I have earlier posted about Audio trends and snake oil. What annoyed then and still today in marketing and media that too often today then talking on hi-fi, science is replaced by bizarre belief structures and marketing fluff. It seems that there too many snake oil rubbish products marketed in the name of hifi. It is irritating to watch the stupid people in the world be fooled with things like exotic materials, directional cables, thousand dollar IEC power cables, and all that rubbish. “If you pay ridiculous money for these cable you will hear a difference, but don’t expect your friends to”
I can agree that in analogue interconnect cables there are few cases where better cables can result in cleaner sound. And there are very many cases where there is no objectively noticeable difference.
In digital interconnect cables story is different than on those analogue interconnect cables. Generally in digital interconnect cables the communication either works, does not work or sometimes work unreliably. The digital cable either gets the bits to the other end or not, it does not magically alter the sound that goes through the cable.
But this digital interconnect cables characteristics has not stopped hifi marketers to make very expensive cable products that are marketed with unbelievable claims. Ethernet has come to audio world, so there are hifi audiophile Ethernet cables that do not make sense to me. With Ethernet the data either gets through the cable without any changes to it, or it does not get through at all. Ethernet has checksum on every data packets to detect for any errors (which are rare) in the transmission and all the packets that have data changed in any any way are discarded. So Ethernet cable can not not magically slightly alter the digital sound that goes through the cable.
Here are links to two articles on such expensive audiophile Ethernet cables:
Is streaming cable more or less expensive than $1000 audiophile snake-oil ethernet cable ?
https://audiobacon.net/2019/11/02/the-jcat-signature-lan-a-1000-ethernet-cable/
Gallery: We tear apart a $340 audiophile Ethernet cable and look inside
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/07/gallery-we-tear-apart-a-340-audiophile-ethernet-cable-and-look-inside/
Apart from the absurdly high price tag and more mechanically robust connectors, I see nothing special on those cables for carrying the data signal. I suppose those does look quite attractive to some users and this makes them willing to pay the high price.
Despite the fact that some people desperately want there to be audiophile Ethernet cables, there simply is no such thing. The IEEE standards do not include a superset of specifications that make a regular Cat-7 cable into an “audiophile” Cat-7 cable. If you still believe those “audiophile Ethernet” cables sounding better, please inform yourself how an Ethernet and Ethernet cable works.
173 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Just… beyond me. I’m a double Cisco CCIE and a master of electronics…
https://www.alpha-audio.net/background/the-absolute-and-ultimate-guide-to-streaming-audio-network-optimization/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1k8YdPlF_tgkIpTH_Mv7E6ypaEHg1Fh5ceu9PT2vtmKnCAY82mq6f_eIg_aem_2XBuMPPjpQyT9UaRHBr-sg#comment-28482
Tomi Engdahl says:
They at least kinda built something.
There are worse examples like an ethernet filter that snaps on the end of an ethernet cable.
This guy is insulting to his own oscilloscopes.
https://youtu.be/c6lZFN-LW-U?si=qYpcIuJuvtCNbKsW
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.furutech.com/2024/11/27/24563/
Directional Ethernet cable for optimal sound!?!?!?!?
“Important caution for cable direction:
* This LAN Cables is directional for optimal sound reproduction. The cable will not be damaged or damage equipment if connected in the wrong direction, but audio signal will not be optimal. The direction marked by the arrow is the input (source) side. Check the arrow markings on the connector before connecting.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ethernet data signal is already galvanically isolated on both devices with transformers. When using shielded Ethernet cable the shield will make a direct connection that can sometimes lead to ground loop problems that can be solved by using signal isolator or unshielded Ethernet cable.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Let the laws of physics guide you, not the myths and snakeoil of audiophoolery.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Audiophiles Keep Failing the Test That Should End the Amplifier Debate
https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/03/audiophiles-keep-failing-test-end-amplifier-debate/
Why do expensive amps keep selling even when blind tests prove they sound the same?
Dropping $2000 on a premium amplifier feels like it should transform your sound. Yet, when researchers test listeners under controlled conditions, most can’t identify which amp is which.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/05/songs-expose-headphones-midrange-problems/
Tomi Engdahl says:
I’m almost impressed. There’s Just enough smattering of accurate terms and facts to make this cable look good but all they actually said is “our cable gives better audio then a shit-tier eBay cable that has the kind of wiring faults you can pick up with a Fluke tester”
This is technically correct. If you have a faulty cable with loose connections that’s causing packet loss that is likely to affect sound quality in the form of stuttering due to packet retries
But a £3 ethernet cable from your local office supplies shop will also do everything this thing does.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Misinformation or Simple Test? – CAT5e vs CAT6a
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ygspiLW-HQ0
Passion and anger tend to be inversely proportional to knowledge and understanding
Tomi Engdahl says:
HiFiPig.com Network Purifier review
https://www.russandrews.com/eu/hifipigcom-network-purifier-review/
Like many, despite having heard the differences our products can make over the years – her most recent experience being the review of our RF Router back in August, which you can read here – Janine Elliot admits to being a natural sceptic when it comes to accessories. The results of testing the Network Purifier came as somewhat of a surprise then…
Before getting into the nitty-gritty of the review, Janine precedes her testing with a brief background to the development of the MiniZap technology, how they were first developed for us by Ben Duncan, based on a Zobel network, and how that tech has been adapted over the years to a range of noise-reducing products adapted to a variety of applications. Janine notes that the product under review here utilises “no less than eight MiniZap filters”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BudgetAudiophile/comments/1b8rdk9/is_audiophilia_all_bullst_is_it_mostly_bullst/
After a number of years, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s mostly bull.
