Does connecting a streamer to Ethernet make much difference compared to wifi?
- Thread starter JezmondTutu
- Start date
camverton
pfm Member
A bit off topic but there has been some discussion of wave cables so, fwiw, here is my assessment, not from theory but actually trying them in my system between an m scaler and TT2.
I was cynical, to say the least, that these would make a worthwhile difference as many “differences” I have come across in hifi fall into the “Well, I suppose it might sound a bit better/worse but not enough difference for me to be sure. I tried the wave cables listening to one of my favourite Christina Pluhar tracks where there is some delicate cymbal brush work in the background. on putting the wave cables in I was surprised to discover that there was much more to the subtlety of the playing than I had previously noticed. ”ah“, I thought, I hadn’t noticed it before because I wasn’t concentrating on it. So, we took the wave cables out and that subtlety in the brush work on the cymbals all but disappeared into what was still a nice sound of cymbals. Put the wave cables back and what the percussionist was doing was clear again. My conclusion was that without the wave cables subtle effects in the music were ‘masked’ and with the cables they weren’t. Less conclusive, but I think the sound of those tricky violins were improved. Is that due to noise causing intermodulation distortion? I really don’t know and don’t really care as the effect was so clear, and as someone who finds detail in reproduction one of the things that helps with creating an illusion of the original music, cleaning up that detail was worthwhile for me but others mileage will doubtless vary.
Therefore, a subtle (to my ears) but worthwhile improvement, repeatedly demonstrable of a particular effect on the music. Are they worth the price? That’s for individuals to decide relative to how much income or savings they have and how much they value they place on getting the best out of their system. Should one have to pay extra for cables on the top of the price of expensive equipment? Probably not, but it has to be noted that the equipment being connected was and is at a very high standard without them and, like it or not, there is little that is manufactured that can’t be improved, if only by relatively small margin.
Just to add I’ve only met Nick once, as a visitor to my house he contributed a rather nice stilton to our mini bake off and I supplied him with a bacon butty! A decent sort of chap, I decided, although not so sure about his politics
. The reason for this post is not to boost Nick‘s sales but to counter the downright false comments some like to make about this product.
I was cynical, to say the least, that these would make a worthwhile difference as many “differences” I have come across in hifi fall into the “Well, I suppose it might sound a bit better/worse but not enough difference for me to be sure. I tried the wave cables listening to one of my favourite Christina Pluhar tracks where there is some delicate cymbal brush work in the background. on putting the wave cables in I was surprised to discover that there was much more to the subtlety of the playing than I had previously noticed. ”ah“, I thought, I hadn’t noticed it before because I wasn’t concentrating on it. So, we took the wave cables out and that subtlety in the brush work on the cymbals all but disappeared into what was still a nice sound of cymbals. Put the wave cables back and what the percussionist was doing was clear again. My conclusion was that without the wave cables subtle effects in the music were ‘masked’ and with the cables they weren’t. Less conclusive, but I think the sound of those tricky violins were improved. Is that due to noise causing intermodulation distortion? I really don’t know and don’t really care as the effect was so clear, and as someone who finds detail in reproduction one of the things that helps with creating an illusion of the original music, cleaning up that detail was worthwhile for me but others mileage will doubtless vary.
Therefore, a subtle (to my ears) but worthwhile improvement, repeatedly demonstrable of a particular effect on the music. Are they worth the price? That’s for individuals to decide relative to how much income or savings they have and how much they value they place on getting the best out of their system. Should one have to pay extra for cables on the top of the price of expensive equipment? Probably not, but it has to be noted that the equipment being connected was and is at a very high standard without them and, like it or not, there is little that is manufactured that can’t be improved, if only by relatively small margin.
Just to add I’ve only met Nick once, as a visitor to my house he contributed a rather nice stilton to our mini bake off and I supplied him with a bacon butty! A decent sort of chap, I decided, although not so sure about his politics
. The reason for this post is not to boost Nick‘s sales but to counter the downright false comments some like to make about this product.vacuum_tubes
pfm Member
Assme that is aimed at me, what false comment? I said he sold over priced cables, that is subjective and my view, are you saying I'm not allowed subjective opinions now?
I said I view them both as carpet baggers i.e they turn up in threads recommending their own or each others products opportunistically. In fact it's not just me as others have commented they are uncomfortable with trade members pushing their products in audio threads
In many cases offering to send demo units on threads where people are just asking for advice on.
