Do router and ethernet cables affect sound quality?

[sandeepmohan]

No.
Pick any method of network based digital audio playback, streaming from something like Tidal over Roon (Or Tidal straight) or even your home network, both will pull that data and store it locally on whatever the playback device it is you're using. There is no question of the router or the ethernet cable (or even wifi) that will pollute or distort the sound. Its impossible.

Heck, on some streamers, like a Yamaha NP-S2000 (I owned this for a short period of time), I could unplug the ethernet cable and the track still kept playing, implying that it was doing some local storage process before it played back the file. In the world of network audio, this is a vintage component and it was doing this 10 years ago! Modern or current generation devices must be caching or storing on ram in a far more efficient way.

Stick to your regular D Link or MX cat cable and you'll do just fine.

 

[Enkay78]

Wow.
..just wow

*Reach for the popcorns.

 

[firearm12]

Your basically saying that I believe what I believe despite evidence going the other way. If you can't tell the difference in blind test, then there's no difference. Period.

If you closed your eyes while eating, would you not be able to tell the difference between roti and paratha?

I think you did not understand what I was talking. I did not talk about roti or Paratha. I was talking about audio in short listening sessions.

 

[mbhangui]

Heck, on some streamers, like a Yamaha NP-S2000 (I owned this for a short period of time), I could unplug the ethernet cable and the track still kept playing, implying that it was doing some local storage process before it played back the file. In the world of network audio, this is a vintage component and it was doing this 10 years ago! Modern or current generation devices must be caching or storing on ram in a far more efficient way.

This is one of the most lucid explanation of the buffer. As long as the buffer has data, you can even pull out the network cable and put it back and the song will keep playing. I see this often with my setup. I have a two machine setup. One machine runs Music Player daemon (allo usbridge signature). This machine is connected to a dac (allo revolution dac). This has no hard disk once the os is booted, the entire /var/log is in memory and I run mpd in realtime priority. This machine mounts (using autofs) hard disk of another machine running nfs service. The second machine has a 4Tb hard disk with all my music tagged and also runs a apache web server. This machine is a RPI 4. When I want to retire for the night, I shutdown the RPI4, but the music keeps playing because the mpd player has a buffer_time in microseconds parameter which defines how much it should buffer into memory. So theoritically my allo revolution dac will continue to play for 200000 microseconds after I have pulled out the ethernet cable. Even the worst possible ethernet cable will not affect my playback. The definition of my dac in /etc/mpd.conf is listed below

audio_output {
type "alsa"
name "Revolution"
device "hw:Revolution"
mixer_type "hardware"
mixer_device "hw:Revolution"
mixer_control "Revolution "
# format "*:32:2"
# format "384000:32:2"
buffer_time "200000"
period_time "1024000000"
auto_resample "no"
auto_channels "no"
auto_format "no"
dop "no"
# dsd_usb "no"
# dsd_native "yes"
# dsd_native_type "2"
}

 

[surfatwork]

There are probably dozens, if not hundreds, of ethernet cables connecting dozens of pieces of networking equipment between that spotify/tidal/whatever server and the computer in your house. Are you seriously suggesting that if any one of those cables, or pieces of equipment are changed, your sound you hear will change????
Methinks people are losing it

 

[firearm12]

Well, if done properly you can ensure that all the usual subjective biases are removed.
What remains is whatever is reported.
The results may or may not be pleasing to us.
But that’s not what the test it’s for.
The results are what they are.
It’s up to us to then try and figure out why.

Consider your example: there maybe a number of physiological or technological reasons why you could not distinguish between a mp3 and a WAV file of the same recording played on the same system, same room, one right after the other.

However our well informed brain tells us that there is more information in a WAV file than in a mp3 file and this should be apparent when we listen.

If the test results don’t match out expectations we humans commonly tend to dismiss the test. But the test only can achieve what it was designed to do. Nothing more or nothing less.

