Almost ridiculous difference
Posted by: Jonas Olofsson on 05 October 2013
This upgrade surpriced me a lot. Less harsh, better bass and the whole sound is a lot fuller. Never easy to describe this kind of stuff in words but there is really no contest.
I guess this is common sense for most here that everything makes a difference, still I wasent preparerad how much better it would be.
Yes, its a capable system I use but at this level everything seams be important.
//Jonas
Here's some real snake oil bollocks for you
"Dielectric-Bias System (DBS, US Patent #s 7,126,055 & 7,872,195 B1)
All dielectric (insulation) slows down and smears the signal traveling inside the conductor, and when insulation is unbiased it slows down different frequencies at different energy levels by varying degrees. This is real problem for time-sensitive, multi-octave audio, and a significant distortion mechanism for all audio cables, digital or analog.
AudioQuest’s patented DBS creates a strong and stable electrostatic field, which saturates and polarizes (organizes) the molecules of the insulation. Saturated (full) insulation absorbs less and therefore releases less out-of-phase energy. Minimizing nonlinear time delays results in clearer sound emerging from a “blacker” background with unexpected detail and dynamic contrast."
Now, this might have an audible effect if they were talking about audio cables in an extremely high end system and somebody with the ears of a 10 year old musical savant. However we are talking about digital cables for which the concept of "time-sensitive, multi-octave audio" is entirely irrelevant.
What I find dishonest and misleading is that Audioquest describe these cables as 'Digital-Audio Cables' when in fact they have nothing to do with audio what-so-ever. Ethernet cables carry data from one place to another not audio. The audio is reconstructed INSIDE your streamer.
Changing ethernet cables CANNOT have any effect on the sound - seriously, it is not scientifically possible for that to happen. This is snake oil.
Being able to hear a difference between two different ethernet cables (that are conformant to the specification) is like saying you hear a differences in the sound quality of your system depending on who goes to the CD rack, picks the CD and carries it to the player. Would you say you music sounds different if you or a friend does this? Of course not, you know thats silly, and what you have to understand is, that this is what an ethernet cable does; it carries the CD (digital data) from the CD rack (your server) to the player (your streamer) and it CANNOT affect the sound quality.
Audioquest are playing on peoples lack of understanding of the difference between a digital data cable and an analog audio cable.
Conrad
I think you make a mistake in argument.
... Ethernet cables carry data from one place to another not audio. The audio is reconstructed INSIDE your streamer.
Changing ethernet cables CANNOT have any effect on the sound ...
In this argument you actually say that data is the only thing having an effect on sound.
I don't think that is completely true.
Cables carry more than only data (what is data actually when being "inside the cable"?).
Cable connections transfer more than only the data into the streamer. Is the actual signal that has entered the cable IDENTICAL to the signal leaving the cable or better entering the streamer? In all aspects that go with signal processing?
You make it sound as if data (an abstract concept and not a phenomena in the physicial world) is the only aspect that determines sound. I think all kinds of external influences, including signals representing data, determine sound.
Scientific approaches have a habit of oversimplifying reality, they have to, because they cannot grasp the whole of reality.
In science there is more excluded from the study then there is included, because it is deemed to be insignificant in its effect. They could be wrong sometimes!
Aleg
I'm reminded of the controversy surrounding homeopathy. One one level it is perhaps unwise to discount the fact that there is a very very small chance that trace amounts of a substance may have an effect on the symptoms of an illness but all the current evidence can only reasonably suggest that this is extremely unlikely to happen in reality. The dramatic claims made by some homeopathic remedies do not strengthen their case unless they bring to the table tangible evidence.
There may be things that can be done to ensure an ethernet cable does its job of delivering data to a client but the evidence seems to indicate these are confined to ensuring the physical integrity of the cable. Some manufacturers may no doubt seek to provide a tip top Rolls Royce product but in this case I think it is for a job that a Ford Focus style Cat 5 cable could handle just as well. There is nothing wrong with this and some people may wish to buy their product.
