Cat5e or Cat6

I now use Audioquest Cinnamon leads from the server to the switch, and from the switch to the streamer, and the improvement was very significant. If you are buying £2 cables, you are unlikely to hear much difference, if any.

Others will say I'm imagining it, which is fine. I'd try them if I were you.

HH,

On the other hand, maybe you hear a difference because you went from some Cat 5 cables to the Cat 7 cinnamon? Maybe going to stock Cat 7 cables with some chokes would have been equally good?

Since you've already bought the expensive cables, wouldn't you want to at least try some stock cat 7 cables to educate the forum dwellers?

M.

Why would 'on paper' it sound better?

Well it should have a better signal to noise ratio...

Um, why?

I refuse to buckle against the audio rally.

Does the cat5e deliver your data or not?

If it does not then check the connections are not damaged, then check your router and switch settings.

If when listening to music, you hear music, without dropouts, then happy days.

You're kind of an ostrich aren't you Garyi :-)

No not really.

A small group of people on a forum does not mean we have evidence that would go against years and years of IT and data networking. 

Is the data delivered or not, its simple really.

Gary is far more knowledgeable than me in these matters, and as a humble former zoologist and now a humble local government bean counter, I cannot compete with the EEEs in technical know how. But, if speaker leads make a difference, and mains leads make a difference, why wouldn't Ethernet leads make a difference? All I know is that I bought two £65 wires, and my music sounds much better. The difference was at least as big as adding a Powerline, which costs lots more. 

If people don't believe that these leads make a difference, it's their loss, I don't care.

Thanks for the very informative discussion people. My rationale behind my question was Cat 6 cable has a more stringent specification for crosstalk and system noise than Cat 5e does. That means you'll get fewer errors on a system operating via Cat 6 and anything delivering fewer errors to my streamer must be good.

Gary is right in saying that "on paper" there should be no difference between Cat 5 and 6. He is also right in practice, if my experience is anything to go by.

Nigel is right about the Audioquest cables. They do make a significant difference but are best avoided if you can't lay your hands on £65. He is also right that it's Gary's loss If he refuses to believe it.

Keith

Jonas, I didn't believe you at first, but having tried it for myself I know you are right. That said, calling Gary stupid is a little excessive.

Jonas, Hungryhalibut is right. This is an open forum and everyone is entitled to their opinions, as in most cases in life and that includes music (software and hardware) we all like different things and calling him 'stupid' is a little excessive. I believe most people contribute much to this forum and I for one am internally grateful for garyi helping me out only a few days ago.

Steve

All cables will 'sound' different to varying degrees whether they be Cat 5, 6, 7 or even the newer cable types. You are hearing the interaction of the RF currents passing through the cable/connector with connected audio equipment. With your Naim unless  you have a fault, running long distances near 100m, or are sending data through zones of industrial levels of EMI, then there will be no impact to the encoded binary data no matter the 'Cat'.

The other consideration for cables, is cross talk and leakage. A shielded cable can reduce the EMI from the Ethernet lead and thereby potentially reducing interference to other components/cables etc. In my experience most  noticeable with VHF aerial leads, mains leads and speaker leads.

I would focus far more on the quality of the TCP stack / processing environment of the upnp server rather than rely totally on tuning Ethernet cables. I hear definite repeatable differences with different TCP stacks/servers that no Ethernet cable can remedy.

Simon

"But, if speaker leads make a difference, and mains leads make a difference, why wouldn't Ethernet leads make a difference?"

Because the nature of what is being delivered is different.  Digital is either a 1 or a 0, and in a sense has no amplitude.  A digital signal has to go a LONG way to degrade (a fiber optic digital signal anyway).  That said, I have not tried it, so I pass no judgment - it is an "on paper" difference (or better, lack of difference.)  As Simon points out removing interference could be the difference, and that would apply to a better shielded (and presumably higher quality) cable.

But no one on this forum should be referred to as "stupid" - I would like to think it was a lack of English vocabulary  as a foreign language speaker that led to that choice of words, but I may be being to gratuitous in that hope.

Mark, don't you mean 'gracious'?

I don't understand it, or try to, I just know that the posh leads make a significant improvement in my system. I was very sceptical, but thought it worth buying one lead to try, as I could sell it if it was a waste of time. But it wasn't, and now I have two. The second made even more of a difference than the first.

I must say I have used cat5e, shielded and Un shielded and cat 6 and there was no diffrence in sound quality what so ever. What I will say tho was my router greatly effected my system. NAS to router then router to unitiqute. Not so much with sound quality but drop offs when playing hi res files.   

Please may I chip in, and ask you guys...I'm going to hide all my speaker cables, Ethernet cables and power cables in trunking around the skirting board, as it looks a complete mess at the moment. One of the Ethernet cables need to be routed upstairs, as that's where the NAS will live, due to it's noisy fan.

The problem I have, is that one of the Ethernet cables will run horizontally and vertically with a power cable, it just can't be avoided. So, would buying a shielded, good quality Ethernet cable be acceptable? Without breaking the forum rules, can anyone suggest where to get good quality, shielded Ethernets?

This forum is great! There are so many very knowledgable people on here, who help not so knowledgable people like me.  Peace & love to one another!  

I meant gratuitous in the sense of "lacking good reason; unwarranted" (hoping that there was such an excuse for the insult given) - but gracious may have been a better choice!

And "too" would definitely been better than "to" - lol

As for cables - as long as you are happy, hear the difference & are enjoying the music, it's all that matters. 

The Meerkat, to answer your question, yes shielded Ethernet cable may well help. Try and keep some physical seperation between the Ethernet lead and the mains lead.

You may also find putting ferrite chokes around the shielded Ethernet lead helps impede any induced RF in the shield. 

MM, can you explain what you mean by 

"A better network will reduce the load on the network card - ..."

thanks.

Simon

Simon, Thank you.

There is a company that sells a physical divider to go inside their range of trunking, so will do that to separate them. I remember an earlier thread about ferrite chokes, will put those on too. Bearing in mind that there are thousands of Ethernet cables on the internet, are there any to avoid?

So reading from the above using WiFi to distribute a signal containing digitised music (or images ) is a definite no-no.