freeb cables will always suspect, I selected audioquest green £25  for 1m.  one from streamer and the other nas to a switch. the lot was £80

Cheep cables can be suspect ... but usually they work or they don't work rather than there being a reduction in speed.

"Audiophile" ethernet cables are complete snakeoil as far as I'm concerned ... ethernet cables should be less than £5 a metre.

Eloise

its the quality of termination that cheap cables have the issue . if you've spent 1000s of pounds on the streamer paying alittle more is sensible

All you have done is re-establish a fresh IP connection by swapping out the cable, if you put the old one back it will be equally as good.

Basically the superdud is crap. Get a decent router and switch it will cost about £200 and will dramatically improve every element of your home network.

I recommend getting a non-audiophile grade Cat 6 or Cat 6e cable.

Here's my reasoning:

a) Being non-audiophile, these are relatively inexpensive.

b) Even if they don't meed the Cat-6 specs as advertised they'll atleast be in the Cat 5e specs bucket.

Alternatively, you could get Cat 5e spec cables. These will be cheaper, but you'll have to ensure that they live up to the cat5e spec.

On my end, I've changed all my cabling to Cat 6. Sure, it's an overkill since Cat 5 should suffice. However, it's relatively inexpensive and gives me some peace of mind that the bottleneck is atleast not in these cables.

£200 for a router ? Mm yes but if it does the job well then so be it although I've seen some,on recommendation,for around £75.00 so I'd be interested in the £200 router you mention.

I'm a it of a novice regarding routers and I'm keen on replacing the cables I have with the same make and spec.

i do agree the Superhub/dud is rubbish.

For example the wireless signal is far worse upstairs than it was before probably because there's no antenna on the new router I guess.

ive been advised by VM to maybe use my old router for wireless duties and put the Dud into modem mode but I don't want more clutter so I'll hold out for another better router.

you never know it May improve the sound too?

Thanks for all the advice Guys much appreciated -

I agree with Eloise ... However, i agree having a good quality connector is useful, the one Synology bundles with its NAS has an excellent connector. 

I've been using these for the past couple of years with absolutely no problems whatsoever and I highly recommend them.

Billion Bipac7800N Router circa £139 and a 5 port Netgear unmanaged switch £25. All cables Cat 6.

Rock solid.....you can't go wrong with these.

This is exactly what Naim recommends for Virgin Super Hubs see the permalink at the top of "Streaming Audio". On the subject of cables, I have never purchased an "audiophile" grade network cable. I just the free ones and longer ones purchased from Maplin without any issues at all.

just a footnote. . the chap from VM told me i cant use a Gigabit Switch after looking at my device / type of card whatever so is he correct ?

My thoughts were does it matter but who am i to argue?

My PC is an eMachines e3010 which is seven years old and only a temporary setup until i can afford a better NAS/Vortexbox/Uniserveif im  lucky

Hi Mr Paws, well if you are seeing a speed difference on a short Ethernet patch lead it is clearly damaged. A bad cable will corrupt the voltage levels and lead to a corruption of the digital signal, but as I say for a short Ethernet patch lead this is unusual unless it has been crushed and the twisted pairs are compressed into each or the twisted wires are damaged. Ethernet will still work but in a slower transmission format with upto two of the pairs completely severed.

Simon

A gigabit bit switch using utp Ethernet connectors will usually work at 10Mbps, 100Mbps and 1Gbps. Never heard of one that doesn't.  ... However some older ethernet patch cables don't have the correct internal wiring to support 1Gbps. (or duplex transmission)but these are rare now. Anything Cat 5 or higher with 4 twisted pairs will be fine.

Simon

Nah, it all looks fine to me ....

There is clealy a desperate need to have tidy up Sir :-)