Blue Jeans Cat6A Data Cables

My diy DAC connects to a modded Denon 3910 that exports CD (I2S) and DSD (SACD) via a CatX Ethernet patch cord. I also modded a Squeezebox Touch to export I2S to my DAC via CatX patch cord. While this setup isn't common, I figured it was worth sharing. I2S and DSD have separate clock and data where clock is embedded in the SPDIF signal; some folks feel the SQ with I2S is better. I2S is how the transport in your CD/SACD player gives data to the DAC chip. I had no issues with redbook from the Denon or standard flac or hi-rez files from the Touch going to the DAC, but experienced dropouts or static every now and then when playing DSD on the Denon with one of my patch cords.
I wasn't using real cheap Cat5 patch cords. They were stranded twisted pair, shielded cables. I even cut them up for hookup wire in some of my diy projects. I decided to try some Blue Jeans Data Cables.
http://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/data-cables/index.htm
They offer certified Cat5e, Cat6 and Cat6a cables. They test the cables they make with a Fluke DTX-1800 and provide a printout with the cable. They provide a page to understand the report.
http://www.bluejeanscable.com/networkcablereports.htm
I went with Cat6a as its rated for 500MHz; the two flavors of DSD are 2.8MHz and 5.6MHz. While not cheap they didn't break me. A one meter Cat6a ran me $14.50 while the two meter was $17.25. Color choice for my cables was blue or black. BJ says "For Cat 6 and 6a, Belden doesn't sell patch cord stock in its standard catalog (the cables you may be familiar with are designed primarily for "horizontal" use), so we've asked Belden to manufacture special patch-cord-optimized Cat 6 and Cat 6a cable stocks for us which we terminate and sell under the Blue Jeans Cable brand. With all of these cables, we use Sentinel brand RJ-45 connectors, manufactured in York, Pennsylvania."
While I cannot detect any difference in SQ, I have no issues playing DSD (SACD) from the Denon and feel it was worth the small investment and peace of mind.
I wasn't using real cheap Cat5 patch cords. They were stranded twisted pair, shielded cables. I even cut them up for hookup wire in some of my diy projects. I decided to try some Blue Jeans Data Cables.
http://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/data-cables/index.htm
They offer certified Cat5e, Cat6 and Cat6a cables. They test the cables they make with a Fluke DTX-1800 and provide a printout with the cable. They provide a page to understand the report.
http://www.bluejeanscable.com/networkcablereports.htm
I went with Cat6a as its rated for 500MHz; the two flavors of DSD are 2.8MHz and 5.6MHz. While not cheap they didn't break me. A one meter Cat6a ran me $14.50 while the two meter was $17.25. Color choice for my cables was blue or black. BJ says "For Cat 6 and 6a, Belden doesn't sell patch cord stock in its standard catalog (the cables you may be familiar with are designed primarily for "horizontal" use), so we've asked Belden to manufacture special patch-cord-optimized Cat 6 and Cat 6a cable stocks for us which we terminate and sell under the Blue Jeans Cable brand. With all of these cables, we use Sentinel brand RJ-45 connectors, manufactured in York, Pennsylvania."
While I cannot detect any difference in SQ, I have no issues playing DSD (SACD) from the Denon and feel it was worth the small investment and peace of mind.
Make yourself necessary to someone. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Salk SoundScape 8's * Audio Research Reference 3 * Bottlehead Eros Phono * Park's Audio Budgie SUT * Krell KSA-250 * Harmonic Technology Pro 9+ & Pro 11+ * Signature Series Sonore Music Server w/Deux PS* Twisted Pear Buffalo III Dual Mono ESS Sabre32 DAC * Heavy Plinth Lenco L75 Idler Drive * AA MG-1 Linear Air Bearing Arm * AT33PTG/II & Denon 103R * Richard Gray 600S * NHT B-12d subs * GIK Acoustic Treatments * Sennheiser HD650 *
Salk SoundScape 8's * Audio Research Reference 3 * Bottlehead Eros Phono * Park's Audio Budgie SUT * Krell KSA-250 * Harmonic Technology Pro 9+ & Pro 11+ * Signature Series Sonore Music Server w/Deux PS* Twisted Pear Buffalo III Dual Mono ESS Sabre32 DAC * Heavy Plinth Lenco L75 Idler Drive * AA MG-1 Linear Air Bearing Arm * AT33PTG/II & Denon 103R * Richard Gray 600S * NHT B-12d subs * GIK Acoustic Treatments * Sennheiser HD650 *
Post edited by SCompRacer on
Comments
USB*
HDMI*
Toslink
Digital Coax
Ethernet
Asterisk is there to indicate that in some of these cable types there may be different standards of cable required for different devices i.e. you need to get the correct pinout/spec cable for your device.
