[Closed] £1600 audio ethernet cable

Some mugs actually fork out for this stuff too.

MrWoppit to the thread! MrWoppit to the thread!

[i]Put the Indigo Tuned ARAY Ethernet cable onto the streamer and this track comes to life[/i]

ahem 😉

Are they directional.?

I love the way it can make the 1's and 0's betterer even after they've been on a journey of electrical discovery through your ring main.

Each to their own I say.

Does it sound better if you pour soup over your head and don't wash for six months?

There's a £5000 WATCH thread down there! VVVV

every (other) Ethernet cable we tested and listened to also worked better in one direction than the other

Really? Must try turning the cable round at home to speed up my broadband.

Have the 1s and 0s really gone through the ring main? Surely once the electric fairies have been filtered through your gold contacted, filtered UPS they're only travelling between the source and your ears?

Pieface, this bit;
[i]
This difference was noticeable regardless of whether we were running the cable directly to a router or via a pre-installed Ethernet cable network or a system where the Ethernet signal is carried over the mains.[/i]

Each to their own I suppose, I hear there are some people that think spunking a ton of money on a push bike is a little silly

I was looking for some speaker cable a few weeks ago and found a 10m pair that cost £114,000.00 on Amazon. I cant find them any more but they have the same ones in a shorter 7m length at the bargain price of £75,905.00

http://www.amazon.co.uk/AudioQuest-Signature-Terminated-Speaker-Cable/dp/B00DBY5OIU/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1394207924&sr=1-1&keywords=AUDIOQUEST

I had an email from Amazon a few days ago asking if I was still looking for a pair. I don't think so at that price.

Audioquest also do ridiculously expensive cables for other applications

Andy

Phew - finally!

Each to their own I suppose, I hear there are some people that think spunking a ton of money on a push bike is a little silly

Well it is, but at least bikes have measurable differences such as weight and suspension travel.

Someone (cough) has just commented- have a look before they take it down!!!

(titter)

Might be that you can see it, but it hasn't been moderated yet - no comments on there for me.

Someone (cough) has just commented- have a look before they take it down!!!

Very good. 😀

[i]I was looking for some speaker cable a few weeks ago and found a 10m pair that cost £114,000.00 on Amazon. I cant find them any more but they have the same ones in a shorter 7m length at the bargain price of £75,905.00[/i]

There's a technique business sometimes use when trading on Amazon to undercut competitors on low margin products. Everyone is monitoring everyone else's prices so if you let yours drift up your competitors may follow you. You then drop the price suddenly which in theory gives you a bigger market share for a short while and makes you more popular on Amazon rankings.

There is software that does this for you - could be that someone's software got it wrong!

There is software that does this for you - could be that someone's software got it wrong!

Alternatively, if you've got stuff on there that's out of stock but don't want to de-list it, jack up the price high enough to stop anyone buying it. They may have not lowered it again.

[img] [/img]

Is the hi-fi business really is the last bastion of the troll, or do these people have genuine learning difficulties?

The root of the problem is that there is no easy way to assess absolute sound quality, it's very subjective. This Audiophile nonsense is very much like the Emperor's Clothes, e.g.

Timing and coherence are the two really easy differences to hear, but like other interconnects it’s simple to spot the differences in levels of detail, tonal quality and dynamic performance.

i.e. If you can't hear the difference you're a moron.

Double blind test, anyone? Disappointed that Woppit hasn't been along yet 🙂

I'm in the wrong business.

Are they directional.?

Yes!

Is the hi-fi business really is the last bastion of the troll, or do these people have genuine learning difficulties?

If someone's daft enough to buy it, someone else will sell it.

i.e. If you can't hear the difference you're a moron.

IanMunro - Member

Is the hi-fi business really is the last bastion of the troll, or do these people have genuine learning difficulties?

Coming after 650b, that's really amused me.

It's hard to know where to start on that write-up.

I guess the crux is, it's a digital cable so either what goes in is what comes out, or it isn't. So the question then becomes, does (regular) Ethernet have sufficient bandwidth to transmit your audio data reliably?

CD quality audio clocks in at about 320Kbps. For lossless audio, you're in the realms of let's say 1.5Mbps to be generous. We'll skip over the fact that most people are unlikely to be able to tell the difference much beyond 320Kbps and just roll with this.

Regular CAT5e is rated to 1000BASE-T; that's 1000[b]M[/b]bps over 100m. That's [i]over six hundred times[/i] your required data rate for lossless audio.

