If that’s how you want to cable your system, that’s fine, and I have no qualms because of it.
Myself, though I am an engineer, all I need is to know that a company I respect (like Shunyata) says they find an improvement and I’m willing to give it a shot, as I don’t add anything to my system that I do not hear makes an improvement and one commensurate with its cost. For example, I couldn’t tell you precisely why their AC cables improve the sound of my components, but they do, and they’re installed.
To me it’s much like medicine - and given that we’re dealing with human sensory perception, perhaps that’s a good analogy. If you look at the inserts that come with most prescription medications, they will flat out say that the method by which they work is unknown - but studies have shown that they do work.
That’s how I look at cabling and for that matter DACs and all other components. I don’t care why my RP and RC sound the way they do, I just know they are an improvement over what I had. I know I can use a cheap USB cable or an expensive AQ one and my USB hard drive won’t care at all - but what I hear from my DAC shows a significant improvement with the AQ. As with power cables, most of my house is wired with “something else,” but if changing that cable between components improves the sound, I won’t question why, I will just be glad it does.
That’s of course not a strict engineering approach to things, but I learned at least some of this from long conversations I was able to have with the sadly now departed but always incredible to talk to Charles Hansen of Ayre. He used to discuss not hearing, but smell - how with gas chromatography we can now discern down to the molecular level the differences between two compounds, but somehow the “trained noses” of the scent specialists at perfume companies are more sensitive, and those of dogs and other animals even more so. No one is sure why some dogs can seem to “smell cancer,” but that hasn’t stopped clinical trials from taking place to investigate the issue.
I’m not calling anyone out for being being unable to hear the difference between Ethernet cables, but I have. I don’t know about Shunyata’s vs. say Blue Jeans, but I have between the Belden much of my home network is wired with and Blue Jeans. That doesn’t mean you will or that your system is poorer or not resolving enough if you can’t.
I would like to know why, but not as a precursor to trying it any more than I need to pull up the research from medical journals before taking a new prescription medication.
How do I choose what cables to try? As in the case with a physician, I trust the opinions of those I know - friends within and outside the industry and of course magazine reviewers. Not all reviewers of course, but those whose opinions seem to have hewed very close to what I have heard myself over the course of a decade or more.
I would never buy anything just because a reviewer said it was great, but for example if Michael Fremer recommended something I would certainly give it a try.
That having been said, I also listened to most of the “Class A” DACs in the recommended component listings of both Stereophile and TAS and found all of them lacking compared to my Wadia S7i until I came across the RP/RC combo, many of them DACs that were not just recommended but effusively so. My dealer had me take home and audition the Ayre QX-5 Twenty three separate times, and each time it took me less than ten minutes at home to hear that nope, it was lacking. Same with the Bartok and the RP sans clock. But a friend I know told me flat out - you need to listen to the Rossini with the Rossini Clock and I think you’ll be amazed - and they were right.
I don’t need technical proof before trying something at the recommendation of those whose opinions I trust, and though they’re not always right, it’s worth the time and effort for me to give it a spin.
If not to you, that’s fine too, there’s no “right and wrong” in the world of audio.
I only ask in the face of those who claim that something absolutely, positively cannot make a difference, if they’ve tried it. If they have and have heard no difference, great, good for them, it’s another data point and bolsters their argument.
It’s not immaterial to note that when virtually all of the components you now say there are sound engineering reasons for their differences in sound were once considered components for which changes could not “possibly” make a difference - you can still see that by the many who still consider all speaker cables identical as long as they are of proper gauge to pass the electrical signal from amp to speaker.