While I cannot detect any difference in SQ, I have no issues playing DSD (SACD) from the Denon and feel it was worth the small investment and peace of mind.
I would get drop outs playing DSD files with one store bought patch cable I had. That cable connects a four channel LVDS Teleporter module in modded player to Teleporter in DAC.
Salk SoundScape 8's * Audio Research Reference 3 * Bottlehead Eros Phono * Park's Audio Budgie SUT * Krell KSA-250 * Harmonic Technology Pro 9+ & Pro 11+ * Signature Series Sonore Music Server w/Deux PS* Twisted Pear Buffalo III Dual Mono ESS Sabre32 DAC * Heavy Plinth Lenco L75 Idler Drive * AA MG-1 Linear Air Bearing Arm * AT33PTG/II & Denon 103R * Richard Gray 600S * NHT B-12d subs * GIK Acoustic Treatments * Sennheiser HD650 *
HT System: LSi9, LSiCx2, LSiFX, LSi7, SVS 20-39 PC+, B&K 507.s2 AVR, B&K Ref 125.2, Tripplite LCR-2400, Cambridge 650BD, Signal Cable PC/SC, BJC IC, Samsung 55" LED
Music System: Magnepan 1.6QR, SVS SB12+, ARC pre, Parasound HCA1500 vertically bi-amped, Jolida CDP, Pro-Ject RM5.1SE TT, Pro-Ject TubeBox SE phono pre, SBT, PS Audio DLIII DAC
I'm not sure what other variables were involved in your two file transfers but two cat6a cables will transfer at the same data rate using the same speed rated NIC's at both ends unless there is something physically wrong with a cable generating an impedance mismatch and retransmits or some such. I'm not a hobbyist speculating on data networking in this scenario, I've been doing it for over 20 years as a professional. If you did a file transfer of the same block of data to the same NAS and swapped the cable it's still not a valid test unfortunately. I can transfer the same file over and over again on the same physical networking medium and get different results EVERY time. There are variables on both ends such as the fragmentation level of the file you are transferring on the source machine, the level of resources available on the source machine, the state of the NAS and where it chose to put the files on it's drive (s), whether another machine was accessing the NAS in parallel, etc.
One networking cable is really no faster than another when it comes to unshielded twisted pair; in UTP the number of twists in a set length of cable acts as the shielding. Cat 6 has more twists per meter than cat 5 thus it has better shielding thus in theory you could run faster rated speeds of ethernet NIC's at either end because it's less susceptible to error. A cheap or expensive CAT6a cable will have the same number of twists, etc. because the twists are defined in the CAT6a spec, and for one cable to have less or more would cause it to no longer fall within the definition of the spec for category 6a cabling. I will also say this. Given no signal interference or outside influence a cat5 cable will transfer just as quickly as a cat6a cable, etc. Again, the only real variable is the level of robustness and resistance to outside interference. Slinging a cat6a cable over a fluorescent light ballast will have a higher likelihood of operating without retransmits than a cat3 cable, etc.
When it comes to my statements regarding analog/non networking cabling my statements are mere opinion and speculation however.
SPDIF has clock embedded with data so the DAC must sort it out. Some DAC's do a better job with SPDIF than others (like the ESS Sabre), but most do better with clock and data separate so I use I2S. I'm not a fan of optical connection to a DAC with my two channel system. I intentionally left it out on my diy DAC.
