[Puma Cat]

Originally Posted by 1KW

I’ve read it doesn’t really matter about Ethernet cables because all it has to do is deliver packets of information which is one way (usb is two way) and timing doesn’t matter as much.

Hi, David. While that is a view held by many IT professionals, it does not hold for high-end digital playback with respect to a bistream of a music file. Its doesn't matter for a printer or a computer to have to wait for a fraction of a second to register a pixel value on a print-out or computer display, because, as you say, the digital output in that case IS binary, either a pixel gets printed or displayed or not. But the timing of the packets is absolutely critical for audio. The final output from the bitsteam is not digital 0s and 1s; its analog square waves. This is why its easy to hear differences in Ethernet cables. I can even hear the difference when I reverse the direction of my "directional" AQ Cinnamon Ethernet cable. Another case is when the Ethernet receiver ramps up to request re-sending a dropped packet, this increase in voltage gain and concomitant increase in noise by the receiver is audible.

Hans Beekhuzen has a series of videos about this on his YouTube channels. He's of the view and I am coming to agree with him, that the quality of the signal transmission, the streamer, the streamers clock, and the streamer's power supply is even more important than that of the DAC.

I'd start here: https://youtu.be/n26CMGX_yrk