Its not that I am not able to find difference in wav and MP3 for same files. For songs that I have listened lot of times I can easily find the difference and even in a long listening session i can find difference. Lossless has more air in sound and more well defined lows, i can make out that. Lossy formats have artefacts and little harshness in them. It's just that short online a-b type lossless tests leave me puzzled. If the psychoacoustic theory was true then after getting the results for a-b comparison files for lossless tests, i should be able to condition my brain that particular lossless file is of much superior quality that others but that doesnt happen. So its not that I cannot feel any difference whatsoever, when I can feel i do feel, when I can't feel i can say I can't even after knowing which is wav file. And both conditions are true in cases where I dont know what's being played.

 

[mbhangui]

Methinks people are losing it

No. People are not losing it. They actually hear it when you tell them about the good lovely looking ethernet cable or the wonderfully dressed, handsome interconnects connected to their amplifier standing on golden feets. Dr Bose understood this long before others and his speakers are a roaring business because he knows what people like to hear.

The key thing to understand this is that we Human beings don't hear with our ear alone. The brain feeds us what we want to hear and whatever our brain tells, that will the real thing and not physics, science or actual measurements.

Here is an a $340 udioquest ethernet cable stripped bare for all of you to see.

Gallery: We tear apart a $340 audiophile Ethernet cable and look inside

We bought two, and since we can't return them, we decided to destroy one and share!

arstechnica.com

This is what the manufacturer says that if you use silver, the electrons are so going to love it and travel better because of silver. The manufacturer is using the theory of skin effect to hoodwink the many. Which is true, but will not make any difference. Why? Because audio is buffered like people have earlier explained

When we finally stripped away everything and got down to the actual twisted pair of copper wires, we were pleased to see that they were indeed coated in silver, as the manufacturer's page describes. I am not smart enough or educated enough to judge the manufacturer's claim that the silver coating is "excellent for very high-frequency applications, like Ethernet audio," and that the high-frequency signals "travel almost exclusively on the surface of the conductor" and thus "use" the silver instead of the underlying copper.

 

[firearm12]

No. People are not losing it. They actually hear it when you tell them about the good lovely looking ethernet cable or the wonderfully dressed, handsome interconnects connected to their amplifier standing on golden feets. Dr Bose understood this long before others and his speakers are a roaring business because he knows what people like to hear.

This is absolute wrong. It totally depends on hearing state and attentiveness of an individual and his desire to find differences, not on aesthetics. Many people do find poor looking products audibly better than audio jewels. This is totally wrong notion.

The key thing to understand this is that we Human beings don't hear with our ear alone. The brain feeds us what we want to hear and whatever our brain tells, that will the real thing and not physics, science or actual measurements.

Same is true for all senses, if we smell a particular smell for a long time continuously, we cannot even feel that smell anymore. If we open our eyes in bright sunlight for a long time and then go inside a room, we are blinded and think that it's totally dark for a short period of time. If we continuously listen to music at high volumes, we lose sense for low volumes for a short period.

So our brain do control ourself, and when we say our brain control ourselves, we mean to say our brain controls itself, so what's wrong in that? we are nothing without our brain. It's nothing more or nothing less than belief system where some feel God is there and some feel God is not there, both are satisfied in the end.

 

[mbhangui]

So our brain do control ourself, and when we say our brain control ourselves, we mean to say our brain controls itself, so what's wrong in that? we are nothing without our brain. It's nothing more or nothing less than belief system where some feel God is there and some feel God is not there, both are satisfied in the end.

The thing is only one of them is correct, not both and there lies the problem. And that's how world wars are born

 

[firearm12]

Oh man, going through this thread I can think of only 2 responses.

1. No, network hardware does not affect Sound Quality. period.
2. If it did, I would advise we all get an Audiophile Air Purifier so that it can Purify the air in our rooms so that the signals have a Purified medium to travel through.

MaSh

Do add

- some stones in the corners of room to enhance the solidity of tones
- some water buckets around the couch to make the music flow more naturally.