So can regular Ethernet transmit lossless audio to an acceptable standard? I rather think it can. Hell, shitty old 20th Century 802.11b wireless is 11Mbps, even if you halve that to allow for CSMA/CA overheads you're still golden.

Conclusion 1: You don't need a £1600 cable.

Conclusion 2: You don't need a cable.

Conclusion 3: What a large set of hairy bollocks.

I sell Ethernet cables for pence.

Do hairy bollocks make good cables?

Only if you use twisted pairs.

Cougar - Moderator

Only if you use twisted pairs.

Top marks for that -- I doff my hat to your wit 😉

I heard the £1600 cables conduct so well that if you snip a couple of little bits off and attach 1 to your shifter and 1 to your derailleur (after removing the conventional gear cable) you have Di2... apparently the sweat from your thumb forms a crude battery, which is sufficient to power the system... being as it only takes about an inch an end, with a metre of cable, you're quids in.

The £75k ones can actually be used to create free, clean energy for a small town, but they can't market them as such for fear of the formidable power of the oil industry.

pfft. nordorst valhalla here.

Home made interconnects here. Belden cable, Neutrik Profi connectors.

Oh, Ethernet? That would be cat 5e nicked from work.

CD quality audio reproduction at the standard sample rate of 44.1 kHz and 16bit sample rate gives 1411Kbps, from what has been drummed into me that's 2 (# audio channels) × 44100 samples/sec x 16 bits/sample = 1,411.2 kbit of information per second, rather more than 320Kpbs.

Whether or not such an expensive cable makes a difference when it comes to transference of that binary data down a cable may be a mute point, especially when we take into account CIRC encoding and error correction along with the DAC that ultimately decodes the digital signal so your loudspeakers can make a suitable pleasing noise to your ears.

Everyones ears are different but 99.9% of folk would notice a vast improvement in sound quality if they spent a few £ on room acoustic treatment rather than on that fancy expensive cable.

Cougar - Moderator
Only if you use twisted pairs.

1,411.2 kbit of information

CD quality audio clocks in at about 320Kbps

Ah, I read that as you meant CD quality is 320kbps rather than 1411 Kbps.

[img] [/img]

Apparently with these cables the

...track comes to life...

A cable that makes the track come alive!

The idiocy of the audiofool (sic) world is just embarrassing. There's a company out there making kettle leads for $1000+ which some bass players are buying to make their amps sound better...

Whether or not such an expensive cable makes a difference when it comes to transference of that binary data down a cable may be a [b]mute[/b] point

Winner of "Unintentional Pun of The Week"

Congratulations.

Ah, I read that as you meant CD quality is 320kbps rather than 1411 Kbps.

I was rather tired when I wrote that, I think something got knotted somewhere.

I have this magical merino beanie that when worn instantly perks you up and banishes all forms of tiredness due to the special alignment of the 10 micron fibres with the earths magnetic field and it neutralises static and background RFI interference from all known interplanetary bodies, i could sell you one for the special price of £199.99 but i have a special offer for today only, two for £299.99 with free postage.

Are you a believer?…….

^ is paypal gift ok? 🙂

Sure, or western union money transfer, you may also be interested in an sure-fire investment opportunity, i am trying to breed a form of merino hamster, there are thousand of hamsters in cages up and down the country with a limited lifespan but a rampant breeding cycle. Cross breed the Hamster with the Merino sheep and i'm sure you can see the investment potential that is currently being wasted.

My uncle in Nigeria will handle all the investment monies, do not be alarmed as we have already successfully raised funds for a kickstarter campaign to sell sand to the Middle East.

Sounds ideal, just the opportunity I'm looking for.
I could then sell the idea to other investors, who can then sell to their friends and family ( after all, who doesn't like ickle fluffy creatures )
If you were to draw the concept on paper it would work a sort of pyramid shape 🙂
Oh, pyramid scheme - that's bad........

I know, the ickle fluffy equilateral triangle [s]program[/s] opportunity .

I think these things are the equivalent of "browsing Ebay when drunk, and i've just brought some tat i don't actually need" but catering for people who's first name is sheikh......

It's also worth nothing that plenty of test standards for digital transmission fidelity exist, and exactly none of them are used by people selling / reviewing cables like this for audio applications! Yet, if you buy a cable to link two servers together, then chances are the error rates are fully defined...........

This cable is like 650b.
Spending money on stuff you really don't need as the stuff you already own does the job fabulously

Is the hi-fi business really is the last bastion of the troll, or do these people have genuine learning difficulties?

