Ben, for a while, I ran a level 2 Cisco off the Keces in my headphone rack with zero problem (they have several models that use a barrel plug rather than an IEC fitting). I am betting any one of the Netgear or TP-Links might qualify also. The ER is actually fine in my viewpoint. The one in my headphone rack never freezes (irony intended), and having a couple of extra ports helps there. I would have left the ER in the speaker system, but since its only job was to isolate the Upsampler, the occasional lockup plus the power/heat just wasnât worth it.
Ah, hereâs to you. 
I cannot overstate how happy I am with the sound of my system. I have no idea how tempting dCS might be able to make Vivaldiâs successor, but until it arrives, it doesnât matter. What I have now is superb. And I feel very fortunate to be able to enjoy it.
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Should I order Belden CatSnake 1303E ethernet cable with a âfloated shieldâ option or âconnected at one side onlyâ option for my Bartok?
Neither ideally . You need the unshielded CAt5e option which you will find on the same page at designacable. I would post a link except their website seems to have a problem this morning.
Hi Pete,
I placed an order for cat5e UTP and this cat6a with Floated shield . I just had doubts if I needed floated or connected at one side.
from description to cat6a FTP/S at the link above
In order to minimise any unwanted interference each pair of conductors is foil screened; this then works in conjunction with the integral overall-braided shield to reduce EMI. You have the option above to have the shield âconnectedâ or left âfloatingâ, this will depend on your equipment and personal preference. If left floating then this cable will not perform to Cat6a specifications, but will still function perfectly well as Cat5e, which is the most common type of specification in HiFi setups
The noise that is induced into the shield has to go somewhere. This is normally sent to earth ( ground). There is no earth connection at the dCS connection . Hence use unshielded.
If you connect the shield at one end then you have made an antenna so I wouldnât do that. As designacable say themselves , if you float it then it effectively performs as 5e which, as you have also ordered 5e, begs the question.
I will compare both))
perhaps an external shield, even not connected, will give some positive resultâŚ
in what cases is a shield connected to one side used?
I canât think of an example right now but in an application where you need to send noise to ground but wish to avoid creating a ground loop due to voltage differences between the grounding points ?
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Itâs always great to ask âwhy,â but to immediately follow that up with âwe shouldnât beâ isnât the right approach (nor is it to dismiss the effect because it runs counter to âvalidated science.â)
Before Pasteur, the notion of illness being caused by microbes ran counter to âvalidated scienceâ too.
Myself, I donât need to know why; I have confidence we will know eventually, but if it improves the sound of my system, I may make the upgrade.
I fall solidly on the subjectivist side of the fence when it comes to all things audio, and always will.
You need a ârational reasonâ before youâre willing to listen and see if there is an improvement; I will listen for an improvement and think âwow, thatâs strangeâ but go along with it and hope the reason is discovered later.
I donât need to know about skin effect and how signals propagate in cables to know that speaker cable âAâ sounds much better in my system than cable âBâ does.
Just this weekend I heard massive (to me) differences in soundstage depth and width between one brand of 75 ohm clock cable between Rossini Clock and DAC and another.
Why? Donât care, but itâs worth an audition to me to see if I hear the same here.
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Weâre all after the same thing (lovely tunes), weâre just going about it in different ways 
Lucky-Goldstar/Lifeâs Good!
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Yes - to be clear, I do not mean to disparage anyone if they feel they need to know why something makes an improvement before making a change, itâs just I literally play it by ear. 
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Some guys like to measure it, others just like the fun 
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Totally get it â I think we all do to some extent. Itâs not as if Iâd pore over the spec sheet for the Vivaldi and think âNah, not a chance thatâll sound better than my lowly BartĂłk!â 
It doesnât have to be measurable, just explainable, even if only by hypothesis. Otherwise, it is the very definition of snake oil. Engineering doesnât have to be an âeither orâ proposition. There is a middle ground where sound engineering can lead to SQ results, even if we donât yet have the metric for a measurement. Why would any sane engineer make a cable a certain way if she or he did not know why or how it might matter (other than greed)?
Please remember what this thread is about: Ethernet cables. Itâs not about clock cables, or cables with skin effect or other analogue cables, power cables, etc. there is a lot of info out there about why and how such cables can affect sound. I donât begrudge @BillK his approach, and he appears not to begrudge me mine. For me, the fun nowâas opposed to when I was youngerâis not about endless tweaking. Itâs about the music. If there is a reason to think I can make an already superb system better, I am all ears. And I am more than happy for the final determinant to be subjective; itâs your wallet and your time. But subjective doesnât have to mean nonsensical. You can still choose to be satisfied with subjective, but by definition that is not an engineering explanation. And if you donât want to know the why/how, thatâs fine, too. But I can be satisfied with a subjective determinations, while still wanting an engineering explanation. Doesnât have to be âeither or.â
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I begrudge you yours simply because you seem to indicate without a valid hypothesis I am just hearing things and/or itâs merely a placebo effect⌠which it is not.
Iâm not about endless tweaking either, but if someone I trust says âtry thisâ - whether itâs a restaurant, a fine wine, a laundry detergent or⌠an Ethernet cable, Iâm willing to give it a shot if itâs not difficult to do so. Worst case, theyâre wrong. Best case, a nice experience I never would have known of otherwise.