Speakers matter.
Subs make smaller speakers sound better.
Room acoustics matter.
PEQ isn’t intuitive, but it’s incredibly powerful.
Amps and DACs are solved problems. Any decent electronics will do the job.
I’ll not even start on cables or ethernet switches.
Audiophilia, subjective or objective, is mostly unlearning to enjoy stuff that previously brought joy. It’s better to just love music.
Most of the subjective opinions are worthless and a lot of supposedly high end products deliver no gains over budget ones.
It’s a great time to be an objective audiophile, focused on the right things and getting great results for a reasonable cost.
I have virtually given up HiFi as a hobby as there is SO much BS. It gets to the point where I feel my intelligence is being insulted!
I assume its like wine. There are $100 bottles that are noticeably better than most $15 bottles. That said there are a few amazing steals in the $15 range. And the best $100 wines are maybe more tasty, but they aren’t 5x more tasty.
Well, it’s a hobby, and as with most hobbies, a lot of “audiophilia” is the desire to get new gear and justify it. I am myself pondering at the moment, if I should get a nice, hi end vintage amp to replace my Aiyima T9 although it might not sound any better.
Most bullshitty audiophile concepts I’ve heard however:
“Clean” electricity
Super heavy and acoustically dead audio racks – because apparently they “hear” other ones.
Hi end, audiophile cables – measuring tests have showed no advantage to regular, decent copper cable.
Maybe I just don’t have the hearing ability of a bat and it’s all true, lol.
Decades back when I knew less than nothing, I had occasion to A/B test in a listening room between my second hand £50 NAD CD player and a £12,000 Linn CD12.
I couldn’t tell the difference, even with my near perfect hearing at the time.
Anecdotes are not data, but I have always struggled to really evaluate any digital source unless it had something super obviously wrong in terms of mechanical issues or lossy codecs.
I bought my first CD player circa 1988. The Good Guys store had a display of probably 75 players. NAD was likely the most expensive and Magnavox the cheapest. I brought some good Sennheiser headphones and listened to all the models with headphone jacks. That narrowed it down to about 10 IIRC. There was one that sounded like crap, and all the others sounded identical in every way. I ended up buying a Pioneer because it had the multidisc options I wanted.
This points at the complete answer: the real BS is that most “audiophiles” is that they refuse to blind A/B test their gear. If you’re not willing to do that, you don’t actually care about audio quality, you care about fancy gear.
My 2 cents:
Penny 1: Folk who are deep into it use music to listen to their system, rather than use their system to listen to music.
Penny 2: Almost nobody has a clean enough listening environment to discern the differences they claim to hear. HVAC, the fridge, traffic, the leaf blower next door, wind, etc. etc. Any of these will mask the 1% difference between one item and another.
Drop the needle, turn it up, enjoy.
I think the real deep ‘audiophiles’ are robbing themselves of the pure enjoyment of listing to music. 95% of systems are more than good enough. Sure, upgrade to better speakers / bigger amp – cool. Have an electrician run a separate power circuit on silver cables for ‘cleaner power’? Fuck off.
After 40 years in the speaker business here are my opinions on the relative importance of system components:
Quality of source material
Speakers and placement thereof
Room environment
Sufficient amplification
Stuff in the middle does sound different. Different doesn’t mean better or worse, many times just different.
There is no free lunch. A component thats’ primary design criteria is to be as cheap to build as possible is not going to perform as well as one built like, and weighs as much as a high end german sedan.
Finally few things can offer as much fun for so little money as vintage and budget audio. Enjoy the finding, fixing fiddling with the hardware and be transported by the music!
Top 1% Poster
Speakers matter.
Subs make smaller speakers sound better.
Room acoustics matter.
PEQ isn’t intuitive, but it’s incredibly powerful.
Amps and DACs are solved problems. Any decent electronics will do the job.
I’ll not even start on cables or ethernet switches.
Yea, hate to break it to you but those are the typical arguments of an objective audiophile. You should throw in some links to ASR measurements and Harman research for a full picture.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Audio Bullshit.
https://medium.com/@PanoramicAudio/audio-bullshit-49e176cf9a28
“You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your studio and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably won’t sound too good.
There’s a whole world of bullshit out there, ready to try and suck you in. Some of it’s harmless, such as the idea that you can improve room sound using egg crates (which do not obtain the density and fibrous nature required to convert high frequency waves into heat energy, thus reducing reflections), but when bullshit creeps into advertising, it’s usually there to mislead you and lighten your wallet.
