Iâve even come across individuals on other forums arguing that a Topping D90 DAC is at least as good as a DCS Rossini because (where it matters) the Toppingâs specifications are as good as those of the DCS.
So, the slightly more serious intent of my post was to say that I have compared a range of relatively cheap ethernet cables (BJC, Catsnake, Audioquest Cinnamon and local hardware brand) and not found a significant difference in my audio network. I have also compared a consumer TP-Link consumer switch with the Cisco 2960 switch and not found a significant difference between them.
To my mind there are 2 or 3 possibilities:
- Audible differences between digital network components such as ethernet cables and switches vary from network to network, from system to system or even from device to device. My devices (Linn Klimax DS/1 or microRendu/Mytek Brooklyn DAC+) just are not as susceptible to changes as some others.
- I am not quite as young as I used to be, although I like to think that I am. However, lamentably my ears may not be quite as good as they once were. I may now not hear differences that I might have heard 10 years ago.
- A combination of the above.
I believe that in my case itâs probably a combination of the two. However, I really do feel that in some cases âdifferencesâ in sound and sound presentation between ethernet cables and switches are somewhat exaggerated. A very slight âdifferenceâ (i.e. a change, however small) is a trigger to perceive the change to be a huge step up.
But hey - thatâs always been the case with hi-fi system tinkering and upgrades. Although Iâm happy with what I have now and donât pursue that ultimate little improvement any more, I have certainly enjoyed my fair share of tinkering or noodling with my systems over the years.
By the way, despite my aging ears, I can still hear very significant sound differences between assorted speaker cables and analogue interconnects, which would lead me to believe that they probably impart a far greater impact on most systems than digital network components such as ethernet cables and switchesâŚ
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Likely to be both⌠the conducted out of band analogue voltages and the serial line clock FM (frequency modulation through noise) power
Many people say that they prefer the BJC over the included Chord to be attached to the EE. Some say anywhere, some say between router and EE, some say between EE and streamer. Whatever that means
There is empirical evidence from people such as myself way back when I first discovered the correlation between Ethernet FM noise and subsequent coupled device sound quality, there is sound engineering design practice and pattern to mitigate, industrial chip manufacturers such as TI produce devices to mitigate Ethernet noise for sensitive devices like audio, sensor and radio devices, and also Naim changed their architecture in their new streamers to mitigate this noise including the use of LVDS⌠you can also measure it yourself with a bandscope and a receiver or sensitive spectrum analyzer.
If sound wasnât impacted to my thinking none of this would be relevant.
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Yes i would be very interested in measurements. Iâm not discarding the idea per se that changes in audio output are technically / theoretically possible due to different ethernet equipment, but i would be very interested to see this visualized and the degree to which it affects the results. I donât have the equipment or experience to do this myself, but i will stay on the lookout for anyone who can provide more insight into this.
[edit] i have only found this article with measurements:
From the article:
As you can see, there are no significant differences in the audio output at all. Analogue output was measured all the way to 48kHz - well beyond the audible spectrum. It didnât matter whether the cable was 1-foot all the way to 50-feet. Likewise, Cat 5E, Cat 6, Cat 6A, UTP or STP made no difference whatsoever. In 2 of the tests (50â CAT 6A & 3â CAT 5E + LinkPro), I was playing 20Mbps 1080P MKV video concurrently on the HTPC connected to the switch to increase the data rate coming from the server - no difference in background noise or anything else.
Summary / Conclusion
I believe if there indeed is an ethernet audio device that âsounds differentâ because of different cables being used, then that device should be returned because it is obviously defective.
Also very interesting:
Well, it looks like Chord got their hands slapped for claims about sound quality with their ethernet cable ads determined to be âmisleading advertisingâ, lacking in âsubstantiationâ, and âexaggerationâ in November 2014. Bravo to the UKâs Advertising Standards Authority. Truth is important.
https://www.asa.org.uk/rulings/the-chord-company-ltd-a14-274211.html#.VN2WRPldV8H
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Sounds commercial to me, something I would certainly associate with Naim and a perfectly reasonable approach
Denying something until you start selling it is not commercial, itâs underhand.
Being ambivalent about something until you start selling it is however different and a commercial opportunity.
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Not sure what you are trying or your referenced article is trying to say here. You/they have confused analogue coupled interference with digital signal encoding. These are two quite different thingsâŚ
A more meaningful measure would be in my opinion to measure the ground noise floor on with different data throughputsâŚ
Your table doesnât even mention whether the RTP is WAV or FLAC encoded.
I realise you are quoting somebodyâs web article, but this sort of thing just perpetuates confusion and mis understandings amongst non technical people.
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I donât know whether proven, however it is a logical and plausible explanation for differences in sound arising from changes to network components, and differences in such claimed effect on sound between different streamers/DACs - and why some may exhibit no change to sound, as per the OP.
(N.B. IIRC from the many posts in the several cable and switch threads, whilst many people either didnât recognise or believe in the possibility of psychological influences - some even claiming to be immune - there were reports of audible effects from people who assessed under conditions that suggested the risk of bias was unlikely.)
I wonder if there is a similar market for fibre optic network cabling. I wonder what sort of marketing blurb would be needed to differentiate one optical cable from another.
Is that the case? The article states:
I will measure with RightMark (newest 6.4.1) to look at the usual dynamic range, noise floor, distortion along with the Dunn J-Test signal to see if thereâs any evidence of jitter anomaly in the Transporterâs RCA DAC output (rather than the XLR for the sake of convenience).
Isnât that what we were discussing in this thread?
I just think if it were proven with measurements, there wouldnât have to be an eternal debate about it.
One more thing about this:
Thomas wrote several times before about his results with USB and Ethernet regarding an LPS on the core, and just now provided another nice summary here in another thread: