$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?

[jandrese]

They did it because that's how the company that makes the cables describes their test environment. They claim "clear unmistakeable" improvements in the audio quality in the setup Ars used, but only if you plug the cable in in the correct direction (denoted by an arrow on the connectors).

In fact the company claims that they determine which way to face the arrow by plugging the cable in and listening in both directions and choosing the best.