It is not impossible their cable might produce a better sound either - but on the basis of the evidence it is staggeringly unlikely that this is the result of the enhanced physical properties of the cable.
Just as with homeopathy - for answers you are better advised to consider other factors.
Tog
What I find dishonest and misleading is that Audioquest describe these cables as 'Digital-Audio Cables' when in fact they have nothing to do with audio what-so-ever. Ethernet cables carry data from one place to another not audio. The audio is reconstructed INSIDE your streamer.
Changing ethernet cables CANNOT have any effect on the sound - seriously, it is not scientifically possible for that to happen. This is snake oil.
Oh well - i've ordered a couple of Meicord cables to try. I like to try these things for myself.
James
Aleg
...
There may be things that can be done to ensure an ethernet cable does its job of delivering data to a client but the evidence seems to indicate these are confined to ensuring the physical integrity of the cable. Some manufacturers may no doubt seek to provide a tip top Rolls Royce product but in this case I think it is for a job that a Ford Focus style Cat 5 cable could handle just as well. There is nothing wrong with this and some people may wish to buy their product.
It is not impossible their cable might produce a better sound either - but on the basis of the evidence it is staggeringly unlikely that this is the result of the enhanced physical properties of the cable.
...
Tog
All ethernet cables are capable of delivering the data, otherwise other effects would show up than improved/degraded sound quality. An interrupted data stream doesn't reproduce into proper music.
the differences have to come from other aspects of signal processing and signal transport involved in the total chain, not just from bits arriving at the destination.
timing aspects, noise, emi/rfi shielding, ...
i just say don't ridicule others' experiences, because you yourself can't explain it from your scientific viewpoints/knowledge. Science isn't all-knowing you know.
not being familiar with homeopathy, but having had and also being trained in acupuncture treatments, I know how western medical science ridicules that medical system as well, because it doesn't fit in with the western way of thinking. It's efficacy can't be explained with western knowledge and medical research methodologies either. But hell, can I tell you it does something with you. I don't need western medical science to approve of the efficacy of acupuncture. Western medical science doesn't know 10% of what's happening inside a human body and what influences what. Statistical analysis shows there is statistically significant results in properly executed treatments, but the effects can't be explained with western medical know how, because they don't know what to look for. Western science is only looking within closed boundaries of what they can explain beforehand and they only look for confirmation. The Chinese concepts underlying their medical system have no equivalent in western medical science. These systems are orthogonal in their viewpoints on human health and the functioning of the human body.
I say f@&€#%*k western medical science, I don't need your approval.
And likewise with sound quality in digital playback chains, I have very much improved my playback chain by methods that were supposed to have no effect according to the bits-are-bits brigade ( in the cable arena only by USB and SPDIF cables used). But I don't need the approval of the bits-are-bits brigade, I only wish they wouldn't ridicule and bash people who report their experiences that don't fit in with their limited frame of knowledge. Because as I said, in the end I believe science in fact don't-know-nothing and they're just to afraid to admit it.
Cable connections transfer more than only the data into the streamer. Is the actual signal that has entered the cable IDENTICAL to the signal leaving the cable or better entering the streamer? In all aspects that go with signal processing?
You have this completely wrong Aleg.
...
A DAC such as the Naim one will use a RAM buffer. All you will find in that buffer is the data which might equally be written to the file. There are no signal artefacts in there. It does not work like that. If you can offer any explanation of how your signal variance concerns are manifest in RAM then let's hear about it.
What has happened here is the RAM has effectively decoupled all of your signal concerns (if they even exist). RFI is another matter and while it may well exist it is not material to the main point here and often simply an obfuscation.