How much does the machine cost that tests whether the audio quality is improved and more importantly, how much additional fun you're having?

The idiocy of the audiofool (sic) world is just embarrassing. There's a company out there making kettle leads for $1000+ which some bass players are buying to make their amps sound better...

Any sparkys here fancy setting up a business with me to replace ring mains in people's houses with high quality oxygen free copper conductors? I'm sure if people will pay 1k for a kettle lead you could charge 20k or so for doing something which would make far more difference to the sound quality. Though of course with a ring, careful thought would have to be given to which direction to lay the cables.

Could you undercut [url= https://www.russandrews.com ]Russ Andrews as linked here?[/url], if so then i'll be your sales rep……….commission based of course 😉

How much does the machine cost that tests whether the audio quality improved

I don't think science has managed to make a magicmeter yet.

I gave a lift home to someone this week, he was impressed with the selection of CD's in my car and insisted I 'auditioned' his naim kit when I got to his house. I dubiously agreed as I needed a poo and didn't think I could bake it till I got home. It took him 15 minutes to allow the player to 'warm up' before he allowed the volume to go up and then complained recently humidity could have an effect but I was going to be in for a treat. Sure the CD sounded good but the obsessiveness took the enjoyment out if it.

I'd rather listen to this

[img] http://goo.gl/1G8sVX [/img]

Undercut? I'm not sure you understand the market well enough to work as my sales rep...

[u]somafunk [/u]

may be a mute point

nice one.

If you're using Audio grade Ethernet cable the music won't come truly alive unless your music server uses [url= http://www.hifidelit.com/products/ppa-red-sata-cable ]Audio grade SATA cables[/url] at £180 a shot. 😯

I was going to highlight "[i]mute[/i]" my point but thought that'd be far too obvious, glad it amused some peeps :-)….see all you stw forum doubters?, folk actually read thread posts before replying.

Audio grade SATA cables at £180 a shot.

That is just ridiculous.

What you really need are hifi grade hard drive platters....

I 'auditioned' his naim kit when I got to his house

Naim is modified Philips kit, sames B&O, Arcam and numerous other suppliers.

I have heard a lot of people slag B&O for being pretty Philips equipment, but even Naim is just Philips at heart.

Nonononooooo

You can't slag Naim off on here!

It's the substitute religion of choice for many.

You can't slag Naim off on here!

I'm not slagging it off!

Just saying it's based on Philips components. 🙂

It is isn't it?

The root of the problem is that there is no easy way to assess absolute sound quality, it's very subjective. This Audiophile nonsense is very much like the Emperor's Clothes, e.g.

Timing and coherence are the two really easy differences to hear, but like other interconnects it’s simple to spot the differences in levels of detail, tonal quality and dynamic performance.

i.e. If you can't hear the difference you're a moron.

That's not strictly true - all of those things can be measured fairly accurately, using, in some cases, a number of scales. That said - it's a real faff to measure them, and the differences between the measurements are difficult to actually assess unless you have some kind of reference - as with many audio things, they mean little to nothing in a vacuum.

<geek>

[b]Timing[/b] - at this level, you'd be measuring this on the basis of system/interconnect jitter, which is related to the quality of the clocking of the system. This *can* have an impact on the consistency of playing back the samples - these should be precisely every whatever milliseconds depending on sample rate - if this drifts, due to poor clocking, then it can impact on phase alignment, but only really when you have more than one cable or system transmitting audio - i.e. it's of little to no consequence here, because we're only dealing with a single stereo/greater than stereo signal, not multiple signals from multiple sources being brought together - like in a mixer. You can measure jitter pretty easily by checking the consistency of the sample data in the cable - this is something you can do straight out of the cable itself.

[b]Coherence[/b] - I'm assuming this means phase coherence, rather than anything else, and this again, can be an issue, if the left channel arrives at a different time from the right channel then you end up with a skewed stereo image, and potentially comb filtering impacting on the overall tone. However, a cable wouldn't improve or deteriorate this - even in a system (like optical cables) where the stereo data is sent serially - i.e. left content followed by right content - then the problems could only occur in the reconstruction of it, not the interconnects. You can measure this by comparing the input signal and the output signal - although isolating the cable would be basically impossible - it needs convertors etc. to be able to do the calculations, and then if you changed the cable you'd need to take into account the changes in the rest of the circuit because of the changed cable - but you could come out with something - it's unlikely to change, but you'd have a difference.

