$340 Audiophile Ethernet Cable Tested

An anonymous reader writes: Ars Technica has posted a series of articles attempting to verify whether there's any difference between a $340 "audiophile" Ethernet cable and a $2.50 generic one. In addition to doing a quick teardown, they took the cables to Las Vegas and asked a bunch of test subjects to evaluate the cables in a blind test. Surprise, surprise: the expensive cables weren't any better. The subjects weren't even asked to say which one was better, just whether they could tell there was a difference. But for the sake of completeness, Ars also passed the cables through a battery of electrical tests. The expensive cable met specs — barely, in some cases — while the cheap one didn't. The cheap one passed data, but with a ton of noise. "And listeners still failed to hear any difference."

Comments

Re:Passed data with a ton of noise?

[Mr D from 63]

The fact that they even wasted time thinking about doing a listening test is enough data I need to know they don't know WTF they are doing.

Re:Passed data with a ton of noise?

[chipschap]

"The cheap one passed data, but with a ton of noise. "And listeners still failed to hear any difference."

Well, duh. It's digital, not analog. As long as bits are not irrecoverably lost, how is it going to sound any different?

Audiophile ethernet cable .... there's one born every minute.

Don't buy the cheapest cable

[lgw]

This comes up whenever audiophile cables are discussed, but it's worth repeating: don't buy the cheapest cable.

There may be no useful difference between a $10 cable and a $1000 cable, but very often there's a real difference between a $10 cable and a $1 cable. Even for digital data, really cheap cables often don't meet spec, and can cause frustrating intermittent problems. You don't need anything exotic to avoid that, just avoid the bottom tier.

An example from my living room: I use a 45 foot HDMI cable to plug my TV directly into my HTPC (for reasons of convenience that aren't that interesting). The spec calls for thicker-gauge wiring for HDMI cables over 30 feet (IIRC), and you'll quickly see the price jump between cables that meet that spec and cables that don't. Don't buy the cheapest junk possible, that's all it takes.

It used to be that Dayton Audio was the only "solidly built, not too expensive" brand I knew about for cables, but Amazon changed that - now there are a bunch of options, including some sort of Amazon store brand that seems to be fine.

It's worth paying a bit more for solidly-built cables that meet spec (and especially for Ethernet cables, for some guard on the cable that keeps the clip from snagging or breaking off it you need to pull it through a tangle). Anything beyond that is a bit silly.

Re:Don't buy the cheapest cable

[bobbied]

Oh for Pete's sake.... You Looney audiophiles need you heads examined..

Buy the cheapest digital cable that works reliably and don't spend a dime more. If offered a $45 HDMI cable over a $2 one, save your money and go cheap, heck by 3 of the cheap ones incase it breaks while installing it, you will be money ahead and you won't hear the difference EVER.

Now, on ANALOG cables, they used to have a point (albeit a barely measureable one). Case in point is speaker cables. For audiophile like performance, speaker cables ARE something that you can demonstrate matter. However, MOST people don't have the ears or the listening environment necessary to justify what some vendors confidently say you need. Most people are fine with 18Ga Stranded, especially for short runs and middle grade equipment, and I guarantee that 12Ga stranded will not be noticeably different for ANY home installation I can imagine, at least not different enough you can hear it.

When will this hold over from the "monster cable" audiophile fad be over? There was a time when that gold plate *might* have mattered to your analog cable so paying 20X the price was justifiable from the technical perspective, but now with digital cables all you are getting is fleeced...That and the justified scorn of those who really know what's going on. Well, that and bragging rights about how much you spent, if that matters to you..

Re:Don't buy the cheapest cable

[lgw]

If offered a $45 HDMI cable over a $2 one, save your money and go cheap, heck by 3 of the cheap ones incase it breaks while installing it, you will be money ahead and you won't hear the difference EVER.

