+1 for audioquest cinnamon

HH, You should be on commission the amount of AQ cables you've 'sold' on their behalf !

I'll get back on this tomorrow ....

Myself & three others will be listening to a few Ethernet cables on a Linn DS tonite, We have AQ Pearl & Cinnamon, Supra Cat7,  Some Cat6 thats used in the home owners IT work & some no name Cat5 probably free-bees with something. The cables will be used only between his  DS & switch, the switch to NAS cable (aprx 12m) has house installed Cat6. 

Mike

I'll be really interested in your findings. I have a KDS.

Graham

I tried an 8m Supra to connect from the router to the switch, but got rid of it because it is really thick, and a pale blue colour. I swapped to AQ Pearl, which is nice and thin. It sounds a little better to me, but not significantly so. It has much nicer plugs than the Supra's which are massive and the little plastic clip is not covered, so could get snapped off.

I've shifted a few of the unmentionable US power supplies too.

The great thing is, these things really work, and for a modest price too. The Cinnamon cables, the short ones at least, have a very high quality braid in woven red and black, and look very smart.

What is your network setup now?

My AQ Cinnamon and Blue Jeans RG6 (Belden 1694A) arrived yesterday.  The runs are long so an installer is doing the work in a week or so.  Looking forward to hearing whether a wired connection, using good quality cables, sounds better.   Will share my experience then.  And I may try that $5 choke recommended by MM.  

OK, here we go ............. my experiences from last nights ethernet cable listening sesion. 

I was with three others who are not Naim users, we listened to AudioQuest Pearl & Cinnamon, Supra Cat7 & a Cat6 taken off a PC system. The system was all Linn with a DS network player & Kudos C20 speakers in a room 7m x 4.5m.

Both the AQ’s looked high quality & were well made, the Supra was basic in comparison & the Cat6 was ordinary looking PVC. The cables were either 3m or 8m long & used between the Linn & switch. The switch to NAS cable (aprx 12m) was the house installed Cat6.

We listened to the same 6 track play-list of 16bit 44kHz in FLAC of female vocal, baroque, full orchestra & electric jazz & rock. 

If was not easy to hear differences & more so at first for those not familiar with this system. What differences that we did hear were with lighter & more atmospheric material rather than heavy & high volume.  It was mostly all about air, space, clarity & fine detail. Eventually we were in agreement over most stuff, but the voting was tied on the best sounding cable.

Changing from Cat-6 to Pearl gave more instrument separation & sense of 3 dimension with an easier on the ear flow to the sound.

From Pearl to Supra was a positive step up with more refined & smoother sound, it also added further sense of spaciousness, atmosphere & fine detail.

From Supra to Cinnamon the presentation was much the same but with lighter touch adding to the sense of spaciousness but it came with a harder edge to the sound that - for me & one other - lost the smoothness of the Supra. We swapped around the Cinnamon & Supra a number of times as these were unanimously considered the best. The outcome was that Supra & Cinnamon were voted equal first.

For me Supra was my final choice & this morning ordered 2 lengths to arrive in time for the deliveryof my HDX hopefully this week. 

Re MM "chokes"   I assume these are ferrite clamp/cores

I've been a ferrite fan for years & did intend to try them, I'm not sure how they will work with a shielded cable like the Supra & wonder why the cable makers don't fit them,  but will give it a go.  Simon-in-Suffolk has them (or used to have them) on his set up & I would be keen to hear his input on using them with shielded cables

Hi Mike - yes still use them and swear by them.

BTW what switch did you use - as I suspect that will be a key variable in the tests- at least it has been for me.

Ie 8 port Cisco 2960 with inbuilt SMPS 'sounds' preferable to a Netger Gigabit GS105 switch with SMPS wall wart. 

Interesting post by the way.. a ferrite choke will add impedance to the cable shield and impede RF currents circulating though the shield... and you can purchase Ethernet leads with ferrite chokes on both ends - it appears to not yet have become fashionable with the audiophile boutique cable vendors.. but give it time..

Simon

Hi Simon - the switch the Linn guy has is a Cisco of some sort,  it has 8 ports & he uses 6 that includes his AV & games stuff & thats all about all I can tell you. 

My own set up will go straight to a BT HH3 (4 port) with no separate switch as such.  I do not intend to make the LAN set up more complex than just running the HDX - at the moment.  

So to get started this week it will be NAS - Router - NDX via 1m & 3m of Supra Cat7.

As & when I rip I hook in a Cat5e to connect the laptop/CD drive.  Its seems to rip wirelessly OK,  but I don't trust that for errors even tho' dBpoweramp run a comparison with their AccurateRip. 

I'm about to get into experiment listen & learn modes when the NDX arrives,  if I am advised or find whatever switch sounds better than the BT HH3 integrated switch,  then I am open to try it.  

Calling on Simon's expertise again if I may  

I have just noted & then tested that the BT HH3 has 3x 100mbps ports & 1x 1000mbps port (marked as GigE)

My Synology 214 has a 1000mbps port & I understand Naim players only support 100mbps so I guess it does not matter which cable goes were on the router,  But I now have the Synology on the routers GigE port were I guess at worse it will do no harm - or is there any benefit connecting this way. 

Mike, no harm or impact at all. Your Synology should sync up to a 1Gbps link to the HH3 on the GigE port. The Naim as you say can only support 100Mbps and possibly 10Mbps, therefore it can connect to any of the ports.

Simon, I would very much appreciate your erudite advice.

Apart from the Cisco switch you have mentioned, is there a more affordable switch that you could recommend?

My current switch is a TP Link SG1005D. My previous switch was a Netgear GS105, which failed shortly after I purchased it.

Thanking you in Advance,

Decnaim

I'm ordering a vodka tonight to compare against the cinnamon.

In the loft -

unitiserv and nas connected to a switch - which has a cable going into the wall

That cable goes to a switch in the laundry room 

nds connected via cinnamon to plug in the wall

wait a sec.  Maybe i am wrong here but... if the Naim Player had internal wiring that was superior to the Cinnamon, then your outside leads wouldn't matter??? 

-p

Decnaim, basic un managed routers are not hard to come by. Certainly I have used Linksys and Netgear before now.

However the challenge with audio systems is that they are often sensitive to unwanted electrical noise.

Therefore using a switch near your audio equipment you will be best with a linear power supply or a good quality SMPS. I am afraid here in my experience it's a case of replacing the bundled PSU, trial and error or keeping the switch many metres away from the audio equipment and associated leads.

I use Cisco 2960 devices as they seem to cause least interaction. They are not cheap and complete overkill for this sort of 'data' application, but I had a few kicking around.

Simon

i added a tp-link gigabit switch to my setup recently as i required more ports and i was amazed at the difference in sound it made, i cannot answer why (i shall leave that to someone that knows) but it completely opened up the sound from the BT router. i may try some supra if its cheap enough but the cat6 works fine.