 

[raghupb]

There are probably dozens, if not hundreds, of ethernet cables connecting dozens of pieces of networking equipment between that spotify/tidal/whatever server and the computer in your house. Are you seriously suggesting that if any one of those cables, or pieces of equipment are changed, your sound you hear will change????
Methinks people are losing it

I respect it, if someone says this or that cable makes a difference, but I don't know why.
This is pure faith, and they are not backing it up with any bogus science. It is still OK.
But when the wrong science is attributed to a phenomenon, well ... what can we do?
So the lengthy explanations of how & why stuff works.
It is up to folks reading such explanations to accept it or not.

Networking, from the get go, has been about data integrity.
If not, professionally, I have been paid a whole lot of money all these years to do nothing but faff around

Cheers,
Raghu

 

[jls001]

There are probably dozens, if not hundreds, of ethernet cables connecting dozens of pieces of networking equipment between that spotify/tidal/whatever server and the computer in your house. Are you seriously suggesting that if any one of those cables, or pieces of equipment are changed, your sound you hear will change????
Methinks people are losing it

Try it out for yourself per simple process already outlined in a previous post. If you can't hear differences, people are losing/have lost it. If you can hear difference, people are simply hearing something rather unexpected.

 

[firearm12]

Audiophile levels:-

1) i can't hear any differences, i will only enjoy music.
2) i can hear differences, i will enjoy music when I get the best products and get the sound i want to hear
3) i can hear all differences, but i dont care, i will enjoy music

We all start from 1. People in 2 lose their sleep, some can also loose their heads. People in 3 sit outside of fence and smile continuously. Sooner we reach level 3, better will be.

 

[firearm12]

The thing is only one of them is correct, not both and there lies the problem. And that's how world wars are born

Wars are born not because one of them is correct, but because people think the one they believe is the correct one.

 

[mbhangui]

Wars are born not because one of them is correct, but because people think the one they believe is the correct one.

But only one of them is correct. Exactly my point.

 

[jls001]

For songs that I have listened lot of times I can easily find the difference and even in a long listening session i can find difference.

This is the reason why we must have our own set of "test tracks", tracks that we've heard many times. We must be intimately familiar with every nuance in the songs. Using such selected tracks we can almost immediately make out differences in the sounds of components. If we compare components using unfamiliar tracks our brain processes much more information, including trying to understand and at least remember portions of the track, and later trying to recall those store info to make a meaningful comparison. This is probably one of the reasons why on-the-spot A/Bs are so hard to tell apart.

 

[firearm12]

But only one of them is correct. Exactly my point.

I thought we are not at a war here and think everyone can be correct.

 

[keith_correa]

So our brain do control ourself, and when we say our brain control ourselves, we mean to say our brain controls itself, so what's wrong in that? we are nothing without our brain. It's nothing more or nothing less than belief system where some feel God is there and some feel God is not there, both are satisfied in the end.

I read this multiple times and each time I read it, I attained a higher state of consciousness. Now I'm so high...

 

[firearm12]

I read this multiple times and each time I read it, I attained a higher state of consciousness. Now I'm so high...

Like i said earlier once, it's audiophile comformity.

 

[surfatwork]

I am sure people hear differences when they change their network cable or their network router. and that's fine - I accept it. You hear the difference because your brain tells you it seems different - your brain tells you that because you want it to be different, and hence you hear different. But is there a real physical difference - very likely not. Any physical change is measurable with the instruments we have at our disposal. I am not saying that our instruments can measure every single thing, but today's instruments are certainly evolved enough to detect changes at levels which cause perceptible differences - in fact at much much lower levels.
So change a cable, change the router, change whatever, hear the difference, be happy (or not as the case may be). But it's when someone tries to justify these changes at a physical level, but without the benefit of any measurable difference, that it falls apart. I, for one, find it hard to believe that out of the hundreds of cables between the spotify server and your computer, it is the last one that is going to make all the difference. Network engineers change cables and equipment everyday, and not a single one of those changes results in any perceptible difference to what you hear - because you simply don't even know they are being changed. If you did, then maybe it might make a difference to what you hear.