Please don’t stop sincerely engaging on this topic thread. That’s the whole point!
This thread has been very productive as far as I am concerned; and needs to be continued. Given Galen’s (and other’s) posts, there is more wisdom to wring from this discussion.
Cheers.
"…I’m all for improvements but I have seen ZERO evidence of measured technical superiority of anything offered yet. I’m ignoring the ability to hear the changes, which if repeatable and better, remain so.
Galen"
Anyone game to suggest some possible ways we could measure the effectiveness of galvanic isolation or other noise reduction efforts with regard to digital signals in a home Hi-Fi audio signal chain…?
No need to measure anything but speaker positions maybe. This hobby is all about listening and finding best gear,cables, whatever by our own ears. That´s what matters most.
I put this engineering point of sound view upside down for measurement guys…
Measure all data you can from ethernet cables like SOtM,Inakustik,Sablon,BJC,Aqvox,Wireworld to name a few and tell us why or if:
Which has the best tone color
Which sounds fastest
has biggest sound stage
sounds more real
which is upfront or laid back
sounds dull and lifeless
etc…
Can you combine all good aspects to one cable?
and give those measurements that tells us why it sounds like it does.
Yeah,i know. Mission impossible. 
Happy listening,yes listening,not measuring 
By the way i do feel the same and have tested much like Wijnand has,except optical ethernet isolation. Ethernet makes huge impact in sound,yes. No measurements to back it up though.
I agree with you @Somppsa.
Ethernet and power supplies of the server/computer, HDD, router.
So who’s going to be the first to try one of these?
https://www.musicdirect.com/cables/Shunyata-Sigma-Ethernet-Cable
Just wait somebody, dealer or otherwise, on one of the other forums will soon tell you how you can’t live without it. Kind of like an AQ Diamond USB cable. I can probably tell you who it will be. I’ll stick with my Supra Ethernet cables. They work just fine at less than a fifteenth of the cost.
Don’t dis’ the Diamond!
This is all about measurements. OK, some won’t do it, fine, but true advances are figuring out WHAT we hear and associating it to a true manageable cause, thus, ALL equipment going forward can consistently benefit.
Those aspects that haven’t been measured correctly to properly define the properties simply remain to be standardized.
Like it or not all of this stuff follows electromagnetic properties and not to our wishes as to what we want it to do. It does what it does, and has been better and better defined over the years so yes, there is a reason to measure it.
If you don’t build it, it may not matter to you to measure it, but we start where we do at home after an awful lot of stuff has been measured, or, you would not even be close to where we are today.
Better is measurably better, eventually.
Hi Folks:
More of an FYI on a closeout special from Wireworld that I learned about from a good dealer. Wireworld is closing out their Ethernet Starlight Cat 8 and I believe Premium Starlight cables. Dealers should be giving steep discounts. I just picked up a variety pack from CJ’s Audio in Tucson for a 40% discount. I was also able to order custom lengths and have them dropped shiped from WW. I have never heard these cables but have heard other folks liked them.
thanks!!
What brand/model switch with optical at 100mbs are u using?
thx
Cisco 2960g with 1gb sfp at each end. They won’t do 100
But if not 100 mbs won’t work with DSDac
I don’t have the Bridge. My server feeds I2S to DS
So for a normal application - say, a 10 foot run from the hardwire ethernet jack on the wall to the Directstream DAC’s ethernet input, what type of ethernet cable (from BJC) is the best?
For standard Ethernet, you want the highest Shannon’s law bandwidth. This would be 4800 series (4.8 Gb/s) or DT600e series UTP cable. BER is proportional to Shannon’s law BW. That’s the “theory” but with such short lengths, the BW is HUGE with even 1200 (1.2Gb/s) series cable.
The BW is so large that virtually nothing you do to the cable will change the BER in any meaningful way, sorry to say. Ethernet works like it is supposed to.
Best,
Galen
So their Cat6 or Cat6a?
No 6A. 3612 or 3613 series CAT6. 6A is ONLY for 10G with special NIC cards to leverage the technology. 6a is not as good for 1000BaseT Ethernet.
Best,
Galen
As always, thanks for your time and insight!
What do you recommend for multi-gig implementations between 6 and 6a? This will be used for a 200 AP wireless network.