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Is there a "better" Network cable?


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I have finally connected to the NBN, and have some reasonable internet speed. 40 vs the old 6.1 with a tailwind!

 

So at long last, I can stream youtube into my music room.!!!!  To achieve this, I am going to go hard wired with a network cable about 15m long, to get from my 105 Oppo to the modem.

 

My question - are there differences you can see and hear re quality of network cables?  I figure I might as well put a good one in over a $10 one - if it exists.

 

If you are one of those people that cannot hear any differences in cables - power to you!  However, please be courteous and refrain from any and all disparaging comments to those of us that do.

 

OK - so tell me what is out there - what you have found.

 

Thanks, Red.

 

 

Edited by Red MacKay
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Hi Red

 

No disparaging comments here mate I think a CAT6A cable would suit you fine they are as good as you'll need for the Oppo the Officeworks gear is fine as @Jeddie has said even the ones from MSY are fine I've been using them for years without any trouble, through my home network I've done music as well as HD movies streaming over a 40 metre run of the older CAT6e with no problems.

 

Sound wise may be a different kettle of fish when they are being used with components like the EtherRegen  https://uptoneaudio.com/products/etherregen but I believe with your Oppo as long as you buy a decent well made cable you won't have any sound or connectivity issues at 15m long you shouldn't have to spend more than $40 to $50

 

These look fine as an example nice thick cable reasonable connectors  

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/CAT6A-10Gbps-Certified-Ethernet-Network-Cables-Pure-Copper-Core-10M-15M-20M-30M/233672109779?hash=item3667f16ed3:g:sw0AAOSwjQRfK~Y9&frcectupt=true

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I am a believer in getting a cleaner, less noisy, network for audio. For your 20m run, suggest using Ethernet over optical using these

https://cplonline.com.au/networking/routers/ubiquiti-er-x-sfp-edgerouter-x-6port-au.html (2 off)

https://www.fs.com/au/products/75327.html (2 off)

https://www.fs.com/au/products/40205.html

 

For Ethernet cables, get Monoprice CAT6 from Amazon.  Avoid cables with metal plugs where the shields are tied. You may accidentally create a circuit to transmit noise.

 

All of the above are standard, better quality network components. Then the rabbit hole opens up. You can replace one of the Ubiquity with an EtherREGEN, get better power supplies or get an audiophile Ethernet cable.

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I agree with suggestions for fibre over than length.  It will isolate from downstream noise, and not pick up noise enroute. Its most likely the best SQ for money over that distance.

 

The EdgeRouter X SFP was quite an improvemet over the stock iinet router it replaced in my ethernet system.  And I gather it can be configured as a switch only for at the Oppo end of the fibre, so you can also plug your tv etc into it.  Alternatively a media convertor for $30 at the Oppo end will work too.

 

Ethernet cable for the last leg to Oppo - pick a price point you can justify, take a deep breath and then check out this ...

Welcome to the rabbit hole.

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6 hours ago, Red MacKay said:

Better cable

It depends on what you're trying to do/solve.

 

There's very few reasons why a network cable could actually have an effect on the audio .... and they all depends on the design of the connected equipment (essentially.... "are they susceptible to electrical noise being injected though the ethernet socket?").

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Guest rmpfyf
6 hours ago, Red MacKay said:

I have finally connected to the NBN, and have some reasonable internet speed. 40 vs the old 6.1 with a tailwind!

 

So at long last, I can stream youtube into my music room.!!!! To achieve this, I am going to go hard wired with a network cable about 15m long, to get from my 105 Oppo to the modem.

 

My question - are there differences you and can see and hear re quality of network cables?  I figure I might as well put a good one in over a $10 one - if it exists.

 

If you are one of those people that cannot hear any differences in cables - power to you!  However, please be courteous and refrain from any and all disparaging comments to those of us that do.

 

OK - so tell me what is out there - what you have found.

 

Thanks, Red.

 

 

 

Red

 

Happy to give you some 6a to run the distance. As it is free the price/performance rating can't be beat. Have both a silly long terminated cable and some reel. Actually have 6a and 5e on reel so you're welcome to run both and compare.

 

If you want to do truly spanky things with network cable then there's stuff to do beyond the cable and frankly @davewantsmoore is right, there's ways to abate network anything effects... the cheapest of which is just unplugging the cable. No cable/audiophile router/whatever is worth more than a local SSD on it's own power. 

 

As for 'what the cable can do' you'll do more in routing it intelligently than anything else. If you want to try some audiophile run, run a medical isolator (eBay $100 or so) for fun and maybe some CAT8 on the last if you're terminating to a wall jack (and by 'you're' we'd note that legally a licensed cabler should be doing this, but we digress). 

