[Mary]

This article was sent to Frank and I from one of our engineers.  Thought I would share with you if case any of you are interested in watching for what the outcome is.

Have a great weekend!

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/07/ars-prepares-to-put-audiophile-ethernet-cables-to-the-test-in-las-vegas/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+All+content%29

Mary

[JLM]

Thanks Mary.  Not an electrical engineer (by a long shot) but did recently home audition 6 USB cables and after 40 samples from different artists/genres found subtle but audible differences in all of them.  But as Frank would love to hear, the best (on my system to my ears) wasn't the most expensive and if needed I'd loose no sleep to swap the winner out for a $3 Blue Jean cable.

Not surprising that technology or science can't answer every question.

[Mary]

And the results are in.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/07/even-vegas-strangers-agree-340-audiophile-cables-make-no-difference/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+All+content%29

[I.Greyhound Fan]

The results do not surprise me.

I have been skeptical of cables because I have found that they don't make much of a difference (IC's and XLR's).

However, I have been testing usb cables and found that they do make a noticeable difference in my system.  Even my skeptical son was swayed by the difference's in usb cables.

[charmerci]

Uh, listening through a Dell and a Mac and headphones?   


What? About ten cents worth of audio "equipment"?   

[newzooreview]

Uh, listening through a Dell and a Mac and headphones?   
What? About ten cents worth of audio "equipment"?   

And the first thing we do in our lab, before making a publishable measurement, is calibrate the measuring equipment.

Did they test whether the listeners (the measuring equipment) could actually discern the difference between measurably different speakers or headphones?

The article falls back on the Golden Ears canard. 90% of people can, with some attention and training, learn to listen carefully. 90% of people do not listen attentively or carefully enough to notice differences that would be obvious to experienced listeners.

Would you hand a Stradivarius and a $55 ebay violin to 7 students pulled out of a college football stadium, and declare "Objective Test Proves Stradivarius Sound Quality a Myth"?

The ethernet cables may or may not sound different. They do measure differently, however (see the Ars cable test). The only way to test is a) with proper measurement equipment and b) by not contaminating the sample (running it through poor quality outputs like laptop DACs and headphone amps).

What an utter waste of time, and a sad discredit to the otherwise important work of JREF. 

[Folsom]

I don't believe their test is conclusive for anything but showing that it doesn't work with that particular router. Not knowing the routers schematic, one cannot conclude the cable was acting more or less like an antenna.

If the cable is worth something I'd suspect feeding it into an audiophile component, and particularly DSD, would be showing us more. The Dell surely sounds like shit anyway. Why shield from RF if you're feeding an RF generator.

Accolades to anyone that proves it's a waste of time to make a beautiful LAN cable, but if you're going to do it.... do it. Seriously, who buys a $350 cable to listen to their $400 Dell laptop with $500 Grados?

[JerryM]

[notany]

Hi,
  A link to more about this that sheds some light. http://www.audiostream.com/content/million-dollar-cock#EUCa8zzQSjTD92vp.97 I have nothing else to add.

[Folsom]

Hi,
  A link to more about this that sheds some light. http://www.audiostream.com/content/million-dollar-cock#EUCa8zzQSjTD92vp.97 I have nothing else to add.

"If I listened through the Ars test setup, Grado RS2e headphones connected to a Dell M2800 laptop, my guess is I'd be hard-pressed to hear the difference between an MP3 and an M16."