I don't have to be right Mark.
i use Naim DAC, and I can tell you that in my first setup of computer playback into Naim DAC, the sound quality was only 60-70% of what I experience now into the same Naim DAC.
this RAM buffering is definitely not a cure for all. I only have to listen to the results and don't need a scientific explanation. You might want one before believing, I don't have to. I know what I hear and it doesn't have to be explained to me before I can accept it.
At the end of the day this is all these grand ethernet cable theories ever disintegrate into isn't it?
Timing is managed by the clock as well as described within the data itself. RFI shielding is another matter and is not reflected within the music data. As has been suggested before try chokes on the cables if you think it is an issue.
The bottom line is you need to produce some evidence. In the absence of this what you might do meanwhile is copy two files from one hard drive to another using a cheap cable and your $600 cable. Compare the destination files and let us know what you feel has changed. Repeat the exercise as many times as you wish. If you find a difference in this lifetime, consider whether $600 is worth it.
Surely if someone thinks $600 is worth it and can afford it, where's the problem?
I have many friends who query why I pay so much for Naim gear - quite a few look at me blankly when I tell them what I've bought and enthuse at the better sound quality.
And - if we go down this road - Naim PowerLine anyone?
Surely that can't make a difference? To my ears it does.
i use Naim DAC, and I can tell you that in my first setup of computer playback into Naim DAC, the sound quality was only 60-70% of what I experience now into the same Naim DAC.
Maybe you had an RFI issue with your first set-up? If so, perhaps it created a false-positive for your arguments as a result of which you a) now think a $600 cable is needed and b) think the signal creates artefacts in music data in RAM or on a hard drive?
If a RFI issue was indeed present then suggest a couple of $1 RFI-chokes would offer a more economical starting point. Just a thought.
Mark
You're a funny boy.
1. I don't use a $600 cable.
2. I did also try chokes on cables
3. You show me your cat.5 are without RFI/EMI influences
4. You show me your cat.5 cables don't transport high frequency noise into your system
5. I don't have to show you anything, I only have to listen to the result myself. I don't require your approval and don't have to prove my claims to you.
6. People with closed minds are deaf to any argument or suggestion, that doesn't suit them.
bye (again)
i use Naim DAC, and I can tell you that in my first setup of computer playback into Naim DAC, the sound quality was only 60-70% of what I experience now into the same Naim DAC.
Maybe you had an RFI issue with your first set-up? If so, perhaps it created a false-positive for your arguments as a result of which you a) now think a $600 cable is needed and b) think the signal creates artefacts in music data in RAM or on a hard drive?
If a RFI issue was indeed present then suggest a couple of $1 RFI-chokes would offer a more economical starting point. Just a thought.
Mark
You're a funny boy.
1. I don't use a $600 cable.
2. I did also try chokes on cables
3. You show me your cat.5 are without RFI/EMI influences
4. You show me your cat.5 cables don't transport high frequency noise into your system
5. I don't have to show you anything, I only have to listen to the result myself. I don't require your approval and don't have to prove my claims to you.
6. People with closed minds are deaf to any argument or suggestion, that doesn't suit them.
7. These differences aren't about the data/bits or whatever you want to call them, but about the other aspects that come into play. You are one of those closed minded people who can't read properly either.
bye (again)
Hi Aleg,
I find it immensely interesting that you are quite happy to accept the 'science' of Audioquest or some other cable manufactururer who is trying to sell you a product, but find it hard to accept the years of research and hardwork that has gone into developing TCP/IP, the OSI stack, DAC chips, signal processing, electrical isolation etc... which disagree with your very unscientific viewpoint.
Sorry before this thread gets any further out-of-hand. The original post concerned Ethernet cables, so the transmission of data over the TCP/IP protocol. This transmission is different to a 'Digital Cable' connection from source(CD player/Streamer/etc.) to some sort of DAC over a USB or SPDIF interface. Here cable impedance, physical connections and cable geometry will make a difference to how the data is transmitted.