EDIT: Now like with anything, I2S implemented badly can sound worse than SPDIF instead of better.
http://www.twistedpearaudio.com/digital/teleporter.aspx
Salk SoundScape 8's * Audio Research Reference 3 * Bottlehead Eros Phono * Park's Audio Budgie SUT * Krell KSA-250 * Harmonic Technology Pro 9+ & Pro 11+ * Signature Series Sonore Music Server w/Deux PS* Twisted Pear Buffalo III Dual Mono ESS Sabre32 DAC * Heavy Plinth Lenco L75 Idler Drive * AA MG-1 Linear Air Bearing Arm * AT33PTG/II & Denon 103R * Richard Gray 600S * NHT B-12d subs * GIK Acoustic Treatments * Sennheiser HD650 *
Salk SoundScape 8's * Audio Research Reference 3 * Bottlehead Eros Phono * Park's Audio Budgie SUT * Krell KSA-250 * Harmonic Technology Pro 9+ & Pro 11+ * Signature Series Sonore Music Server w/Deux PS* Twisted Pear Buffalo III Dual Mono ESS Sabre32 DAC * Heavy Plinth Lenco L75 Idler Drive * AA MG-1 Linear Air Bearing Arm * AT33PTG/II & Denon 103R * Richard Gray 600S * NHT B-12d subs * GIK Acoustic Treatments * Sennheiser HD650 *
(UTP Cat 5 Wiring): What's the difference between 568A and 568B?
TIA/EIA-568A and -568B are two standards for connecting Category 3 and Category 5 wire to connectors. Both are appropriate for high speed data, though 568B is somewhat more common for installed wiring and 568A is more common in jumpers. There is no performance advantage either way. The only real difference between the two is the order in which the pairs are used (orange and green).
Hold a cable as if to plug it into a wall jack, the locking tab down (contacts facing you). The contacts are numbered 1-8 from left to right. Here's what you will see:
EIA/TIA-568A:
Pin 1: White/Green
Pin 2: Green/White (or just plain Green)
Pin 3: White/Orange
Pin 4: Blue/White (or just plain Blue)
Pin 5: White/Blue
Pin 6: Orange/White (or just plain Orange)
Pin 7: White/Brown
Pin 8: Brown/White (or just plain Brown)
EIA/TIA-568B:
Pin 1: White/Orange
Pin 2: Orange/White (or just plain Orange)
Pin 3: White/Green
Pin 4: Blue/White (or just plain Blue)
Pin 5: White/Blue
Pin 6: Green/White (or just plain Green)
Pin 7: White/Brown
Pin 8: Brown/White (or just plain Brown)
568A and 568B may be used interchangeably in a system SO LONG AS both ends of a given cable are terminated the same way.
Speakers
Carver Amazing Fronts
CS400i Center
RT800i's Rears
Sub Paradigm Servo 15
Electronics
Conrad Johnson PV-5 pre-amp
Parasound Halo A23
Pioneer 84TXSi AVR
Pioneer 79Avi DVD
Sony CX400 CD changer
Panasonic 42-PX60U Plasma
WMC Win7 32bit HD DVR
Rich, can you try one of Peter Gabriel's hybrid SACD's from your Denon 3910? I get droppouts on all of my PG SACD's using my modded Denon DVD-5910, but absolutely no other SACD's. I am interested if you get similar results form your Denon.....
Taken from a recent Audioholics reply regarding "Club Polk" and Polk speakers:
"I'm yet to hear a Polk speaker that merits more than a sentence and 60 seconds discussion."
My response is: If you need 60 seconds to respond in one sentence, you probably should't be evaluating Polk speakers.....
"Green leaves reveal the heart spoken Khatru"- Jon Anderson
"Have A Little Faith! And Everything You'll Face, Will Jump From Out Right On Into Place! Yeah! Take A Little Time! And Everything You'll Find, Will Move From Gloom Right On Into Shine!"- Arthur Lee
HT System: LSi9, LSiCx2, LSiFX, LSi7, SVS 20-39 PC+, B&K 507.s2 AVR, B&K Ref 125.2, Tripplite LCR-2400, Cambridge 650BD, Signal Cable PC/SC, BJC IC, Samsung 55" LED
Music System: Magnepan 1.6QR, SVS SB12+, ARC pre, Parasound HCA1500 vertically bi-amped, Jolida CDP, Pro-Ject RM5.1SE TT, Pro-Ject TubeBox SE phono pre, SBT, PS Audio DLIII DAC
Yes, I think Norm (RIP) told me to use the B config. The ones I use(d) work so that's a good thing.
