NDX ethernet cable choice?

What is the best option for my NDX. I have a sky router. Please ignore my ignorance but have never used it wired.

Thanks.

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I liked the £10 a m Catsnake 5e from Designer Cable when I tried a few and preferred it to any 6a I heard including theirs once the initial bass heaviness had passed. Having said that I’m running wireless since I moved and feel no urgency to go crawling around in the void under the house to run a cable. Streamer is a 555 in my case.

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Hi Lee, I use MeiCord Cat6, but to be honest most any good ethernet and not the mad money ones will be perfectly OK.
BlueJeans Cables are a forum favourite.
Lots of reading on this if you search the forum.

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Hi,
Not only for NDX-Chord Epic.

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I just replaced a standard Amazon cable with a Pangea Audio premier se cat7 ethernet cable to my ndx. For me it was well worth it. The biggest surprise was it actually organized all instruments etc into a cohesive proper soundstage setting. Better in every aspect to the standard cable. A 4 meter cable cost me $170 canadian.
Well worth it for not much cash in my opinion.

BlueJeans CAT6 for me and it sounds awesome. I run a Belden Catsnake 6a with floating shield from my switch to streamer. This seems to be a really good combo but, as mentioned, Catsnake does, initially, sound a bit odd in the bass and takes forever to run in but once it’s had a good workout everything snaps into perfect focus.

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Catsnake cat5 here from designacable. Reasonably priced and manageable.

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By way of contrast I didn’t like the catsnake it’s now relegated to a position between a server and a 3750.

I went back to a standard cat 5 cable - for me more balanced.

As always, YMMV :grinning:

I had Maplins, or maybe Wickes, finest buried in the wall, the Catsnake was from sockets to switches and switches to ND, Core and Router. It took a couple of weeks to settle and sounded rather heavy handed to begin with. I also had a slight preference for the sound with the printing on the cable reading from the source end.

I tried to stick it out with the sound but I just couldn’t listen.

Maybe if I leave it streaming through to NDX whilst I go on holiday, it’ll be better when I get home !

I’m not sure that because an ethernet cable works well in one system it will work in others. The ambient RF hash will vary somewhat, the switches used are likely different (I was using Cisco 110 small business switches) and then the routers are possibly different and I use an ND555. With that wifi is good enough to keep ethernet honest, I don’t know the NDX but I never liked the NDS enough to part with money for one.

I use Chord C-Stream with my NDX. Affordable and musical.

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Following the exchange above, I thought I’d dig out the catsnake and give it another go.

It improves massively with burn in. I’ll be keeping it in the system for now.

Thanks for the prompt !

Chord C-Stream from Virgin Hub to to 2960 then Chord Shawline from 2960 to EE8. Chord C-Stream NAS to EE8 and Clearway from EE8 to ND555.

Sounds perfect to me.

G

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Oddly, I much prefer the Clearway (over Shawline) for the last leg. It’s much livelier and transparent, more accurate to my ear. Bass is more tuneful too.

The Shawline a bit thick and ponderous by comparison.

G

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Full Loom AQ Vodka here - tried all of the usual suspects - boring.

Kind of off topic. I tried the Shawline for audio interconnects both phono pre and dac into amp and felt the same way. I liked it rhythmically but was far too dark. Went back to Clearway cables for my sources.

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Thats impressive, how did it handle Hendrix?

Clearway from router to switch to nova.

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I am in the process of re wiring my rack which includes a NDX and Uniti. I decided to use the best quality cheap cable I could find at the local IT shop. (Centercom in Australia). I chose the CAT 8 series. They have triple shielding, oxygen free copper and a nice gold-plated metal housing which provides a really solid connection. 1m patch leads were $10. My Theory is that if the cable is designed to operate at 40GBPS +, then it should have no problem at 100MBPS.
I have not completed the set up, but I am sure the signal integrity will be good. I am not expecting a dramatic change in SQ. But hopefully less glitches.