I hope you don't work with technology in any way. Sure, buy the cheapest cable that meets spec, but remember the first rule of engineering: the vendor is a lying bastard. There's a reason the cheapest cable is the cheapest cable. Paying $45 for a 6-foot HDMI cable is silly. Paying $45 for a 50-foot HDMI cable isn't.

Also, for HDMI specifically, the different numbered specs matter depending on use case. If your doing "4K" video, you'll want the HDMI 1.4 (or above) cable. If you want high color depth for a specific application, you'll want at least 1.3.

Sure, cheap is good, but as always in life, avoid the cheapest crap in the store.

Re:Passed data with a ton of noise?

[bobbied]

THIS! But testing Ethernet cables passing TCP is pointless anyway... Where is the Bit Error Rate specs here? Digital data is either correct at the bit level, or it's not...

Audiophoolery

[tlhIngan]

I've always wondered about people who buy these kind of cables. I mean, they're expensive cables, but what do they plug them into? Do they spend $340/$4000/$10000+ on a cable only to plug them into a cheap $15 D-Link switch?

I mean, what are the "audiophile" switches out there? Do they buy those $10,000 Cisco Catalyst switches? Or do they prefer HP ProCurve? Or do they just plug them in any old switch or whatever came with their $20 router?

It's just like power cables. You're telling me that the power, which came from a power station hundreds or thousands of miles away, travelling through copper wires, then coming into your house wired with regular Romex style house wiring, that some special cable used in the last 6 feet really matter? Or do they rewire their house with special audio quality wire? Do they buy special electrons from their power company? Or paid to have their house wired using the special cable? Are you telling me that after hundreds/thousands of miles, the last 6 feet really matter?

Directional arrows aren't as silly as you'd think

[Theaetetus]

These can not be very good cables because they lack the direction arrow that the Belden audiophile Ethernet cables have (had?). This was so you would know which way to plug them in. Packets flow from hub/switch to the device.

And if you believe this, I have a bridge to sell you. It is orange and you will make your money back in picture postcard royalties.

It's in the caption of the very first picture:

Audiophile-grade "Vodka" Ethernet cables, from AudioQuest. They even have directional indicators!

But, surprisingly for Ars, they missed the point of those directional indicators. The article on electrical testing hints at it:

Finally, the braided shield inside the cable drew some comments. "There is no continuity from the body of the one connector to the body of the other, indicating that the shield has not been terminated to one or both of the connector," noted Denke. "Our 6A uses an absorptive shield—that is, the cable is shielded but the shield is not terminated at either end. Alien crosstalk is the crosstalk which occurs between cables, as opposed to the internal crosstalk which occurs between the pairs in a cable. This may also be why there are unterminated shields on the Audioquest cable—I’m not really sure what the reason is there, though I had thought that the shields on Cat 7 were required to be tied to ground. It is also possible—I have no handy way to test—that they've tied the shield to one end only, though this would be highly nonstandard for network cabling." (emphasis added)

It's highly nonstandard for network cabling, but highly standard for audio cabling - it's called a telescoping shield and is used to prevent ground loops and audible (60 Hz) hum. Typically, you leave the shield connected at the low-impedance source, and disconnect it at the high-impedance load... as a result, the cable actually does have a directionality, but on the shield, rather than the signal lines. I can guarantee that's the intent with these cables and why they're marked with directional arrows, and it's pretty surprising that Ars and Denke missed it. Maybe they were stuck thinking "network" cable rather than "audio" cable.

That said, because these are network cables, that telescoping shield is irrelevant. You're not going to get ground hum into your amplifier from your network card, the way you would with a shield on an analog audio cable. They're simply not connected, and if they were, you'd have much bigger issues - like that hum causing all sorts of problems on your PCI bus. This is why network cable shields are typically connected at both ends: ground loops are irrelevant.

Re:Obvious fail is obvious...

[mwvdlee]

Poe's law applies here.
I honestly don't know if you're being sarcastic or audiophile.