Thw Flash made an objective statement that a correctly installed switch will "improve your system" and I just asked for evidence of that.
If these cables or switches eradicate or reduce noise then that can be measured and validated, just send them off to a neutral 3rd party tester.
I can bet you'd be pretty upset if you went to buy a new car and it went something like....
you--hello I'd like to buy a car, what's that one?
sales--ah it's black and it's got copper inside
you--how many miles to the gallon does it achieve?
sales--dunno we haven't measured it
you--what's the ncap safety rating?
sales--dunno we didn't test it
you--that's not very helpful
sales--don't you worry about stuff like that, all you need to know is this car is better than your car.
camverton
pfm Member
Most amusing, and you’re selectively quoting your points.
As for the car analogy, the last time I went to buy a car I asked the salesman to open the hatch and fold the rear seats so that I could see if my bicycle would fit inside and then sat in the drivers seat, adjusted the steering wheel to a position that didn’t affect my arthritis and checked if I could still read the speedo. Amazing how many cars failed one or other test rendering mpg and safety rating irrelevant. I don’t have to refer to measurements, however interesting they may be, to determine if a product will either improve my enjoyment of music or, possibly more importantly, detract from my enjoyment of music. As someone who uses valves I would have thought you would understand that.
I haven’t tried any of Flashes products so (like you) can’t really make useful comment. I may be cynical but stating that doesn’t contribute anything to the thread. Fourlegs cables I have tried and can confirm that they make a difference which is specific and more than a general feeling of did it or didn’t it. You are, of course, entitled to your opinion that the effect high frequency noise cannot be detected in the audio but imho that doesn’t mean you’re entitled to ‘state’ that something is foo and with it the implication that the seller is some sort of con artist.
Regarding fourlegs and flashes presence in this thread I don’t like out and out selling in a discussion thread although their experience of the subject is as interesting as yours and when people start slagging their products off as foo, without any evidence, then they have the right to reply and for cynics the offer of trying said products is a reasonable way to forward the debate.
I do hope that clears this up but given the mission you appear to be on, I am not overly optimistic!
vacuum_tubes
pfm Member
I've provided my evidence and retain my view that a £6000 switch or £2000 cable is over priced foo. Neither have presented a single iota of evidence (or in most cases not even responded to the question) beyond "try it yourself" Well I have and it's all bullshit.
Like others I'm entitled to have and express my views, at no point have I ever said nobody should buy something or that subjective purchasing is wrong
Do you remember years ago when someone filed a complaint with the ASA about a Chord advert that claimed its product improved the sound. When challenged by the ASA they were unable to produce any evidence to back up their claim and were issued a warning and ordered to change the advert.
Sound familiar?
You'll be pleased to hear I am done now and see little point in trying to discuss things with people who clearly have no technical skills or knowledge of their own products.
camverton
pfm Member
Why does it worry you? fomo? Who’s looking for issues that don’t exist? - A bit judgemental don’t you think, and based on what?
For the basic Bluesound and WIiim streamers it’s just too much, better result can be obtained upgrading elsewhere. But lots of streamers/dacs are concentrated around 10k mark today, good set of cables is a must in that case, switch depends on the network configuration, it’s not prohibited to run wifi.
camverton
pfm Member
Of course you’re entitled to your opinion. I must have missed your evidence; perhaps it was hidden amongst your accusations of over priced foo!
Which Chord company are you referring to? The one that makes cables or Chord Electronics that makes DAC and amps. If you are going all evidential it helps if you are clear about who you are casting aspersions about.
You’ll be pleased to know that I’m done now as well - at least as far as your posts are concerned! Dammit there is music to enjoy
Fourlegs
Trade: WAVE High Fidelity digital cables
Yes everyone is entitled to have an opinion but it is exasperating when some peoples opinions are stated as facts when they are obviously no more than opinions. Also when some facts are completely misrepresented. For instance if one cannot correctly state the price of a product without grossly exaggerating it then it does not bode well for any other ‘facts’ used in evidence. But hey ho.
By the way I have just watched Rob Watts on YouTube give his talk at CanJam 2024 and a large part of it is explaining why RF noise is, in his words, “a major major problem in dacs”. Of course he discusses many more issues, some of which will make many people splutter with disbelief but it is all food for thought as they say. Unfortunately it is quite long but I just played the audio from my iphone to the car stereo.
