El Reg are reporting the advancement of audio technology with these directional ethernet cables costed at a mere $10,000.00.
$10,000 Ethernet cable promises BONKERS MP3 audio experience

Well, Mr Christian Andersen will be loving that 😉

I must rush out and buy a NAS based system just so I can use these.

Fairy tales indeed. You’d think we might have a hang of this technology thing.

I’ll need to get some better MP3s – or perhaps there’s a record player I can stream from.

That’s amazing. You’ll need to make sure you’ve got the right drives in your NAS to take full advantage though. http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/hifi-breakthrough

I’m sure I read they work better when its all aligned with ley lines.

Fools and their money. Etc.

I quite like the idea of homeopathic hi-fi.

It works because you think it does.

Wow!

It probably an elaborate joke by Audio Quest. They made one for the photo and stuck it on their price list. Bunged What Hi-Fi and few quid and asked them to say it has “Breathtaking openess and clarity” and give it five stars.

Helps them sell their cheaper – but still pointless – digital cables

Does it come with winged unicorns who hold it on their horns while hovering off the ground, to avoid unwarranted static interference?
I need to know before I shell out…

BAAAAAAAMP

Actual testing to be done in short order by Ars Technica and the James Randi Foundation 😀

http://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2015/07/ars-prepares-to-put-audiophile-ethernet-cables-to-the-test-in-las-vegas/

This will not be popular with the manufacturers.

There’s a bit in there about audiophile objections :

“If you want to know what you enjoy listening to, there’s no better way than to listen over time.”

I think there might be some truth in that, so the test should involve one period where the reviewer is using one cable, then a similar period using the other cable – at which point they should be familiar with what they perceive/imagine are the differences between the cables, then do the dbt with the choice of music that they want as they think that it is more likely to expose any differences.

No one can complain about that.

As a bloke I find I can focus on one area of sound, whereas my wife will hear the big picture and may identify any differences more readily. Listening for a period of time might expose the listener to the big picture more.

I hear that Neil Young is their first customer.

I’m sure we’re all just jealous that we haven’t come up with ways to make fools part with their money… I know I am.

I’m sure we’re all just jealous that we haven’t come up with ways to make fools part with their money… I know I am.

Well, it’s certainly one of my regrets that I lack the imagination and drive to come up with such startling innovations and the ability to sell them and make huge amounts of money in the process.

Interesting thoughts, Mr turnerguy.

I think I switch between the macro and the micro 😀 I was trying to listen to Dan Hartman’s Relight my Fire on YouTube, and it was just lifeless.

Fire up the Vinyl, much better [and my non-audiophile friend agrees].

Listening to Random Access Memories, I like to focus on the intonation on the drumming, cymbals and guitars. Oh and the beautiful synth basslines and beats.

I think I might stick it back on 🙂

[not via ethernet]

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/07/gallery-we-tear-apart-a-340-audiophile-ethernet-cable-and-look-inside/

LOL @ Masking tape!

So the high frequencies travel along the outer silver “skin” not the copper core? High frequencies? In the digital domain?

So the high frequencies travel along the outer silver “skin” not the copper core? High frequencies? In the digital domain?

skin effect is well known – I think the higher the frequency the more the signal will want to travel on the outsides of the cable, so more so for digital.

Oh come on. It’s 1s and 0s.

Oh come on. It’s 1s and 0s.

what does a 1 and a 0 look like when on the cable then ???

But it’s Cat 7 which is moar betterer than Cat 6A.

Oh, hang on what’s the plug spec again?

🙄

what does a 1 and a 0 look like when on the cable then ???

I give up. Do the 1s travel along the silver and the 0s along the copper or vice versa?

Well, he’s kinda got a point, but at the same time, the signal is either there at the other end or it isn’t – the system just isn’t that sensitive.

Can’t say I’ve had any trouble with normal ethernet cable 😀

It’s nothing to do with sensitivity and everything to do with applying analogue thinking to digital connections.

Like you said in the first sentence, the signal is either intact or it isn’t. If the signal is correct, it’s a nonsensical concept to suggest a better cable will make it more correct.