[b]Detail[/b] - this is probably the most bollocks on there, the only thing I can think of is total harmonic distortion (THD) to measure this…but a digital cable would need to be seriously crap to have an impact on it, in fact, the point at which a digital cable is impacting on this, you'd end up with no signal.

[b]Tonal Quality[/b] This is easily measured by comparing signal in to signal out and identifying areas of difference. This doesn't mean that change = bad, because I know a heap of people who choose stuff (mixers, EQ, compressors, speakers) because they do change the sound for the better.

[b]Dynamic performance[/b] This is crudely measured as an RMS average over time, or more usefully using Bob Katz K system, it has a specific calibration process and meter ballistics to follow, meaning you can compare apples with apples through the system and give you a good idea about relative dynamic performance.

Naim is modified Philips kit, sames B&O, Arcam and numerous other suppliers.

The thing is that some modifications can make a huge difference to the performance of audio kit whilst others give no benefit or make it worse. The problem with the vast amount of snake oil on offer is that the good gets lost amongst the bad. Meyer Sound used to buy in JBL compression drivers which they then modified by changing the compliance of the suspension on the diaphragm - that little tweak causes uneven frequency response which has to be corrected by complementary filters (so it needs to be an active cab) but it reduces the distortion ten-fold, which is a VAST improvement. Unsurprisingly they patented it!

I haven't heard any Naim kit in years but I wouldn't be surprised to come across very clever improvements to stock parts in there. It is so frustrating that the exploitative pedallers of bs audio accessories ruin the industry for anyone honestly trying to produce a superior sounding product.

CD quality audio reproduction at the standard sample rate of 44.1 kHz and 16bit sample rate gives 1411Kbps, from what has been drummed into me that's 2 (# audio channels) × 44100 samples/sec x 16 bits/sample = 1,411.2 kbit of information per second, rather more than 320Kpbs.

That's a dishonest comparison because they work on fundamentally different systems - using pulse code modulation to store audio data is inherently wasteful, so all the data included isn't always needed, just because it's always there.

Meyer Sound used to buy in JBL compression drivers which they then modified by changing the compliance of the suspension on the diaphragm - that little tweak causes uneven frequency response which has to be corrected by complementary filters (so it needs to be an active cab) but it reduces the distortion ten-fold, which is a VAST improvement

What does that mean? 😀

I would wager that in a blind test the vast majority of people could not tell the difference between a £1000 "entry level" hifi system and a £10000 Naim system.

Ah, you've gone and ruined it now. 😀

I've never heard two systems that sounded the same, regardless of how much or little they cost.

I would wager that in a blind test the vast majority of people could not tell the difference between a £1000 "entry level" hifi system and a £10000 Naim system.

Unless you're a teenager who thinks that Dr Dre playing out of your iPhone is the height of audio reproduction, You could have an earectomy and still tell the difference between a £50 'speaker' and a £200 Matsui special, and between said "my first hifi" and a £1000 setup. Between £1000 and £10,000? Not so much, I'd hazard.

I've never heard two systems that sounded the same, regardless of how much or little they cost.

All other things (eg, room layout) aside, this is a truism. I once spent an afternoon in Richer (back when they did such things) auditioning kit before purchase. What I learned that day is that the difference between near-identical products from different manufacturers is very, very pronounced. Comparing, say, a Yamaha amp to a Sony one, they're both very good but they sound completely different.

Cougar - Moderator
Between £1000 and £10,000? Not so much, I'd wager.

Unless daft systems are chosen, the difference should be significant and obvious.

I should have rephrased that.

Of course they sound different. But which sounds "better"?

In a blind test I would wager that most could not tell you which is the £1000 and which is the £10,000.

In a blind test I would wager that most could not tell you which is the £1000 and which is the £10,000.

I'm not slagging it off!

Just saying it's based on Philips components.

It is isn't it?

No, not really.

I haven't spent much time on here recently and reading this thread I now remember why.

You lot are so far up your ****ing arses it's a wonder you haven't got indegestion.

If you want rich full range sound, that is as if you're there whilst it's being recorded, surely the solution is studio cans.

The money saved could go on bikes, babes, bouncy castles and baboon adoption.

Sound, aye

I'm in.

You lot are so far up your **** arses it's a wonder you haven't got indegestion.

*confused*

What is "up your **** arses" about ridiculing a £1600 digital cable??

Are you saying a sensible "not up his own arse" grounded person thinks that is an entirely reasonable amount?

geetee1972 - Member
I haven't spent much time on here recently and reading this thread I now remember why.

You lot are so far up your **** arses it's a wonder you haven't got [s]indegestion[/s] indigestion.