Oh and thank you for your kind words about the WAVE cables and I am glad you are still enjoying them.
TonyScarlett
pfm Member
Let me guess, Rob Watts has products or is developing products that he will sell to us for a [large] price that will mitigate these "major, major" problems that 99.9% of us don't even realise (or care) that we have.
TS
TS
camverton
pfm Member
Just wanted to redress the balance with how I assessed the wave cables against the ‘I don’t believe it therefore it cannot be” brigade.
Ironically, I haven’t sat down and listened to music and enjoyed the glorious visceral sound of musical instruments for months now. Due to a sudden hearing problem in what was my best ear I can now only cope with music at a low volume and whilst doing something else to distract me from how horrible it ‘sounds’. Picking up some hearing aids in a couple of weeks which I hope will make sound more tolerable. It has demonstrated to me that many of the discussions on these forums aren’t so much about the sound quality of equipment so much as the quality of our individual hearing. It takes an overnight change in hearing to realise that.
I’m not over confident so there is likely to be a bit of classifieds action coming up!
tuga
Legal Alien
It's worth quoting a reply by HQPlayer's Jussi Laako from an Audiophilestyle topic aptly named "Bits is bits?":
There is some amount of misunderstanding here. We are talking about two separate things.
1) Correctness of data transfer
2) Noise injection to analog parts through galvanic connection of the source and DAC
(2) completely and independently bypasses the data path. It doesn't require any data to be transmitted and unless excessive, doesn't affect data transfer itself. But it tends to affect clocks, D/A conversion part and other analog parts of the DAC - this is where the crossing from digital to analog happens and this is where the electronics are sensitive to noises at levels down to -140 dB or so.
There's no one in PFM capable of matching his experience or knowledge on the subject or of challenging his claims, but feel free to stick to your 'bits is bits' beliefs though...
I do agree with @adamdea that if the goal is to filter EMI and RFI then the logical (most effective) approach is to use an Ethernet filter (e.g. DX Engineering ISO-PLUS), not a network switch.
This is where a lot of people have their huge, huge misunderstanding.
The analogue signal is not carrying any audio. The analogue signal is transporting the bitstream of digitally encoded audio
You cannot possibly affect the quality of the source audio by reducing distortion on the analogue signal. Can you really not understand this ?
There is some amount of misunderstanding here. We are talking about two separate things.
1) Correctness of data transfer
2) Noise injection to analog parts through galvanic connection of the source and DAC
(2) completely and independently bypasses the data path. It doesn't require any data to be transmitted and unless excessive, doesn't affect data transfer itself. But it tends to affect clocks, D/A conversion part and other analog parts of the DAC - this is where the crossing from digital to analog happens and this is where the electronics are sensitive to noises at levels down to -140 dB or so.
There's no one in PFM capable of matching his experience or knowledge on the subject or of challenging his claims, but feel free to stick to your 'bits is bits' beliefs though...
I do agree with @adamdea that if the goal is to filter EMI and RFI then the logical (most effective) approach is to use an Ethernet filter (e.g. DX Engineering ISO-PLUS), not a network switch.
Curtis
pfm Member
What worries me more is that it seems the audiophiles that have spent the most on their hifi’s are having to additionally spend on paraphernalia to make them sound …….
Looking for issues that don’t exist, out of human hearing etc.
It’s a disease surely
Looking for issues that don’t exist, out of human hearing etc.
It’s a disease surely
you're correct I have fomo
TheFlash
Reiki Audio
It can’t because the “tweakery” relates to reproduction at the end point not production at the start point.
TheFlash
Reiki Audio
Having to? Or choosing to? I may be taking you too literally and your emotions are obviously your business but I wouldn’t actually worry too much about rich audiophiles (though I’m sure they’d find your concern rather touching)!
As explained in a post above, this is absolutely not out of human hearing.
TheFlash
Reiki Audio
Did you have a question? I’m not sure I understand your post.
TheFlash
Reiki Audio
Great post but (ref last paragraph) can you expand on your extrapolation from logical to most effective? I presume you’ve directly compared these in the same position in your network. Before I had a dog in the race I tried several such filters and they all performed woefully compared with a generic-but-decently-designed switch; hence my first product being a (powered) switch rather than a (presumably passive) filter.