Now, where was I...

[terrybooth]

when this site moved? I know, I was thinking about audiophile network cables.

Now here's an experiment I've conducted.

On my TFS I have music files stored locally, however I started to run out of space. So I started using a little network storage box on a home network network. My home network consists of some fixed cabling, some wall sockets, a patch panel, some ethernet switches, a few wifi routers/switches and a cable/wifi router.

So, I have the same files on local storage on the TFS and on the network. To get to the network storage, the TFS has to 'talk' down a long patch cable which is plugged into a switch, out of another port of the switch, down another little patch cable into the diy-installed patch panel, through some diy-installed network cable, out of a wall socket, up another patch cable and into the network storage and back. None of these cables (or switches or patch panels) are audiophile, At best, if I've installed them correctly, I have a CAT 5E network and there are 4 bits of cable, two other passive components and an active component between the TFS and the music.

The way JRiver media player works, for those albums when the files are stored both locally and on the network storage, the track appears twice.

So, I've played a few of these albums. Do I hear a difference between the two copies of the same track? No I don't. My conclusion? In my system using bog standard network cabling doesn't make a difference to the sound. Do I think a £69 half metre network cable will make any difference to the sound? No I don't.

Anyway. This post is probably badly titled. But enjoy the new forum.

[familyguy]

I don't know about network cables , but I do know that interconnects , speaker cable and USB cables can make a significant difference. I wouldn't be surprised if someone came on here and disagreed with you. Hope you are enjoying the TFS BTW .I hope to hear one soon when it comes north of the border 'och aye the noo '

[terrybooth]

I am enjoying the TFS, as you will probably have seen from the post I've put up about it and other things.

I'm in total agreement with those who say that speaker cables and interconnects make a difference because, in my experience, they do. I believe that how the power gets to your kit makes a difference - to the extent that I'm contemplating putting in dedicated spurs in some slightly exotic main cable (armours or 10mm). I have no experience of using usb in a music system and so can't comment.

I'll even argue (and I have) that changing the software running on the TFS changes the quality of the sound.

BUT, in my little experiment described above, I could hear no difference. What is more, I can't conceive why something that delivers packets of data - which are either delivered or they are not -could make the subtle difference to sound claimed in some circles. So, no doubt someone may come in here and announce that they have had a different experience but I'd be really interested to understand whether that difference could be accounted for in the digital domain or in the domain of human perception.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Well the digital interconnect between transport and DAC makes a lot of difference and that I presume is sending digital parcels.

[terrybooth]

As far as I know, the way CDs work is that there is no error correction in reading from the CD to the digital to analogue converter and the whole system was designed to compensate for read errors (data missing) coming off the CD. So I could conceive that such an interconnect could make a difference insofar as it preserves the digital stream (the difference between high and low which is translated into 0s and 1s) coming from the CD and so reduces the need to error correction in the digital to analogue conversion process. Digital networks have more error correction built into the mechanism for transmitting data which ensures that the binary information that goes in one end comes out the other unchanged either that or it simply stops transmitting - there's no in between position.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

BTW there is no reason why the threads from the old forum cannot be continued here. The best way to do it is to put up the same title and the top of the post give a link to the thread and post your new information. I shall copy this across to general audio as well.

[dazmb]

The transmission of digital data between the network card in a NAS and a PC is totally different than say HDMI or optical output. The latter I guess being raw digital transmission flowing through a cable, where as the in the 'computer world' that data transmission is 'managed' by ethernet and TCP/IP which in laymans terms means it's like a human being in a tube train being ferried from point A to B by a vehicle. The human being the data, the tunnel being the cable and the tube train being the enveloping data packet with a source and destinaiton address written into it - complete with a dedicated data section to store data inside it. This packet holding the data inside means that the data is invisible to the cable it passes through until it reaches it's destination, and just like a human getting off a tube train and going out of the station so the tube of data is unpacked and data sent on it's way up and out of the network card into a DAC or whatever. This data packet delivery process happens thousands of times over as the standard data unit is about 1500 bytes (about 1.5k), and if you think that an average mp3 file is 4 megabytes than you have about 4100 data trains going from the NAS to the PC just to deliver an mp3!

A simpler analogy is a letter in an envelope. The envelope is a packet of data with a destination address written on it. The posties transport the letter to the destination address. All being well the letter inside can't & doesn't get read until the envelope is opened and discarded. Until then nothing can touch the wrapped up data to alter it, and as such the cable in a computer data network is only a 'tunnel' media and never gets to touch and therefore alter the data passing through it.

[applemarc]

This must be a money making opportunity there is cat6 to think of and of course we can supply the cable in different colors some colour's must sound better than other and lets not forget that you have not tried fibre cable now this must sound better an takers.

[terrybooth]

No, no, no, applemarc: you are missing a serious marketing opportunity here. What you need to do is 'invent' Higgs Boson ethernet cables. They'll give the music added weight.

I know, we need something a little snappier, how about 'Higgs Boson EC'?

[familyguy]

Will it cost billions of pounds too :D