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8 hours ago, Red MacKay said:

are there differences you and can see and hear re quality of network cables?

Honestly, no. As long as your cables are quality and competent and not faulty -- which can be a challenge given the number of fake ethernet cables on the market (seriously, I had a batch turn up that weren't even cat-3). You mention streaming youtube, which is going to be processed so heavily by the renderer that there really is no real relationship between what's on the wire and what's coming out the speakers. 

 

I would not use a cable that was $10 for 15 metres, because there would have to be something wrong with it to sell at that price (unless it was stolen!). 

 

The prior mention of Blue Jeans cables was pretty reasonable; they don't charge an unreasonable amount for a carefully made cable. I tend to buy all my patch leads from 4cabling.com.au because they ship quickly, charge a fair price and have never shipped me a bad cable (last order: 200+ cables). They also come in funky colours, because red cables make the frames go faster and purple cables are more mellow. Orange cables bring out the midrange, blue cables can be harsh on the high end. Ahem. Couldn't resist. 

 

*IF* you're going to get a cabler to do an in-wall install for you, I'd consider getting a fibre run at the same time for future-proofing, but if your devices are getting measurable noise from ethernet something is wrong. Probably because someone skipped on the isolation transformer in their PHY implementation, but one can get isolators pretty easily. Or there's a dirty power cable running right next to the ethernet run. Or RF pollution. 

 

It concerns me that there is a growing market preying on people, selling insane ethernet switches with magical external clocks and the like. Ethernet frames land in an RX buffer and the ethernet driver then copies that buffer to RAM and then does something with it, like copy it to another chunk of memory for an application to decode the FLAC, process the audio, copy that to another bit of memory before copying it into an audio driver buffer and then ... yeah, a predatory industry. I'll buy the fibre for noise isolation story, because that can make sense especially with long runs. I'm surprised highly expensive streamers and bridges haven't included simple fibre connections from the get-go, given they cost so little to implement these days. PS Audio Bridge2 is over $1k and they couldn't squeeze an SFP slot in there? But I digress ...

 

 

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No - no complications for my audio visual.

run a really simple setup and have no desire to add more boxes for better quality.

 

For me all I have is HDMI output from the laptop into the 105, out of the 105 HDMI into the projector and SPDIF out of the 105 into my DAC and that into my 2CH pre.

 

So yes, if I can get a network cable that gives me a little more than a bog standard one, then yes, that is what I am looking for.  So $15 for 15m will be rubbish.  Good info to know.  A Blue Jeans one might be worth a try.

 

I remember when my Dad first got NBN in Tassie and they had all sorts of trouble with it till they replaced the original cat 6 cable that was installed with another different type cat 6 and it instantly fixed all the issues.

 

Thanks everyone for your input.

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A couple of years ago there was a market flood of counterfeit ethernet cables from China. They managed to end up in the normal retail chain through PC shops and the like. They looked like normal patch leads, but when you cut them open the insides were untwisted cable and string to add bulk. Wasted a couple of hours of my time as I was building a cluster and the interconnects kept going up and down and dropping packets like crazy. 

 

Even the category 5 standards are quite exacting -- only a very small amount of untwisted cable permitted and it's really easy to terminate a cable in a way that'll work but won't pass on the fancy test equipment. I don't make my own patch leads any more since one can buy them at a fair price these days.

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Guest rmpfyf

Before we all project an audiophile lens on cost, a 20m run of CAT6 terminated is $25 at 4cabling.

 

Bought off the roll unterminated it is indeed $10 or so.

 

No need to spend big. 

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8 hours ago, PCOWandre said:

You mention streaming youtube, which is going to be processed so heavily by the renderer that there really is no real relationship between what's on the wire and what's coming out the speakers. 

What's on the wire is very important.... but there is a) typically zero error... and b ) errors are transmitted.

 

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4 hours ago, AudioGeek said:

I setup an oppo 105 at my parents place years ago. The supplied wifi dongle works perfectly for youtube, netflix etc.

A dongle?  Alas - no dongle with my used 105 when I got it.

 

Last night being impatient, I thought I'd get a datum to work from, so I setup my laptop in the music room and tried the wireless connection.

 

I am quite surprised how well it worked and not one buffereing or drop out all night and I finally turned it off just after 2am...  Sound was 7/10, picture quality 6/10. (compared to a standard Bluray)

 

No 4K or Stan, Nettfliks or any other pay tv here.

 

I have had several offers of assistance from members like Riccardo and Mark and I shall follow them up when we are out of Stage 4.

