And for today's test...

Nope !!! Just a Guess

No, you cannot hear the difference.

Definitely!

Mike, you edited your comment!  I thought your buffer reference was interesting. 

So the answer is no, I can't hear a difference between a £60 Melco ethernet cable and a £1,500 Chord one. Maybe I'm cloth eared but that's my personal finding. 

So, if above a certain quality one were to assume that more is not better what about the opposite?  Can a poor quality ethernet cable adversely affect SQ?

Graham Clarke posted:

So, if above a certain quality one were to assume that more is not better what about the opposite?  Can a poor quality ethernet cable adversely affect SQ?

I will stick with my original guess and say, yes it can.

Yes I know there is a difference, heard the difference between different level of cables with my own ears...

Sorry about that Graham,  I thought it sounded all technophobic & spoiled the funny bit.... 

For the benefit of others,  my point was the renderer (NDS) is playing the data from the buffer, not the cable.  The data stream is transmitted in packets & cross checked between server & renderer & confirmed as correct & if its not,  its resent.  So in theory all the data is complete & will be the same irrespective of the cable.

When I first dipped my toe into streaming I spend an evening listening to various cables on a Linn.  We started with a BT freebee Cat5 as a benchmark & that did sound slightly different to the other Cat7's that we were comparing.  One in the group said he heard differences between the Cat7's,  but the others where not convinced.     I've since concluded that I'm an ethernet cable sceptic & that cables have no effect on sound unless the data carries anomalies.  Its most likely higher spec cables have a better tolerance/rejection of electrical & physical issues compared to lower spec'd cables,  RFI & EMI to name the obvious.  Cable assembly defects & deformation damage of the twisted pairs can result in signal transfer issues such as near & far end crosstalk, alien crosstalk, skew delay, return loss & bandwidth issues causing data transfer anomalies & maybe it could be audible.

I use a basic & relatively cheap Cat7 because I believe I need a screened cable to ward off RFI & EMI,  plus I was impressed with its potential 1300 MHz bandwidth,  thats far far more than needed, but why do I have a car that can travel at over twice the speed limit.  

Mike, it's far simpler with Ethernet cables.. Depending on the transmitters (switches etc) it's all about tuning the RF so it doesn't become I

i have had great results with no brand cheap as chips CAT 6a Ethernet cable, with my Cisco 2960 switch and NDX transport.

Simon

Hmmmm... actually I can hear the difference (at leasat with my NDX transport into nDAC). Chose Chorus Anthem.

Correction to my statment above: Chord Signature is the cable of choice.

Always amusing that for those that 'hear' a difference the most expensive cable they listened too is always chosen.

As to connection, Ethernet or wireless, between the source data (an HDX or a NAS) and the receiver I cannot see how that would make the slightest bit of difference. On reception at the preamp and amp stage, yes. In fact the DAC must make a major contribution. 

Anyway, in the real world, no matter what transmission method I use, my bank account and shares balances are always exactly the same whether I use Ethernet, wifi, a PC, an iPad, an iPhone etc. The displayed colour and quality may differ but that, I am assuming, is due to the hardware processing the transmitted data not the transmission. 

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Mike, it's far simpler with Ethernet cables.. Depending on the transmitters (switches etc) it's all about tuning the RF so it doesn't become I

i have had great results with no brand cheap as chips CAT 6a Ethernet cable, with my Cisco 2960 switch and NDX transport.

Simon 

garyi posted:

Always amusing that for those that 'hear' a difference the most expensive cable they listened too is always chosen.

Funnily enough I did not choose the most expensive cable. It sounded worse than the one I chose. 

Mike, where there are opinions there will always be complications 

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Mike, where there are opinions there will always be complications 

I thought this was mainly true the other way round: where there are complications, opinions tend to be different!

I guess the safest way to avoid the impact of Ethernet cables, wireless channels, etc. on the sound quality is to send the files to be played to a USB stick and plug the stick into the NDS or DAC.

Best, nbpf

Graham Clarke posted:

Can I hear a difference between the Chord Sarum Tuned Aray Ethernet cable, a Melco Ethernet cable and a stock (= cheap) cat 6 cable?

I do not know whether you can hear a difference but I am pretty sure I would not hear any difference if I tried. I might be wrong, of course. Best, nbpf

The simplest way is to test...

I am amazed the Melco ethernet cables are only £60, they've missed a trick there.  Also, if an ethernet cable at £1200 is a viable product, and given that in any network you're bound to need more than one (it's better to be safe),  then a 2TB mirrored NAS drive at £21,000 must be viable too.  

Now there's an idea.  Buffalo, bring me those audio grade SSDs now.  New audiophile product in the making right now folks.  Watch this space.

SongStream posted:

...

Now there's an idea.  Buffalo, bring me those audio grade SSDs now.  New audiophile product in the making right now folks.  Watch this space.

Do you know what an audio grade SSD is? Buffalo is not producing SSDs, as far as I know. Best, nbpf

nbpf posted:

SongStream posted:

...

Now there's an idea.  Buffalo, bring me those audio grade SSDs now.  New audiophile product in the making right now folks.  Watch this space.

Do you know what an audio grade SSD is? Buffalo is not producing SSDs, as far as I know. Best, nbpf

Not a clue.  However, I refer you to the below image showing the inside of the Melco N1Z.

nbpf posted:

SongStream posted:

...

Now there's an idea.  Buffalo, bring me those audio grade SSDs now.  New audiophile product in the making right now folks.  Watch this space.

Do you know what an audio grade SSD is? Buffalo is not producing SSDs, as far as I know. Best, nbpf

They claim to have modified the firmware.  SSDs often do housekeeping tasks in the background.  Melco claims this generates electrical noise and have changed the firmware to minimise this.  Being cynical this could be a simple change to a few lines of code allowing them to charge way more for the same HW.

Graham Clarke posted:

nbpf posted:

SongStream posted:

...

Now there's an idea.  Buffalo, bring me those audio grade SSDs now.  New audiophile product in the making right now folks.  Watch this space.

Do you know what an audio grade SSD is? Buffalo is not producing SSDs, as far as I know. Best, nbpf

They claim to have modified the firmware.  SSDs often do housekeeping tasks in the background.  Melco claims this generates electrical noise and have changed the firmware to minimise this.  Being cynical this could be a simple change to a few lines of code allowing them to charge way more for the same HW.

I see. This is a bit disappointing but should perhaps be expected. My understanding is that the main housekeeping task to be run on SSDs on a regular basis is trimming. I have set my server to run fstrim every morning at about 6:30. At this time I am usually sleeping or taking a shower. Do I have an audio grade SSD? I do not know and I might be missing something important, of course. On the other hand, I am a bit skeptical when a company comes up with phrases like "audio grade SSD" but does not provide any detailed technical documentation of their products and operating systems. At least the devices seem very nice! If they had a first class S/PDIF output and run an open OS I certainly would try them. Best, nbpf