Greg, I would try it but my PG is on vinyl, don't think I have any of his SACD's.
Salk SoundScape 8's * Audio Research Reference 3 * Bottlehead Eros Phono * Park's Audio Budgie SUT * Krell KSA-250 * Harmonic Technology Pro 9+ & Pro 11+ * Signature Series Sonore Music Server w/Deux PS* Twisted Pear Buffalo III Dual Mono ESS Sabre32 DAC * Heavy Plinth Lenco L75 Idler Drive * AA MG-1 Linear Air Bearing Arm * AT33PTG/II & Denon 103R * Richard Gray 600S * NHT B-12d subs * GIK Acoustic Treatments * Sennheiser HD650 *
Rich! You vinyl junkie!! Get "SO" on SACD and give it a listen! I am curious enough that I almost feel like shipping you mine to try out. As I said, only the PG SACD's have dropouts. Not a single other SACD I play does it. And, every PG SACD I play does it without exception. Kinda weird. Any ideas as to why this would be?
Taken from a recent Audioholics reply regarding "Club Polk" and Polk speakers:
"I'm yet to hear a Polk speaker that merits more than a sentence and 60 seconds discussion."
My response is: If you need 60 seconds to respond in one sentence, you probably should't be evaluating Polk speakers.....
"Green leaves reveal the heart spoken Khatru"- Jon Anderson
"Have A Little Faith! And Everything You'll Face, Will Jump From Out Right On Into Place! Yeah! Take A Little Time! And Everything You'll Find, Will Move From Gloom Right On Into Shine!"- Arthur Lee
I'm dated Greg, grew up with vinyl...lol
I suspect it would have to be the specific SACD's if you have no issues with others. If I can pick one up reasonably priced I'll get one. If not the to and from would be an option.
I recently purchased a Dayton OmniMic V2. The brand new test tone CD worked in my Denon on the first try, but the second try it would not read. CD looks perfect, hasn't been scuffed or marred. Yet it reads in my computer drive. I burned a copy and the CDR reads every time in my Denon player.
Salk SoundScape 8's * Audio Research Reference 3 * Bottlehead Eros Phono * Park's Audio Budgie SUT * Krell KSA-250 * Harmonic Technology Pro 9+ & Pro 11+ * Signature Series Sonore Music Server w/Deux PS* Twisted Pear Buffalo III Dual Mono ESS Sabre32 DAC * Heavy Plinth Lenco L75 Idler Drive * AA MG-1 Linear Air Bearing Arm * AT33PTG/II & Denon 103R * Richard Gray 600S * NHT B-12d subs * GIK Acoustic Treatments * Sennheiser HD650 *
I was ribbing you about vinyl Rich! It's a great sounding format!
I love the sound of vinyl, just not dealing with it's "neediness" in the cleaning and maintnence of it. I guess that's one reason I still have my TEAC X-2000R reel to reel deck. It's not quite the same as vinyl, but still gives me that pure anaolg sound. Beautiful!
I would guess it's the SACD's themselves as well, but it's interesting that all 3 of my PG SACD's do it. It seems that (by chance) at least one would not have the dropout issue.
That's interesting about the Dayton OmniMic V2. In my expreience with Denon CD players (particularly older ones such as the DCD-3000) that Denon lasers can be "finicky" with some CD's. It does not make much sense that it would read it the first time, but fail the second and thereafter. It does make some sense that the Denon would read it after you burned it onto a CD-R as the player is then reading it from a totally different media disc. Obviously, in that case (the OmniMic V2) it must be due to the disc itself.
Taken from a recent Audioholics reply regarding "Club Polk" and Polk speakers:
"I'm yet to hear a Polk speaker that merits more than a sentence and 60 seconds discussion."
My response is: If you need 60 seconds to respond in one sentence, you probably should't be evaluating Polk speakers.....
"Green leaves reveal the heart spoken Khatru"- Jon Anderson
"Have A Little Faith! And Everything You'll Face, Will Jump From Out Right On Into Place! Yeah! Take A Little Time! And Everything You'll Find, Will Move From Gloom Right On Into Shine!"- Arthur Lee
T568B was supposed to be a slightly faster connection due to the Twist Standard for Orange and Green. We never experienced or had any proof that B was better.