 

Thanks must also be given to @dbastin for the comprehensive list of network cables he has compliled previous.  A lot of research shared there!

 

Thanks to everyone that has chimed in too.

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Just set up my tv  with a fire stick  with ethernet adapter  +hifi in garage 

 

Purchased a 20 metre  One from lindy  cat7   ordered pm brisbane  one day 

Delivered  Melbourne am the next 

 

Works great and Im thinking better than altronics or ebay  

Least you can be sure it is what they say  

 

Reasonable price  

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On 29/08/2020 at 2:08 PM, Red MacKay said:

 

My question - are there differences you can see and hear re quality of network cables?  I figure I might as well put a good one in over a $10 one - if it exists. 

 

The answer is no difference. As long the cable you are using is a certified Cat 6 or 5 cable. And it doesn't exceeds the maximum length specified by Ethernet standard. Cat 6. Cat is 55M and 100M for Cat5e. 

Edited by ChupaChups
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 30/08/2020 at 1:38 PM, ChupaChups said:

The answer is no difference. As long the cable you are using is a certified Cat 6 or 5 cable. And it doesn't exceeds the maximum length specified by Ethernet standard. Cat 6. Cat is 55M and 100M for Cat5e. 

Australian standard specs are 90m m link plus 5m tail at each end to give 100m total distance.  A certified cat 6 or cat 6A will manage these distances with no degradation in performance.  There are many many environments where these length limits are stretched to the max (eg schools and corporate environments) and these cables still pass compliance testing.  We often have video over cat (HdBaseT) runs that are 70 -90 m and as long as a high quality cable is used then we have no issues.  Not sure where the 55m length you state is derived from.  Can you be a kind soul and elaborate please as i am very interested where it is stated to be 55m. 

eg   https://www.belden.com/blog/smart-building/whats-the-real-cat-6a-cable-distance-limit-and-why-does-it-matter

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Dudes.  The specs will assure data is transmitted without fault from the cable.  And that's fine for things that are not sensitive to noise.  But alas, audio is affected by noise and it somehow permeates through networks.  That is one problem- with many solutions, some better than others.

 

I have a well developed network of quite high performance gear.  At the end is an Antipodes EX which has a very low noise direct ethernet output, and appears to have its own independent chip, clock and circuit.  From there to end point is a cable that retails for US$1k with a high performance:price ratio. However, I think its safe to say even non-believers would be bewildered by the degree of improvement putting a Gigafoilv4 in that last leg makes.

 

The moral ... the specs are just the baseline, but experimentation will show there is so much more to be gained.

 

Its like being on a rollercoast in the pitch black. Exciting, wild and unpredictable.  you just need to decide how how to pay for the ticket.

 

Enjoy the ride.

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24 minutes ago, dbastin said:

.....From there to end point is a cable that retails for US$1k with a high performance:price ratio. However, I think its safe to say even non-believers would be bewildered by the degree of improvement putting a Gigafoilv4 in that last leg makes.

 

Gigafoilv4 - US$550

 

Just did a quick bit of research and it indeed looks a great product and will be looked at later down the track.

Right now I can't justify it and a Teddy Pardo LPS, as I mainly just want to watch streamed movies and the like.

 

rmpfyf donated me a standard 6e cable last week, that I have yet to try.  (you can't rush these things) ?

 

I was quite surprised at the quality and lack of dropouts with simple wifi actually.  The bottleneck for quality here clearly is the graphics card in the laptop, so I will need to move to a good media box before I can see any improvement at all.

 

Thanks.

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1 hour ago, davewantsmoore said:

 

I terminated some 30m runs of Cat5e that manages 10GBE at full speed between work computers and NAS.  Nothing special to achieve in my limited experience because it worked first time...but I can certainly see why the more sophisticated Cat6 is warranted in some situations especially where the network cabling is prone to interference.

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1 hour ago, Red MacKay said:

Gigafoilv4 - US$55 ... it indeed looks a great product and will be looked at later down the track.

Right now I can't justify it.

I wasn't suggesting you get one, but was making the point that even in my well developed ethernet system there was still considerable gains to be made.  BTW, I have EtherRegen (ER) immediately before my EX. The ER is serving as just an isolator - 1 x fibre in, 1 x Ethernet out - and I'd say for that purpose Gigafoilv4 brings greater benefits than ER.

 

I previously found wifi better than cat 5e, but the further improvement say Wireworld Platinum gained over wifi is quite significant by comparison to the improvement wifi provided.  But that may be moot point if the audio/video gear wont reveal it.

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