Almost ridiculous difference

When it comes to this sort of stuff, nor do I.

Harry, presumably you feel sarcasm is a more effective tool than humour in making your point or perhaps we should just all agree with each other to avoid anyone taking offence at anything we say at all?

I really don't mind at all when people disagree with my views - after all it happens so frequently, especially at home so I would be in a permanent sulk otherwise. Am I opinionated - sure - are other peoples' views wrong - always!  

So returning to the topic - I can't hear any difference between bog standard Cat5 and audiophile grade ethernet cable but in the interest of full disclosure I haven't heard the ludicrously monikered "Vodka" cable.

Is £600 a reasonable price to pay for Cat cable?  Hell no!  

However, as the legendary David Dever always says - "your mileage may vary"

I'm off to start a thread entitled Flac v Wav - Was I wrong?

Tog

Dogma:

Definition:

: a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted

Dogmatic

Afternoon (GMT) Aleg - all the more reason to disagree occasionally then.

Tog

Hey

Are we really doing this? - playing the dicthionary game - cooool

Po-Faced

  Tog

Yep. Good to keep an open mind on these things and at least try them. 

Hi Jonas,

Not merely in the vein of defending my forum brethren (and sisters, when they post), BUT it appears to me that there are few topics in hi fi forumdom that lead to more "debate" than "expensive cables" per se, and the most debate seems to consistently center around high-priced digital interconnects such as ethernet, usb and hdmi cables. 

While you may have dipped your toe innocently enough into the pool of ethernet cable debate, from the outside looking in I am not surprised that your innocent-enough o.p. has sparked spirited debate.  Such is NOT due to any lack of manners from our audience here.  I am confident of that.  If you posted the same (maybe you did? I have not looked) in that pink piscatorial forum, I think that it would be met with even less enthusiasm for your conclusions. 

This ground is well-trodden; whether high-cost ethernet cables make a sonic difference.  Your conclusions are as valid as anyone's.  Me -- I find anything other than a truly blind test (where I make my wife do the cable swapping, for which she has limited patience) to be relatively meaningless due to the placebo effect.

Understood but in this case I would add a strong dash of "cognitive bias"  as well if you have spent that much on an ethernet cable.

I got into a similar scape when asked if I believed in clairvoyance; facing the accusation that my reply suggested a somewhat closed mindset with regard to the supernatural. 

Sometimes you just have to call it as you see it rather than sit on the fence.

Tog

I must admit that I fall into the "cynical about ethernet cables" camp but I'm very happy to listen for myself.

Into the back of my KDS I currently use a regular cat 5e cable with a RF choke. I've just ordered a 2m cat 6 cable to see if I can hear a difference the extra shielding will bring. I'm looking forward to come experimentation in a few days when the cable arrives

Graham

Too many people, who's opinion I respect, have heard and rate these cables for me to put the whole thing down to cognative bias. My own bias was that they should make little or no difference. I listened at the shop, listened again at home and came to the same conclusion as the OP.

The cost should be viewed in the context of other competing upgrades. If the Vodkas are too expensive then get someting further down the range.  

Keith

Im not interested in continuing this discussion. I do respect you who has tried and didn't found the same thing as I did. Not exactly the first subject here where people have different opinions about the same product. And thats how it should be. 

I just reported how something that shouldn't make any difference, actually did that (in my system, to my ears). Hence the "ridiculous".

Its a subjective sport this, no doubt about that, but to say I have to hear a difference because of the outlay is really stupid, it says more about the person himself IMO.

I paid less for these 3 cables then I did for one PowerLine, and to be honest, within the total cost of the system, its not about the money any more (but how much something is worth is another discussion, a discussion I don't want to be involved in).

Take it for what its worth, if you don't "believe it" thats fine with me, couldn't care less. 

Have fun & buy some records, thats my next step anyway . Im out of here. 

//jonas

I don't think Audioquest do themselves any favours with the marketing ( the cable is directional - arrows show the direction of the music ...) but interesting to hear about your positive findings Jonas.

The Audioquest cables are a bit rich for me. The Meicords look like a well regarded alternative and are availabe on a sale or return basis so I'm going to order a pair to try between my Mac server, NAS and switch. The switch to NDX is a 30m run of Cat 5e so I'll leave that as is for now.

James

Asparagus

Agreed, Tog. 

Jonas I suspect that many interpreted the "ridiculous" in the headline a bit differently!

If some cables transport all the data and others only some of it then this forum will slowly become incomprehensible. H-n- on a min-t-....

It's called "Cogitive bias" -see Kahneman & Tversky  - One of the reasons that Daniel Kahneman got his nobel prize for economics. Our intuitive judgements are not what they seem. You might want to read "Thinking Fast and Slow" - a long way from stupid.

Tog

What I can't understand is cable directionality in cables supporting the TCP/IP protocol (as with the Audioquest Vodka Ethernet cables on their web-site), given that the nature of the protocol requires for bi-directional communication for each received IP packet, with an ACK acknowledgement following receipt of the correct number of bytes and that the CRC checksum is correct.

Unless they are operating in a UDP mode, but then you lose the data protection/packet recovery of the OSI 7-layer stack, which is a key element of the IP protocol. I may be mistaken, as my Engineering degree was 20 years ago, and have been operating at the Application layer, well above the transport levels.

I can understand how FTP specification Ethernet cables may be better, given the additional shielding between the twisted pairs within the cable for the higher transmission speeds in the 250MHz upto 600MHz signalling where RF is a factor, as with all high speed data transmission. I have CAT 6e patch cables between router, primary NAS, backup NAS and Naim network player etc. But are 'normal' data centre cables and prices, plus my understanding is that the NIC interface on the Naim streamer card is 100BaseT - CAT5, CAT6, CAT6e etc. are all for 1000BaseT & 10GBase-T communications (when 'normal' NIC cards in laptops/PCs and consumer focused equipment starts supporting 10-Gigabit Ethernet).

If CAT5 cabling is not sufficient/suitable for high speed data communication then the fabric of the Internet should collapse, as I am sure that most ISPs and commercial datacentres are all wired with CAT5!

Simon.

Tog,

Intrigued to know how Prospect theory fits with someone wanting to 'lose' a substantial amount of money for an unproven 'gain' in SQ on an already high end system.

Hi AndyPat -

Prospect theory and Cognitive bias are not just interchangable terms - rather Prospect theory was their way of devising a predictive model for human decision making that moved beyond simple utility and although it involves probability mathematics  it is in essence a model that focusses upon reward and risk; seeking to understand why people make often irrational decisions.

Cognitive bias is a theoretical explanation as to why such irrational behaviours might occur;  in this case you could argue that there is a compensationary bias in play.

Richard Thaler continued the work and is worth reading as well.

It is a fascinating area of study - as much to do with descriptive psychology as mathematics. 

Tog

@Simon:

You really need to put together a 'how to optimize your HiFi network on the cheap' guide and make it a sticky on this forum.

MM

I wonder if he would recommend 600 quid a metre ethernet cable throughout the house?