I didn’t tried that, but added a linear ps to my commercial router, which made a little improvement.
I meant the whole long fairytale, or now two of them. My fingertips are itching but I’m suffering for you 
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I agree with you to a point.
I would argue that everything here EXCEPT (in the case of ADSL) the cabinet to modem link is irrelevant to the situation. It is this “last mile” where the digital signal is encoded over copper to get it to your modem. This bit is where you are going to pick up any noise and jitter. Prior to that you may get timing issues, pauses, etc as the packets are routed through various devices.
If your new cable is capable of filtering out the noise from the BT line before it hits the modem, then I could understand some improvement, but how is it doing it?
Also given that the original ask was for a SHIELDED patch cable, how is this going to help, when you have potentially 100’s of metres of unshielded copper twisted pair between the BT socket and the BT cabinet which forms the same physical link.
You cited me , it’s kind of you 
. However we are a lot to have invested in network improvements, with audiophile switches, linear ps, cascade switches and boutique Ethernet cables. To name a few: Gazza, Dark Bear, Bert Bird, Bart, …Midnightrambler….
This last member had 2 Etheregen switches with Sean Jacobs DC7 and Mutec reference clock, with powerlines ( total approx cost: 11 k ). Blackmorec has the most extreme.
Yeah I know. I can’t say more as I want to honor your request
Once the data stream reaches the house, the job is two fold….to reduce any damage that’s been done by removing noise and timing issues and to avoid doing further damage by using for example cables that create loses, transport noise between components and/or allow the ingress of polluting EMI. So a cable isn’t actively fixing the problem, its simply preventing the problem getting worse and removing loses that have been causing a deterioration of sound quality
The cleaner and more accurate your bit stream becomes, the more you’ll hear the impact of positive changes and the damage of negative changes.
One important consideration….there’s no point adding say a linear power supply to the modem or router, then taking the stream through a Switch mode powered bridge for example. All you’d do there is to improve the signal only to damage it again. The ideal network is improved at every stage, such that gains at the earlier stages are improved at each later stage on the basis of better in - better out. If you place an inferior cable at some point in the network you’ll end up with better in - worse out, and that worse out of course affects all the downstream components. Ideally what you want are compounding improvements. The best of everything like cables, power supplies, vibration control always comes at the end of the chain. You can’t just add a power supply at the start of the chain and expect a big jump in performance, however if the rest of the stream is already fully optimized then adding a better power supply at the beginning will make a dramatic improvement….because the entire chain is working with the improved input stream.
In terms of specifications of network power supplies, cabling, vibration controls, clocking etc. your network should be arranged as Modem->better->better->better->best-> end point.
My request ? Which was it ? I am lost in the I cloud now.
To shut up about these things
(And it’s a good thing for me as well, I wouldn’t even know where to start in this case)
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Whether analogue or digital a cables only job in audio is to take what it is given and transport it to the next point in the chain, without allowing any outside interference such as RF etc colour it. It cannot in any way ‘improve’ the received signal/data.
The beauty of digital is by design there is a lot less to contend with. A well designed and engineered cable that conforms to a recognised standard, in networking a cat 5e, 6, 6a etc (no need to go any higher) will do just that, move a packet from one point in the chain to the next and through TCP/IP will ensure that what is received is a perfect match to what was sent before allowing passage on to the next part of the chain.
So if concerned about the quality of the included cable just go and replace with one that is well designed and engineered and conforms to a standard.
I could be mistaken but I do not recall seeing any statement by manufacturers or distributors of ‘audiophile’ cables, network switches etc about improving sound quality. The statements appear to be restricted to better clocking, power supplies and generally using higher quality materials, focusing on how electrically quieter and better timing can improve the signal - in modern kit with decent buffers completely over engineered, over priced and irrelevant to SQ.
As you note, given that cables are passive devices, they really can’t add anything to the signal but they can most definitely subtract. In terms of SQ. what that means is that all cables will subtract something from the incoming signal, the question is what and how much?
So logically speaking, if your new cable is a lot less subtractive than your current cable, you’ll hear a major improvement in SQ. So even though your new cable is passive and has added nothing the fact that it is subtracting less, makes it the superior cable.
For the sake of the argument’s clarity I consider that picking up EMI, although technically additive is subtractive from a SQ standpoint.
It appears we have Harry Potter writing about how the Internet and Ethernet work.
I was going to suggest you start with the facts but I can’t see any…
FWIW
I do find subtle differences with a bunch of Ethernet cables that I tried - no AudioCost etc ones though 
- on my ND5XS.
SiS did suggest that the differences were likely to be ‘noise’ related coming in via the cable. The new gen streamers are not affected in the same way so Simon found.
I noticed differences between Cat 5e and 6 possibly due to the differing construction of the two types. I have two Cat 6 ones, one is a cheap eBay special and the other is nicely constructed - both sound more or less the same.
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Considering the lengths of cables we’re talking about here and the amount of data, even for hi res flac or wav files, you’re barely using the available bandwidth of any of the cables, there are multiple checks, balances and error correction occuring throughout the journey of the packets even including the streamer itself.
If you choose alternatives and enjoy the results that’s your money and reward.
Trying to quantify that scientifically usually ends up in frustration and disappointment for the casual observer.
Sometimes these choices and changes don’t need justification, experimentation with ones own system is only really constrainted by time and budget.
Whether it makes sense or not is always questionable, spending 10’s of Thousands on a stereo playback system seems bonkers to most normal people after all.
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To put things in perspective here, the modem cable I bought cost £6.95 to replace a cheap looking telephone extension cable I had. There is no improvement in wifi speed. Probably no audio improvement either that you would notice. One thing however since having this cable I have not noticed any audio dropouts that occured very occasionally if listening to Qobuz hidef during busy evening hours, could be coincidence I don’t know
The dropouts are more likely to be WiFi related and just a coincidence. The ‘cheap’ looking cable will be have been tested during development and will be fine.
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Glad to hear it worked out ok in the end 
Love the way that audiophiles always have the fallback argument of ‘there’s more to SQ than just the science and engineering’. Not an argument at all of course. This thread is a good example of ignoring the engineering and claiming ‘noise’ must be removed from the digital chain pre-streamer. As a minimum streamers should have been designed to cope with signals that arrive within spec. I.E. able to cope with real world artifacts like jitter, low level rf noise etc. If the signal is within spec, then any ‘improvement’ is probably a waste of money. Oh, I nearly forgot, SQ is about more than just the physics/engineering…
Sarcasm noted.
But each to their own.
Does it effect you what others do?
If not, leave them alone to do whatever they want with their system and their money.
I’m sure that they are not going to reply to you stating that you’ve got it wrong.
Read their post, enjoy your music and move on.
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That’s a very good way of looking at it. Absolutely, we each spend our money and enjoy our hobbies as we we see fit and quite rightly so. However, the ‘live and let live’ argument is also commonly used to put down a rationalist view of the technical aspects of audio reproduction. I shall indeed move on, with a sense of frustration that many technically less well informed people are being parted from their cash by cynical marketing.
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