Why would any sane engineer make a cable a certain way? Sometimes itâs a matter of giving it a try and seeing what happens; I guarantee you cable makers donât just come out with new lines, they try different things based upon their experiences and see what happens and produce the line if their experiments turn out well. This isnât necessarily measurement-based engineering; itâs often a hunch if you will. Charles Hansen of Ayre loved to innovate that way, it was often a matter of âThis shouldnât make a difference, but it does. Perhaps someday our scientific knowledge will understand why what doesnât make engineering sense does to our ear-brain system.â
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Iâm sorry you feel that way (though, because youâre willing to rely entirely on subjective impression, you canât actually demonstrate itâs not cognitive bias). But I never said that. Never. What I said was that a claim of a change without any sound explanation or hypothesis is snake oil. Charles Hansen wasnât talking about Ethernet cables. I didnât say you had to have a reason for your subjective impression; only that the absence of a rational explanation or even hypothesis makes it difficult to make any assessment of how likely it might be to work in my system. And a maker who refuses to provide a sound explanation for what they claim to have achieved, relying instead on purely subjective assessments, doesnât help. Iâm willing to grantâas I have said many times here and elsewhereâthat you hear it, but I think it is a legitimate question to ask âhow and why.â If you donât grant the legitimacy of the question, well then, we donât even have common real world ground. Itâs hardly the same as âtry this wine,â or âthat restaurant,â or even âthis or that movie or book.â Those are recommendations based on a common understanding, and the recommendation can be explained in common terms; and so they are inapposite metaphors. They are like our âWhatâs Spinningâ threads. And I accept those recommendations frequently from people I trust. Iâve done the same here and on other forums, with recommendations for both analogue and digital cables. (The former have been far more rewarding than the latter.)
I didnât say what you heard was only placebo. Thatâs just a red herring, Bill. Youâre the one advocating for purely subjective experience, without requiring any rational explanation. Iâm willing to acknowledge the subjective impressionâread my post again; I never said placeboâbut before I waste any time trying every personâs latest and greatest, I simply want a rational basis on which to think a change or improvement may be possible in my system. âWhat does this thing purport to do that might work for me?â Thatâs hardly a âplacebo accusation,â but if you canât even begrudge me that, then we really donât have much to discuss.
Hmmm. On what basis do you make that guarantee? Seems to me there are quite a few indicators that that is exactly what some do.
What I said was that a claim of a change without any sound explanation or hypothesis is snake oil.
I will grant you you did not dismiss my observations as placebo (though another poster did) but calling them âsnake oilâ isnât all that different.
AudioQuest and other cable makers have hypotheses though you may disagree to their validity; I donât need one to prove my experience to you or anyone else.
Makers may refuse to theorize as to why their products sound like they do, or they may provide explanations that donât suit you, and thatâs fine - but it doesnât make their products âsnake oil.â
You say recommendations are based on a common understanding, but thatâs not true at all. My tastes in restaurants may be quite different from yours and the local restaurant criticsâ. You might say âgood foodâ is a common understanding but I will go for a burger any day vs. anything involving a âcompote.â Iâd rather go to a diner than a âgourmetâ restaurant any day of the week, and to me thatâs âgood foodâ - but this simile is already getting overextended.
I get that you want a hypothesis. I have no issue with that.
What I have an issue with is your wholesale labeling of subjective opinion without a hypothesis as âsnake oil.â
You want a rational explanation as to why something might improve your sound before trying it, and thereâs absolutely nothing wrong with that, but you make no allowance for the fact that others may not and the fact that they do not have an explanation handy does not mean their experiences are invalid (which by definition any âsnake oilâ effect would be.)
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Specifically with respect to the subject of this thread, i.e. Ethernet cables, and not conflating the issue with analog cables, or power cables, or wine or restaurant recommendations, etcâŚ
The people who specified and built the very technology (IEEE) say that it was designed to not make a difference. The equipment manufacturers (like dCS) explain that it canât make a difference. There are billions of deployed systems around the world where it makes no difference whatsoever.
Yet some audiophiles insist they can hear a difference⌠thats when it starts to become audiophoolery
Yes, and for years the same was said about USB.
Since Ethernet like USB is a physical connection, and itâs conceivable that noise on the ground could contaminate the ground path inside the DAC as happens with USB, itâs conceivable that could be an issue that could affect the noise floor in the same way it does with USB.
That wouldnât have anything to do with the data bits or the protocol but would be affected by cable and/or connector design.
I donât know that thatâs true, but itâs as reasonable an explanation as that of other cable effects.
We will never agree on this but I donât understand why you enjoy disparaging those who disagree with you.
As for manufacturers, Sony said CDs were perfect but then invented DSD. 
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Bill, thats not true.
The problems with USB were identified very early into its use for Audio. The fact that audio streaming over USB has no error correction (isochronous transfer mode vs. bulk transfer mode used with PC/Macs). The initial synchronisation challenges which led to Async USB (dCS being an early pioneer). And the problems with grounding and power over the USB interface.
Ethernet (and TCP/IP) is a whole different kettle of fish.
I mean no disrespect, but it not a coincidence that folks who donât quite understand how fundamentally different USB and Ethernet are, are the same ones who believe Ethernet cables make a difference and end up hearing a difference!
Let me apologise if it came across that way. It wasnât directed at you personally of course 
