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AudioQuest Diamond RJ/E Ethernet Cable: £6899

audiovisualonline.co.uk

111–120 of 129 posts

Re: AudioQuest Diamond RJ/E Ethernet Cable: £6899

#111

"All audio cables are directional. The correct direction is determined by listening to every batch of metal conductors used in every AudioQuest audio cable. Arrows are clearly marked on the connectors to ensure superior sound quality. For best results have the arrow pointing in the direction of the flow of music. For example, NAS to Router, Router to Network Player."

> For best results have the arrow pointing in the direction of the flow of music. Ideally one should have a separate cable flowing the other way, too, so that ACKs aren't unduly delayed.

Gigabit Ethernet already does have different conductors flowing in different directions.

Re: AudioQuest Diamond RJ/E Ethernet Cable: £6899

#112
post #93
post #28

I onced interviewed for a job at a software company developping virtual instruments plug-ins. At some point in the interview, the guy told me this great story : "We made some test once, and we changed the skin of the software, to a new color. Every people said the software sounded better with that new skin. Yet we changed absolutely nothing except the color." I'm still wondering if some graphical configuration ( such…

While I totally agree with the moral of this story, I'd like to point some reasons why the visuals of a software might interfere with audio: 1. just check this website: http://thume.ca/screentunes/ there is a large chance that your computer videocard and/or LCD will make a noise on that page 2. when the videocard makes such a noise, it can interfere with the PSU and thus affect the soundcard as well. 3. Thus, it's ac…

Can confirm this: Just by listening at the static through my head phones, I can tell what setting my laptop's display brightness is set at.

Re: AudioQuest Diamond RJ/E Ethernet Cable: £6899

#113
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor quality or really long connections can cause jitter, especially since in most consumer stuff the clock is sent with the signal. That jitter can cause differences in the signal out from the d/a. That said, the difference is less than minuscule, and time and time again people post double blind tests that prove even people who consider themselves trained audiophiles can't tell the difference. Same goes for analog -…

the whole jitter thing is nonsense in the context of something like an Ethernet cable since only the data is being sent, the packets only have to arrive 'fast enough', the timing doesn't matter.

Yeah sorry - should have said that above applies to digital audio streamed over a wire and decoded directly (spdif, aes, etc)

You can always use a $6k rubidium clock http://www.antelopeaudio.com/en/products/10m-atomic-clock if you really want to make sure your bits are synchronized. It's good enough for wu-tang!

For buffered data being sent and decoded, like via ethernet, the bits are the same on both ends, so I'm not sure what effect you would even make up to say it could change the output.

Re: AudioQuest Diamond RJ/E Ethernet Cable: £6899

#114

IANAL, so maybe someone who is can comment: surely this is flat-out illegal? The vendor claims that 1.'All audio cables are 'directional' 2.'When insulation is unbiased, it slows down parts of the signal differently, a big problem for very time-sensitive multi-octave audio.' That's two verifiably untrue or misleading statements with reference to a data cable, putting all subjective sound-quality fluff aside. Puts me…

> 1.'All audio cables are 'directional'

I have actually used this claim for less evil purposes in the past...

I spent my summers in high school working phone support for a university. This was back in the day when people brought desktop computers with them to school and plugged them into the wall with an ethernet cable... Many of the issues folks had getting connected could be solved by reseating the ethernet cable (either it was poorly seated in the first place, or the process of unplugging it and plugging it back in caused the NIC to reset some stuck bit of the driver). Unfortunately, it was quite common for folks to ignore your instructions to unplug the cable and plug it back in (as they are _sure_ that couldn't be the problem). I quickly picked up a habit of suggesting they may have accidentally gotten a 'unidirectional ethernet cable' and they should try swapping it end for end.

Re: AudioQuest Diamond RJ/E Ethernet Cable: £6899

#115
post #6

Without commenting on whether the product is worth the price (I don't know enough about HiFi quality): There is a bell curve of purchasing mentality - from a minority who buy solely based on what's cheapest, through varying degrees of cost/benefit tradeoff, through to a minority who will tend toward whatever is most expensive. It often pays to offer something to that latter group.

As far as I know its just a Ethernet cable and that means that there would be no difference to the "sound". It does have an extremely high bandwidth at 100 gbps (gigabits) but unless you have a audio file that requires 10 gigabytes per second then it is completely useless (Uncompressed audio is at most a few hundred kbps). Also the pure silver and other features would not make a difference to sound quality. So I woul…

> it does have an extremely high bandwidth at 100 gbps

Please don't believe even this (technically sounding) claim! You cannot specify the "bandwidth" of a cable, so even if they'd write 2Tbit/10km it would be just as made up as what they are writing now.