If you want to progress quickly as an engineer, be objective with how you approach any scientific claims regarding your potential purchases. These are the tools you’ll be using to create your art, so choose wisely and be aware that such tools are only useful if you know how to use them. Try new techniques and improving your aural abilities before you commit to spending money to improve your sound, and vigorously assess the bias and logic behind marketing campaigns. Remember that companies exploit your lack of confidence to sell to you, and in educating yourself and gaining more experience, you’ll be far harder to manipulate into making poor judgements.
Tomi Engdahl says:
I propose that, if all the “last few percentages of improvements” promised by this and that utterly idiotic product, it’s possible to achieve some 9,000 % fidelity with respect to the source material.
What a time to be alive!
Tomi Engdahl says:
If it doesn’t run the audio through mercury filled filter tubes, I’m not interested. I feel that, if audiophiles can have ridiculous, baseless standard, I can have outright dumb and impossible standards.
Tomi Engdahl says:
I do not know how many people think that streaming is some kind of glorious “continuous data stream from the service to the endpoint with perfectly synchronized clock”. When I read this bs, I just can’t stand that. This kind of stuff mostly comes up in the discussions Ethernet vs Wifi.
Nobody actually realizes that it’s all packet based transmission with error correction and de-jitter buffer at the receiving end. And the biggest audiophools get stunned when you tell them that packets arrived to the endpoint most likely used different paths on the network…
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Omnilan – We shape the zeros and ones for your system”
Dusán Roczkó no, no, they insert carefully blended 0.5s in there to smooth the harsh transitions between 0 and 1….
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ooh I just had an idea. Start an “audiophile” ISP claiming you use this kind of networking equipment and charge them $300/month
Tomi Engdahl says:
I don’t have the foggiest idea why these audiophools don’t realize that their brain tricks them into hearing things.
I mean, just for how long can you succumb to your confirmation bias?
I guess they really have no clue what sound is, how it stored, how it is reproduced. It is pitiful, really. They spend thousands and thousands, and in the end have the very same sound as before.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ethernet is a digital system, 0s and 1s, Trues or Falses. Nothing in between. If the cable is rubbish then external devices could cause interference, error correction will try and sort it and then if that doesn’t work it fails, pretty much completely. Range is governed by cable and drive and receive electronics, but once it ‘works’ incremental improvements in cable performance make zero difference, its still 0s and 1s.
I am surprised audiophools haven’t jumped on the fibre optic bandwagon as that is my ‘goto’ in difficult industrial environments where distance and/or external electrical noise create problems for control systems. Single mode fibre, suitable for multi km transmission dressed up as audiphoolery for a link of a few feet anyone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
These very thick hifi Ethernet cables put a huge mechanical stress on the sockets, stupid idea .
Tomi Engdahl says:
Well, it is a physical impossibility that CAT cable for Ethernet can have any impact on the audio output and quality, leave alone magic DSP-like capabilities.
The poor schmuck just has bad ears, and an overpowering imagination, that’s all.
Michael Eickemeier Well, not impossible. It could be flooding the inside of a crappy DAC with high energy RF, that the DAC then detects and adds to the analog waveform.
Or, it might not.
Steve Louton you’re talking about random changes to the bit values, that would destroy the content totally. High energy RF cannot act like a DSP, and change the bytes in an orderly fashion, that alters the sound quality in any certain and predictable way.
The RF energy could infiltrate the analog side, and be heard as data noise, but that’s about it.
Let’s not forget that Ethernet uses packets, which are not transmitted synchronously. Some traffic can interfere, so packets can arrive at completely different times, or get lost and re-transmitted, then assembled back, buffered and stored, then fed to a DAC, re-timed and converted.
It is impossible that an Ethernet cable can change the sound quality.
Michael Eickemeier Yes, I was strictly referring to RF conducted emissions entering the circuitry that could be detected (i.e., signal detection) and corrupt the output analog signal. We test this in avionics suites all the time. I agree the data path acts just like you describe; you certainly wouldn’t affect tonality that way.
Now whether you actually get enough RF into a system to corrupt the analog signal … I wouldn’t suspect you would, but if there is, it should certainly be measurable.
Steve Louton measurable, and audible. It’s data noise. Heard it too many times, unfortunately.
Data noise doesn’t make the sound different, as in smoother, or harsher or whatever. It’s just noise on top of the otherwise unaltered audio signal.
Audiophools never refer to data noise, they say that the cable changes the quality of the audio in some specific way, alas, it cannot change it.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CVHDipNgk/
In case you’re wondering, all of this detail, nuance and sonic improvement, comes from an Ethernet cable.
No doubt it just sounds ok or even bad until you burn it in for 300 hours. Be patient.
And all this time dumb old me thought that a properly made certified and tested cat 6a from Belden for $20 shipped was good enough to get the 1’s and 0’s to the DAC.