Most Custom Integrators will use T568B as a Standard. All of my companies I have worked for t'll now did so. My new company uses T568A as it's really nice to be able to convert a phone jack into a ethernet jack without having to re wire the Snap N Jack or re terminate the D mark Side. You can simply unplug the 45 end from the phone system and go directly into a switch with it and now it's a network wire. I really like this as I have done many Network upgrades for people and used the phone jacks for WAP locations. This is incredibly nice and really saves the customer money and time.
As far as cat 5 vs cat 6, again I have not seen any performance or sound quality improvements. Now that doesn't mean there isn't something there. My Old Boss from the Audiolab went to a show and did a demo with Audioquest Cat 7 cables and he heard a improvement in streaming music in High rez. He didn't believe it was possible to make an improvement here as he knows networking standards and audio standards for the last 35 years. He is a old Audiophile and has probably played with more wire then most of us put together including myself. He came back and told me he heard a difference when swapping out a full cat 5e wired network to a full wired cat 7 network using Audioquest cabling. He had a hard time believing this as it really didn't make any sense as the cat 5e cabling should have been able to transfer all the data at the speed and bandwidth required of the system. But it did.
I have been wanting to try this in my own home as my entire house is wired in Cat5e made by Liberity. I also have all Leviton Snap N Jack plates properly terminated and tested. All my jumpers are hand built by me. I use 10/100/1000 Switches and have a Gigabit home network running from a Apple Time Capsule. I plan on getting a spool of Audioquest cat7 and new Snap N Jacks to support the Cat 7 standard which I haven't seen yet and hopefully Audioquest or someone has them. I will also hand build all my Jumpers between the ONT Verizon Terminal, From each Switch to Computer and all Network connected equipment. This should allow me to hear any differences as I will leave in place the existing cat 5e network and put a Cat 7 Snap N jack right next to the Cat 5e. This way I can swap around the 2 wiring and see if I can hear anything myself.
I'll probably do this in the spring or this summer unless I get so bored sitting in the house because it's winter and it sucks ****.
As far as the comments about the digital cabling not making a difference, I have to fully agree except in one case I heard a difference in HDMI cables when I went from Custom Binary to Audioquest. This is the only time I have heard anything different. And honestly I have tried higher end Audioquest cables at the same length ( I use a 3m to the TV, 2m to the cable box , 1m to the Blu ray, 1.5 to the Apple TV, 1m to the Xbox360 and a 1.5m to the HD DVD player). The only time I heard a difference is when I was transferring SACD over HDMI to the receiver in Bitstream raw DSD. I also heard a slight difference in transferring CD 16 bit.
Digital cables for me over the years seem to be a waste of time and money to spend top dollar on as once you get a quality cable thats built to spec , no improvements can be made. As long as there is no fault with the termination or interference , your good here.
My personal quest is to save to world of bad audio, one thread at a time.
I opted for 5e in my home as well, so much more easy to work with and no clear advantage for moving to 6, in reality 1000baseT with the short runs in my home is going to work fine over pretty much anything regardless. If you're planning on going to a high spec at home I'm guessing that that cable might be more difficult to work with but if you do terminations all the time I'm sure it will be no sweat for you.
As I say pretty often, regardless of your transmission medium 1011 is 1011 at the other end. Your cabling isn't going to add or remove a bit nor change the value of it, your DAC will be seeing the same thing at the end of the day.
As far as HDMI cables, didn't they change the spec so that some of the newer ones carry additional data/have added pins? To where if you're not using a current spec cable with the new pinout it's falling back to some legacy signalling for sending PCM or some such? There are a ton of HDMI specs and they keep adding different signalling options when they expand the color space, etc. etc. etc.
I wholly concur with you on your final statement but don't feel like dealing with the quadrillion post flame war that may occur shortly as a result. I just won't participate in it.
HDMI sucks plain and simple. It's the worse technology to hit our field. It has more failure rate then anything in the past including S video which really only failed because people would break pins off trying to connect it. And it fell out pretty easily due to a poor connection.
Hollywood trying to protect it's content has really made it extremely difficult on us Integrators.
My personal quest is to save to world of bad audio, one thread at a time.
