Ethernet Cables

Just get some Cat 6 cables. Cat 6 - so they'll be at least to the Cat 5 spec. :-)

Cat5e is fine, if you want to splash the cash cat 6. Presumably the ethernet has been carried to your office professionally leaving you with ethernet sockets. In which case you want patch leads.

I hear if you spend 1800 quid on a chord one then you can enjoy much blacker text on your word documents, so that would be nice.

Not only is the text blacker but the whole document hangs together better and has a much better flow to the words.

It means reading and writing sessions extend into the early hours of the morning and you end up revisiting documents you've long forgotten about and finding new nuances in them.

make sure they are gold plated.  

Thats a ridiculous statement,  if he's spent 1800 quid on cat6 he'll obviously be using a mac and not Word 

I am struggling to get my head around that.

Siemon Z-MAX 6A UTP modular patch cords.  Good AND inexpensive.

I've seen a significant increase in musical transparency, going from 10m of Cat5e to Cat6 (standard belkin).  Cat6 has improved noise rejection, which translates into more music  

If you have a choice, seems pointless going for less.....

Not sure how that's possible when there is no audio on the cable. Only packets of raw data and metadata are sent. It's the client hardware that puts it back into audio data. If there is a problem it can  request retransmission of a failed packet. Basically it either works or it doesn't.

All you need for audio is an ethernet cable that meets the standard and uses a standard that can handle the bandwidth. Cat 5e or Cat 6 are adequate for audio, at least up to 24/192 and probably with DSD as well. Snake oil salespeople need not apply.

I ran 100' of Cat 6 from my NAS to my ND5XS, and I paid $14 for it from Monoprice. It runs through my attic and along the baseboards in my office and listening room, past AC outlets and plugged in irons and everything. It works just fine.

Save your money for music. Don't get fancy with ethernet cable.

Cat6 plenum bare copper cable is best for your office installations.

I've put that new Chord C-Stream between my HDX-SSD, NDS, Netgear NAS and gigabit switch and then good old Belkin cat5e from switch to router.

I haven't found that it improves the print quality in Word, but the sound quality in my all-Naim system is definately no worse. 

If you like white and light blue network cable with shielded, gold plated plugs, I can thoroughly recommend this Chord Cat7 cable.

PS - I did a comparison to the £1800 SarumTA network cable - the improvement in SQ that this cable brought was, I found, negligable.  I didn't actually try it to my printer, just too pricey I thought.   

I saw the advert for that ethernet cable. I assumed it was an April fool that had been let out early. If it is a genuine product it wants reporting to the Advertising Standards Authority.

Really ? - why's that then. 

From where can i buy cables for office installation, which company is best?

Hi Tyler, 

That would depend on your budget and the lengths required. Audioquest cables start at prices just over £20. You can pay more for longer lengths and better performance, but the cheapest ones are significantly better than the stuff you buy in Currys.

Keith

I see Cat6, I see Cat5 recommended here - why not Cat7? Next week I'm replacing the entire cabling in my flat, it was done 10 years ago with Cat5 and has problems (using wi-fi for the moment, but speeds very unsatisfactory this way). So I was thinking - why not go to shielded Cat7 to be more future-proof? Today my ISP gives me 250mbps, who knows what the speed will be in 5 years' time...?

But in addition to 6 computers this network carries the traffic between the NAS and 2 streamers in 2 rooms. In terms of audio quality is there any reason to choose STP Cat6 or Cat6e over Cat7? The price difference is negligible comparing with my last 1,5 meters leading to ND5XS (AudioQuest Vodka)... 

If I was putting cables in the walls, I would go for cat 7 (or whatever top of the line specced cable). Totally overkill, but I don't ever want to do this ever. Not in 20 years.

Exactly my thinking... I was just wondering if anyone did any comparisons of the sonic benefits of various ethernet categories between a NAS and a Naim streamer.

PS. Using an "audiophile" cable in the wall across the entire flat is financially out of the question for me, so it will have to be the best quality, regular, STP cable I can find.

I am not getting the logic sorry.

Get a good quality cable in cat5e or 6 spec, in a house you will *never* need Cat7. cat5e has probably been going for 20 years and you could still pump 5+ hi def streams through it at once.

Your money should be directed at the top of the range routers/switches. You can get a barrel of cat5e of high spec for less than 6o quid for 320m

I'm also not getting the logic - countless threads on this forum concluded that the quality of the switch is completely immaterial to the quality of streamed music (unlike the switch's power supply, which should be in-line, and the ethernet cable itself, especially the "last mile" - the one that goes into the streamer)...

Regarding the never needing Cat7 in the house - you are probably right, but then Bill Gates said nobody will ever need more than 1MB of memory in their PC.

Actually, that's an urban myth. Bill Gates never said that.
And that mis-quote was for 640K, not 1 MB.

Consider carefully what the next tenant / homeowner would do with such infrastructure–if the answer is, "not much", you'd better re-think the idea of running expensive, permanently-installed raw cable through the wall.

Metal conduit, on the other hand, might turn out later to be quite useful as a channel to run any type of cable, fiber, or what not that one might use in the future...pull your good, better or best quality audiophile cable through, end to end, and call it a day.

David!

I have a few properties to let and try, as much as possible, to incorporate   access to new technologies as physically permitted. I trust you understand this is impossible until this is agreed as norm throughout the industry.

KR,

Tony

We have a bit more flexibility over here than you might have on that side of the pond, and (in many jurisdictions) can run our own residential mains wiring as well without an electrician.  No "nanny state" here....

That said–I tend to look at commercial specifications as being a reasonable starting point for uprated residential specifications.  In major cities (such as Chicago, where building codes are stricter due to the effects of Mrs. O'Leary's cow), the residential specifications often mirror commercial requirements, especially in mixed-use buildings.  1 1/2" to 2" conduit is pretty common over here in the commercial sector, and the pipe bend radii used generally insures a decent sweep characteristic for data cable runs.

I think you'll find it was 650k   (0.65MB)  and that was quite a large amount of memory in those days. I remember them well.  A programmer spent 10% of his/her time writing code, then 90% trying to reduce the size of it.  A megabyte of disk came in a huge package costing £000's and no-one even considered the possibilty of storing music or pictures on them.    Ahhh, I reminisce... must be time to play some vinyl