I mean that the system is able to resolve the data even if there is a degree of noise.

surely better to use aiff or wav since storage is sooooo cheap now?. i’ve just started re-importing library using wav so will work in car as well as home network quality much better all round.

the switching between 1 and 0 still happens at a high frequency though, so surely subject to skin effect?

not saying the silver has any effect though, or that the skin effect is significant.

I’ve half a memory that it wouldn’t really apply for such thin cable, it’s more relevant to high tension supplies and suchlike; but TBH we’re outside of my electrical comfort zone here, I honestly don’t know.

TurnerGuy – Member
So the high frequencies travel along the outer silver “skin” not the copper core? High frequencies? In the digital domain?
skin effect is well known – I think the higher the frequency the more the signal will want to travel on the outsides of the cable, so more so for digital.

Struggling to see how ‘skin effect’ can have any bearing on how a digital signal travels along the cable. It has no high or low frequencies until it passes through the DAC at either end; between them it’s one continuous stream of 48- or 96-bit numbers, only the DAC can influence those numbers by how accurately it converts the digital stream back into analog.
IANAE, but those claims just seem bogus.

Of course it’s bogus.

Say the data is “36.”

In the analogue world, susceptible to noise and degradation and a million other things, it’s an exercise in Chinese Whispers. Unless you use high quality cables the data could come out of the other end as 35, or as 36 and 5 at the same time, or ‘herby bricks.’ This is what you’re fighting against and why you pay good money for interconnects.

In the digital world, the result is 36 or it’s no result. The tech has the ability to go “gurdy pricks, what, say that again?”(*) but ultimately the 1/0 concept results in “it’s perfect” or “it’s buggered.” There is no 0.9.

It’s like suggesting that you could download a game and then find that because of a low quality connection all the mountains are pink or your car is a banana. It’s just not possible.

(* – oversimplification.)

It’s like suggesting that you could download a game and then find that because of a low quality connection all the mountains are pink or your car is a banana. It’s just not possible.

Not the best example, you could download a part of a game and have a single-bit error that goes unnoticed ’till later, grrrrrrr.

You could theoretically if you didn’t CRC check the download. (And it still wouldn’t give you lower fidelity graphics, it just wouldn’t work or crash.)

OK man, it just reminded me of wasting a lot of time yesterday!

Should’ve used the download manager. (-:

Here is my sound improving tip which is guaranteed to work:

* take your favorite CD and pause it ready to play.
* now take the index finger of your left hand and jam it tightly in your left ear
* play the CD
* after a while take the finger out of your ear, you will find the sound and soundstaging improves considerably.

I have tried this in demonstrations to many audiophiles and it works every time for the majority of listeners, only those deaf in their left ear tell me it does nothing for them.

The results of the Randi/ars test are in:

meh

I would count as a skeptic but I don’t really like that the tests were performed with headphones only.

I would have also had had two identical computers and switched the analog paths to the headphones, so I didn’t have to mess around changing the digital cables and introducing delays – audio memory is pretty short and those delays are of longer duration.

The problem with that is,

Yes, in the real world buying two identical test rigs would be trivial. However, in the fantasy world inhabited by people who sell – and buy – $300 Ethernet cables in the mistaken belief that they can improve the quality of digital audio encapsulated in Ethernet frames, building two identical test rigs would be nigh on impossible.

Ie, when the results came out that there was no difference, they’d claim that the ‘premium’ test rig must’ve been inferior in some way.

Headphones are good choice because they take the room out of the equation.

Regarding audio memory; if the listener cant spot a difference because of a couple of minutes delay then I’d politely suggest any difference that may be present ain’t worth worrying about!

TurnerGuy – Member
I would have also had had two identical computers and switched the analog paths to the headphones, so I didn’t have to mess around changing the digital cables and introducing delays – audio memory is pretty short and those delays are of longer duration.

An easier way would be to set the output of the playback software to be a disk writer, play the file back through both the cables, then ABX the resulting WAVs from local disk. They’d be bit-for-bit identical anyway, so it’s a waste of time but there we go.

Guess they’d be back to saying the electromagnetic noise from the error correction on the ethernet cards could affect the DAC then though …