What you can do is to specify physical parameters, such as attenuation at specific (most interesting: high) frequencies, distortion and reflection caused by impedance mismatches at the connectors. Then maybe it will meet the requirements to transport Ethernet accodring to the standard, and under the conditions specified therein (1000Base-T, IEEE 802.3ab), carrying 1 GBit/second over up to 100 meters.

100 GBit Ethernet, for what it's worth, is currently planned to go through these kind of connectors: https://www.google.de/search?q=cxp+connector&tbm=isch

And while the cable being sold might be well shielded enough, and using a dielectric that allows it to exceed the attenuation requirement of Gigabit Ethernet by huge amounts, 100 GBit/s is so far off the scale that I'm pretty convinced that with current technology this is completely unattainable, even under best laboratory conditions.

Re: AudioQuest Diamond RJ/E Ethernet Cable: £6899

#116

IANAL, so maybe someone who is can comment: surely this is flat-out illegal? The vendor claims that 1.'All audio cables are 'directional' 2.'When insulation is unbiased, it slows down parts of the signal differently, a big problem for very time-sensitive multi-octave audio.' That's two verifiably untrue or misleading statements with reference to a data cable, putting all subjective sound-quality fluff aside. Puts me…

> 1.'All audio cables are 'directional' I have actually used this claim for less evil purposes in the past... I spent my summers in high school working phone support for a university. This was back in the day when people brought desktop computers with them to school and plugged them into the wall with an ethernet cable... Many of the issues folks had getting connected could be solved by reseating the ethernet cable (…

Fortunately, all the cables from this machine to HN are plugged in facing the right way so I can upvote you.

Re: AudioQuest Diamond RJ/E Ethernet Cable: £6899

#117
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will be perfect with the new HiFi Harddisks I'm developing at my startup. They'll offer HiFi data storage to make sure your crappy youtube to mp3 rips don't lose quality when stored over a longer time period. (I just made this joke in IRC too and somebody sent me this link http://www.enjoythemusic.com/hificritic/vol5_no3/listening_t... ) Maybe there is actually money to make off this!

I remember laughing at Kodak Digital Film. But I knew a few photographers whom preferred to use it. http://www.cnet.com/products/kodak-digital-film-flash-memory...

As opposed to what? There's a lot of variation in flash quality, affecting reliability and speed.

Re: AudioQuest Diamond RJ/E Ethernet Cable: £6899

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For best results have the arrow pointing in the direction of the flow of music. Ideally one should have a separate cable flowing the other way, too, so that ACKs aren't unduly delayed.

Gigabit Ethernet already does have different conductors flowing in different directions.

Only if you're using fiber. As far as copper:

10mbit ethernet uses one wire pair in each direction at a low frequency.

100mbit ethernet uses one wire pair in each direction at a high frequency.

1gbit ethernet uses all four pairs simultaneously in both directions at the same[1] frequency as 100mbit. Which is why wolfgke mentions problems when the different pairs aren't the same length.

[1] Mostly. It's complicated.

Re: AudioQuest Diamond RJ/E Ethernet Cable: £6899

#119
post #104
post #32

"Silver plated plugs" Can someone remind me of the electric properties of Silveroxide? ( Or do I need to hire someone who polishes the plugs before each track?)

Somewhere around here I have a printed copy of a white paper from Tyco (mostly known for IC socket mfgr, although they make a lot of other connectors) on the topic of silver vs gold, mostly as applies to IC sockets. From memory the oxides, sulfides, and chlorides all have to be worried about but they tend to be mushy semiconductors and any wiping action in the connector will 1) destroy the connector plating in 10-20…

I couldn't find the original, but this seems to be an updated review of the use of silver platings in connectors. It even mentions the rising gold prices as a motivation to look into alternative materials.

http://www.te.com/documentation/whitepapers/pdf/Ag_use_conne...

Re: AudioQuest Diamond RJ/E Ethernet Cable: £6899

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gigabit Ethernet already does have different conductors flowing in different directions.

Only if you're using fiber. As far as copper: 10mbit ethernet uses one wire pair in each direction at a low frequency. 100mbit ethernet uses one wire pair in each direction at a high frequency. 1gbit ethernet uses all four pairs simultaneously in both directions at the same[1] frequency as 100mbit. Which is why wolfgke mentions problems when the different pairs aren't the same length. [1] Mostly. It's complicated.

Ah, yes, it was 100baseTX I was thinking of.
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