When you're talking about HDMI and the copyright protection are you talking about HDCP? From my understanding there are dedicated pins for it and in fact when looking at signalling for SPDIF there are bits reserved for copy protection even in that spec. I've never been impacted by HDCP but if you're an integrator I'm sure the negatives are impacting you where I may not even encounter any repercussions as an end user.
I will simply say that if the cost difference isn't "that" much between cable A & B, I will go with whatever is a bit more expensive (assuming same brand).
Case and point. I am looking at Audioquest Cinnamon HDMI cables over Audioquest Forest cables simply because I dont need a super long run (and after some talks with a couple trusted sources, as well as a HDMI demo at Ovation of a BUNCH of HDMI cables). If I needed a MUCH longer cable, then perhaps I would be looking at the Forest.
But thats me, and like we all know, this is a hotly contested subject for which no one ever "really" wins.
Vinyl.
It is hard to answer that without some qualifying statements. It also depends on investment. Higher quality, whether in a retail or well executed diy sense on the player, DAC or turntable. Type of output on the player/DAC. A discrete output can sound better than an op amp output. Not night and day, but to me, audio winning is made of small gains here and there once the big stuff is in place.
I grew up with vinyl so I have strived to make my digital sound like analog. I got close but vinyl still gets the nod here. One theory of mine, digital creates artifacts that have to be handled and filtered out. Analog vinyl just has an RIAA filter.
Salk SoundScape 8's * Audio Research Reference 3 * Bottlehead Eros Phono * Park's Audio Budgie SUT * Krell KSA-250 * Harmonic Technology Pro 9+ & Pro 11+ * Signature Series Sonore Music Server w/Deux PS* Twisted Pear Buffalo III Dual Mono ESS Sabre32 DAC * Heavy Plinth Lenco L75 Idler Drive * AA MG-1 Linear Air Bearing Arm * AT33PTG/II & Denon 103R * Richard Gray 600S * NHT B-12d subs * GIK Acoustic Treatments * Sennheiser HD650 *
I don't think you need audioquest anything, just a good build quality HDMI cable but again that's contested.
What I find to be in contention is what the current spec is on HDMI since they keep changing the signalling spec to account for new features that they want to use the same connector for.
So if 568a and 568b are fliping Orange and Green and neither is using Blue which is used for TD then why use 568a no difference to me, since 100mb circuit is using pairs 2 and 3 which is the Orange and Green pairs.
Speakers
Carver Amazing Fronts
CS400i Center
RT800i's Rears
Sub Paradigm Servo 15
Electronics
Conrad Johnson PV-5 pre-amp
Parasound Halo A23
Pioneer 84TXSi AVR
Pioneer 79Avi DVD
Sony CX400 CD changer
Panasonic 42-PX60U Plasma
WMC Win7 32bit HD DVR
The hi rez capability is an investment in the future. My past history has shown I can embrace some new and current music, so if something I like is recorded well in hi rez that's a good thing. Conversion to hi rez also takes advantage of different filtering in a DAC. Is it better or different is left to the individual. Sometimes we chase different and call it better. An old guy once told me that when I was younger, now I tend to believe it.
And I was wrong about using 586B; I used 586A on my wall jacks. I looked in the house build file and found my 'SAVE THIS' wiring guide from 13 years ago. As stated the termination at the other end has to match.
Salk SoundScape 8's * Audio Research Reference 3 * Bottlehead Eros Phono * Park's Audio Budgie SUT * Krell KSA-250 * Harmonic Technology Pro 9+ & Pro 11+ * Signature Series Sonore Music Server w/Deux PS* Twisted Pear Buffalo III Dual Mono ESS Sabre32 DAC * Heavy Plinth Lenco L75 Idler Drive * AA MG-1 Linear Air Bearing Arm * AT33PTG/II & Denon 103R * Richard Gray 600S * NHT B-12d subs * GIK Acoustic Treatments * Sennheiser HD650 *
Speakers
Carver Amazing Fronts
CS400i Center
RT800i's Rears
Sub Paradigm Servo 15
Electronics
Conrad Johnson PV-5 pre-amp
Parasound Halo A23
Pioneer 84TXSi AVR
Pioneer 79Avi DVD
Sony CX400 CD changer
Panasonic 42-PX60U Plasma
WMC Win7 32bit HD DVR