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$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."
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.
Okay, digital data is supposed to be easy 1 and 0 communication. But when you get down to the physical media, said binary digits are represented by physical phenomenon. So +3.3V = 1, 0V = 0 type stuff.
Voltage, resistance, EM waves, magnetics, etc... You're actually back in the world of Analogue, and here you have to worry about noise.
When you're moving data as fast as you can, or storing it as densely as you can, interference becomes more likely. For example, you'd think that +3V =1 and 0V = 0 would be easy, but when you're flipping the signal as fast as you can, you end up with the cable possibly acting like a transformer or capacitor. So the voltage might run a bit higher, a bit lower, a bit faster, a bit slower, etc...
Radio transmissions, Solar noise, close by electrical cables, other data cables with parallel runs, etc... The world is 'noisy' even if you're using wires.
That's why you have error correction in digital communications. So the 'occasional' bit can become flipped and the system transparently recovers it, and you get your transmitted data, identical from the other side.
I don't read AC A human right
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.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
They did the listening test first, before the cable quality check. And yeah, they were really, really skeptical of the cable, but they'd had enough of the 'if you've never listened to it, how can you know?' kook crowd - they wanted a to do a real test just because people don't test these types of claims. They either write them off as ridiculous (as they nearly always are) or they buy into them completely.
So here: Objective, blind test. No difference as far as anyone they tested could reliably tell. (They did have one person in the test correctly guess which cable was which. Out of two who tried - the rest didn't even try.)
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?
(or just go fiber)
Using fiber is a difficult expense for true audiophiles. The fibers typically used can contain a lot of impurities which distorts the color of the light signal, introducing noise into your audio. This is why when using fiber for audio, true audiophiles only use diamond fibers extruded through Emerald dies enchanted by a wizard after he puts on his robe and hat.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
The reason why it's not there is because ethernet is supposed to be just a dead simple layer 2 multi-access data protocol. Adding that kind of shit just contributes to latency (any kind of error correction involves additional parity bits and more processing.) And yes, I'll grant you that the added data and processing for error correction is tiny, but multiply that by a billion in large scale networks and you can see where there's a problem
If you need error correction, use UDP and handle it at the application layer, that way you aren't negatively impacting every other application that doesn't need error correction.
Actually, in pro audio ethernet is used with proprietary protocols, handled by black box ASIC chips with special switches. I deal with this crap in the studio. Where I am they use it mostly for the personal mixers providing monitor outputs, but some places use it for inputs too.
Also, warning for those about to embarrass themselves making fun of "directional" cables, that means it is grounded at one end, and you put all the grounded ends in to the same device to avoid ground loops. If you don't know what it is, it must be brain-numbingly stupid... right? Ignorance is bliss.
We use normal cables, sure. But we do buy expensive ones with nice plug shielding, because musicians may or may not even be sober at work. Expensive cables isn't just for fancy looks, that build quality can make a real difference. Plus, it might be a lot easier to get the bean counters to agree to buy premium cables, than to get them to agree to replace equipment. They might tell you, "use the spares until they fail" in which case you'll regret not having spent their money on the "over"-priced ones.
Same with instrument cables. No, a brand new expensive guitar cable does not sound better than a cheap one. But after 300 shows, the cheap one craps out during a show or session, and the expensive "hifi" one didn't because it has premium long life rubber and better plug strength. So it does actually sound better once you factor in the way it sounds when equipment fails and you can't even hear the instrument. Most of that benefit is in the middle price range, of course. A $1000 guitar cord probably has metal mesh "shielding" that substantially increases cable strength, but the $300 one already has plastic mesh that will provide more than enough abrasion protection.
Also... some commenters don't know this, apparently, but a "placebo effect" is a real effect. It doesn't mean it is a scam, it means the people were successfully tricked into getting healthier faster, or in this case, to have more fun. If you "trick" them into thinking the artist is more artsy, they might enjoy it more too. Pretty snooty to claim they're not really enjoying the subjective aspect of their choices as much as they claim to... especially if you're also claiming that due to the placebo effect they really are enjoying it more!