Ethernet based data over the TCP/IP, as per the Internet or a connection through a Switch/Router between NAS and a Network Player relies on a number processing layers in the protocol stack, which is running in the interface card built into the devices involved, and separates the physical layer from the application layer.
From Wikipedia:
"TCP/IP provides reliable, ordered, error-checked delivery of a stream of octets between programs running on computers connected to a local area network, intranet or the public Internet. It resides at the transport layer. When an application program desires to send a large chunk of data across the Internet using IP, instead of breaking the data into IP-sized pieces and issuing a series of IP requests, the software can issue a single request to TCP and let TCP handle the IP details.
IP works by exchanging pieces of information called packets. A packet is a sequence of octets (bytes) and consists of a header followed by a body. The header describes the packet's source, destination and control information. The body contains the data IP is transmitting.
Due to network congestion, traffic load balancing, or other unpredictable network behavior, IP packets can be lost, duplicated, or delivered out of order. TCP detects these problems, requests retransmission of lost data, rearranges out-of-order data, and even helps minimize network congestion to reduce the occurrence of the other problems. Once the TCP receiver has reassembled the sequence of octets originally transmitted, it passes them to the receiving application. Thus, TCP abstracts the application's communication from the underlying networking details.
TCP is optimized for accurate delivery rather than timely delivery, and therefore, TCP sometimes incurs relatively long delays (on the order of seconds) while waiting for out-of-order messages or retransmissions of lost messages.
TCP is a reliable stream delivery service that guarantees that all bytes received will be identical with bytes sent and in the correct order. Since packet transfer over many networks is not reliable, a technique known as positive acknowledgment with retransmission is used to guarantee reliability of packet transfers. This fundamental technique requires the receiver to respond with an acknowledgment message as it receives the data. The sender keeps a record of each packet it sends. The sender also maintains a timer from when the packet was sent, and retransmits a packet if the timer expires before the message has been acknowledged. The timer is needed in case a packet gets lost or corrupted.[2]
While IP handles actual delivery of the data, TCP keeps track of the individual units of data transmission, called segments, that a message is divided into for efficient routing through the network."
So for example, when the UPnP Media Server sends a requested file containing music data to the Network Player, the TCP software layer of that server divides the sequence of octets of the file into segments and forwards them individually to the IP software layer (Internet Layer). The Internet Layer encapsulates each TCP segment into an IP packet by adding a header that includes (among other data) the destination IP address. When Network card in the Player receives them, the TCP layer (Transport Layer) reassembles the individual segments and ensures they are correctly ordered and error free. So in this instance there is no direct data stream as in Source to DAC. Plus the Naim players have a data buffer, basically a FIFO RAM store to hold a cache of the received data from the TCP/IP stack to allow for any delays in the packet processing of the TCP/IP layer.
If your network is operating properly & not stressed the buffer will be 100% while music is playing. You can see it change when you request a different track (or the next track is due to be played), as the buffer is refreshed with new data representing the new music.
Sorry for the Networking lesson. However I go back to my original question is how can an Ethernet cable, as referenced by Audioquest, have directionality, given that the protocol is fully duplex?
Also remember that most domestic routers & NAS devices are only 1000Base-T devices (1 Gb/s), so are cables can support 10GBase-T (10Gb/s) and 100GBase-T (100 Gb/s) necessary - however the reduced RFI interference offered by the shielded cables may kinder to surrounding sensitive electronics and this maybe the audible difference.
Also I believe that the Network interface in the Naim players is 100Base-T (100 Mbit/s) a tenth of 1000Base-T, hundred of 10GBase-T etc., and as such isn't going to stress a capable router/switch.
I am not suggesting than cables can't a difference to sound quality (I have silver cables from headset, through tonearm to phonostage, and cables containing silver and good connections through out the rest of the 'loom'), however the cable application & purpose needs to be understood, to overcome any marketing misrepresentation or claims that don't quite figure technically.
Thank you - Simon.
