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Topic: Ars Technica reviews '£300 audiophile Ethernet cable' (Read 13158 times) previous topic - next topic
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Ars Technica reviews '£300 audiophile Ethernet cable'

Reply #26 –
Quote from: .halverhahn on
Quote from: xnor on
But "excellent value for money" still means "more money will get you better sound" to the audiophile.

This is a brilliant opportunity: Sell a lowend cable for $259, midrange for $589, high end for $1599. May add a XTM (Extreme) version for $3699 for the guys who just buy the best of the best.
Customers tend towards to buy the midrange goods from the portfolio. The cheep cables are just made to push the customer to the high price region.
This is a well known salesman psychology.

.halverhahn

aka "Goldilocks pricing".

Ars Technica reviews '£300 audiophile Ethernet cable'

Reply #27 –
The prevailing view of the average joe is cheap things *must* have some cut corners and wildly expensive stuff is *never* a ripoff, when the reality more often than not is the former is so easy to make in an industrial scale e.g cable which is exactly why they are cheap to begin with, while the latter is simply greed by charging as much as they can get away with regardless of actual cost.

Ars Technica reviews '£300 audiophile Ethernet cable'

Reply #28 –
I found the analysis by Mr. Denke quite interesting.

It seems that the Audioquest cable had no shield continuity from end to end. At least one end of the cable must have the shield not terminated to the connector. Perhaps the arrow on the cable really indicates which end it is. Or perhaps both ends have the shield unterminated.

I find this quite important. Shield continuity can play an important part in the formation of ground loops, and those are known for their ability to produce noise coupling into the audio. That doesn't happen at the digital connection, but elsewhere in the setup, where analog connections are used. Still, the Ethernet cable can play a part in this, and therefore appear to change the sound.

I'm sure many audiophiles would assume instinctively that a shielded Ethernet cable is going to be better than an unshielded one. In practice it is more likely the other way round. In Ethernet, the signal connections are transformer isolated. If you haven't got a shield, you have no ground connection between the devices, hence no ground loop. The transformers ensure that the ground connection isn't needed for signal fidelity.

It seems to me that at AudioQuest, they know that. They seem to want to take advantage of both the audiophile preference of shields, and the ground loop avoidance by not connecting them. The fact that the shield basically loses its effectiveness then, doesn't matter to them, since their customers don't understand this anyway. Kinda smart.

Shields in an Ethernet cable are mostly there to prevent noise coupling between adjacent cables. This means cables that share a duct and run in parallel for considerable lengths. A non-shielded Ethernet cable radiates appreciable noise in its immediate vicinity. The effect drops rapidly with distance. At 4 or 5 inches distance from the cable, the noise has dropped almost to insignificance. This is why patch cables, which are laid in the open space, and only over short distances, are perfectly OK without a shield.

For an audio system, this means that your best strategy is to use shielded cable for your fixed in-house wiring, and for connecting up switches to it. Connecting end-nodes, i.e. a PC or a streaming box, should be done with unshielded patch cable. That's both cheap and effective.

Ars Technica reviews '£300 audiophile Ethernet cable'

Reply #29 –
Quote from: pelmazo on
It seems that the Audioquest cable had no shield continuity from end to end. At least one end of the cable must have the shield not terminated to the connector. Perhaps the arrow on the cable really indicates which end it is. Or perhaps both ends have the shield unterminated.


The usual convention is to connect the shield to the input end, if it is not connected at both ends.

Quote
I find this quite important. Shield continuity can play an important part in the formation of ground loops, and those are known for their ability to produce noise coupling into the audio. That doesn't happen at the digital connection, but elsewhere in the setup, where analog connections are used. Still, the Ethernet cable can play a part in this, and therefore appear to change the sound.


As you point out later on, LAN twisted pair line drivers are transformer coupled at both ends.  Ground loops aren't supposed to be a problem.



Quote
I'm sure many audiophiles would assume instinctively that a shielded Ethernet cable is going to be better than an unshielded one.


Agreed. Ironically, most audio cables are driven by very low impedance sources and work well even without shields.

The convention of shielded audio cables probably dates back to the early days when the only outboard accessory on a radio was a turntable with a high impedance crystal or inductive cartridge. Both provide very high impedance sources at high frequencies and can sound pretty horrible if not shielded.

Quote
In practice it is more likely the other way round. In Ethernet, the signal connections are transformer isolated. If you haven't got a shield, you have no ground connection between the devices, hence no ground loop. The transformers
ensure that the ground connection isn't needed for signal fidelity.

It seems to me that at AudioQuest, they know that.


Now you are getting into the philosophical question as to what happens to the staff's EE training at high end audio companies?


Ars Technica reviews '£300 audiophile Ethernet cable'

Reply #30 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
The usual convention is to connect the shield to the input end, if it is not connected at both ends.

That's with analog, unidirectional connections. In the case of Ethernet, we're talking digital, bidirectional links. That makes the convention pointless, but some audiophiles don't seem to grok that.

Quote
As you point out later on, LAN twisted pair line drivers are transformer coupled at both ends.  Ground loops aren't supposed to be a problem.

Not with the digital link as such. When the shield of the Ethernet cable closes a ground loop that also encompasses a vulnerable analog connection, you may get the usual ground loop problems, even though the Ethernet link itself will carry on working unaffected.

Quote
Agreed. Ironically, most audio cables are driven by very low impedance sources and work well even without shields.

The convention of shielded audio cables probably dates back to the early days when the only outboard accessory on a radio was a turntable with a high impedance crystal or inductive cartridge. Both provide very high impedance sources at high frequencies and can sound pretty horrible if not shielded.

Many installations these days use Ethernet-type cable for analog balanced interconnects. Here, too, the connection works well without a shield. The 4 pairs in a cable can carry 4 separate mono signals without any significant problems with interference.

Quote
Now you are getting into the philosophical question as to what happens to the staff's EE training at high end audio companies?

No, I merely assumed that they have picked up the point somehow, perhaps even through some own trials. I don't suspect that anyone well trained in EE would be happy working for a snake oil company.