Aleg
Almost a call to arms in the war against oppression and tyranny. I understand your feelings about science being the answer to everything but what is the alternative if you want to get as close to the truth as you can?
Homeopathy is quite different to the use of natural remedies as a source of possible new cures in that it makes the evidence up without any real reference to medical science. It would be quite wrong to assume that Chinese medicine as a whole is any less scientific than anywhere else. In medicine the alternative to science is either faith, wishful thinking or a huge gamble on the cosmic roulette wheel of life.
We have science; the rest is magic.
Tog
My viewpoint to science being the bearers of all truth comes from the combination of the following (I did also (have to) do philosophy of science during my study):
1. ... all scientific claims can be proven false, at least in principle, and if no such proof can be found despite sufficient effort then the claim is likely true, but no claim can be proven true.
2. ... scientists work within a conceptual paradigm that strongly influences the way in which they see data. Scientists will go to great length to defend their paradigm against falsification ...
Therefore all 'scientists' claiming to be right and disproving and ridiculing all opposition to their 'rightness' are not proper scientists. Open mindedness and accepting the possibility of being wrong are needed. But most scientists don't like being wrong because of vested interests or loose their claims to fame.
From this viewpoint the bits-are-bits brigade have already been proven wrong.
bye (last time)
Maybe all go down to the pub and fight it out?
it seems to be the level this argument has descended to.
Entertaining, though.
Pub fight...
Fight pub...
Fight Club...
Audiophile Fight Club ?
Sign up here:
http://www.lastfm.fr/group/Aud...ight+Club?setlang=fr
Oh guys- two .....no make that three important questions.
1. Where is it that Aleg keeps going off to?
2. What is the first rule of Audiophile Fight Club?
3. Why have the badgers moved the goalposts? (Guardian readers only on this one!)
Tog
To Q 3.
Because the b@?##y ball kept going down the sett.
Andy
PS What's the Guardian
Best thread ever?
I thought it had subsided into admiring Tog's rather handsome cat, but the armchair theorists are on the march.
Thats it.
Nobody needs to use "the flat earth analogy" it ads nothing.
Borrow a cable, try it and make up your own mind. People who cant observe for themselves gets fixated with scienitfic explanations who can tell them what to think.
Its obviously pathetic but common in society today.
To hear different things is no big deal, to have an (strong) opinion without own experience is something else. Im not impressed.
//Jonas
Nope. Jonas.
Prove it.
Did you know white naca5 sounds better than black? There I have said it. Now you must go an try it for yourself before you can say I am wrong.
Did you know white naca5 sounds better than black?
It's " ♫ White boy rhythm vs. black boy beat ♪ "!
Garyi, we are not saying you are wrong. Just you are not willing to admit the possibility that Jonas prefers the new cable. And Jonas can't prove why he prefers something. I don't like tomato soup, but I can't prove to you that I don't.
I won't be able to confirm this Wat until I have tried it for myself.
But until them I will assume you are right because you 'prefer' it like this.
oh dear - been away from this thread for a few days.
I see mixing concepts of layer 1 encoding, layer 2 framing and then application data - ie our sample data.
At Layer 1 there are various analogue symbol encoding type such as NRZI (non return to zero inverted) for 100Base-T. It amps an analogue signal to a binary signal. The technique is used in USB and SPDIF for example.
These our analogue signals and will cause analogue crosstalk and EM coupling.
It is these signals that couple with our audio equipment to varying degrees and cause an effect to the 'sound'. This is a scientific fact - and without it we wouldn't have wifi or radio or air cored inductors....
This is nothing to do with the binary encoding of the sample data... (directly)
This is a fascinating area - but if you are going to discuss it you need to peer below the marketing concepts.
Simon
It amps an analogue signal to a binary signal.
Simon, you lost me at that point.
(If I were an electronic musician, I could build a whole album around "Non Return To Zero Inverted")
Jan