Blue Jeans Cat6A Data Cables

SCompRacer · October 2013

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.

mccarty250 · December 2013

As a person who makes their bread and butter as a network guy I can tell you that the ethernet patch cable will have no impact on sound quality. The different categories of ethernet cables where designed with different twist densities for interference reduction purposes and to comply with the different ethernet standards. Unless you're running your connection to your DAC over a flourescent light ballast or something else insanely noisy you won't have an interference or loss and the cable type won't matter. This isn't analog i.e. if you transmit 1011 into one end of the cable and 1011 comes out on the other end to the DAC for interpretation to analog it wouldn't matter if your transmission medium was fiber or baling wire as long as the digits got to the other end. Unless you have problems or interference the cable type will not matter or impact sound quality for:
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.

SCompRacer · December 2013

As I said....

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.

dkg999 · December 2013

My unscientific comparison of my BJC Cat6a cable in 50' length to a no-brand/China-made Cat6a cable I bought at MicroCenter shows that when moving the same CD worth of data from my PC to my NAS, there is a very noticeable improvement in speed of transfer with the BJC cable. You don't need no stink'in fancy timing program to figure out there is a difference. YMMV.

mccarty250 · December 2013

I find it cool that they've gone to UTP cables to transmit the data to the DAC. A lot better/smarter/better shielded cable type than digital coax. Toslink using LED's has a low segment length and has the same foible that all fiber does where it can't be bent beyond it's bend radius without breaking the internal glass and incurring loss. I think that's pretty cool, new, and innovative.

SCompRacer wrote: »

As I said....

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.

mccarty250 · December 2013

dkg999 wrote: »

My unscientific comparison of my BJC Cat6a cable in 50' length to a no-brand/China-made Cat6a cable I bought at MicroCenter shows that when moving the same CD worth of data from my PC to my NAS, there is a very noticeable improvement in speed of transfer with the BJC cable. You don't need no stink'in fancy timing program to figure out there is a difference. YMMV.

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.

SCompRacer · December 2013

The whole idea of using the LVDS Teleporters is to preserve the clock on long cable runs of I2S. The maker tells me I can use up to 100 feet of CAT cable between them. One Teleporter in my player is set to transmit, the other in the DAC to receive. I2S is the serial interface between transport and DAC chip in players. I2S wasn't designed for long cable runs on its own; thus the Low Voltage Differential Signaling modules. There is a formula for timing errors/jitter based on cable length without using LVDS.

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

SCompRacer · December 2013

When I built our house, I ran video and CAT cable to three walls of near every room. Since your in the biz, one thing I always wondered about is why are there two color code methods to wire a CAT jack? Three actually if you include wrong....lol

mccarty250 · December 2013

I like the concept and I like the use of the external clocking mechanism. I don't know if the jitter when there is clock drift or not is truly audible as I've tried to deliberately introduce jitter by tweaking the amount of music buffered within Foobar2000 deliberately and couldn't tell a difference but again, my ears are FAR less than golden. So basically one end of your 'extender' so to speak is the clock source and the second one is hard set to receive it's clocking from the primary if I'm understanding it correctly. Neat stuff, I didn't know that this was being leveraged for audio. The same concepts are used in the wide area networking world with CSU's set to receive clocking from an upstream clock provided by the carrier. I'm guessing that when you exceed 100 feet the latency of the signal travelling over that distance though miniscule throws off the clocking?

SCompRacer wrote: »

The whole idea of using the LVDS Teleporters is to preserve the clock on long cable runs of I2S. The maker tells me I can use up to 100 feet of CAT cable between them. One Teleporter in my player is set to transmit, the other in the DAC to receive. I2S is the serial interface between transport and DAC chip in players. I2S wasn't designed for long cable runs on its own; thus the Low Voltage Differential Signaling modules. There is a formula for timing errors/jitter based on cable length without using LVDS.

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

mccarty250 · December 2013

HAHAHAHA....so if someone is a structured wiring guru correct me if I'm wrong, my cable pulling days were at the start of my career, the last time I had to pull and terminate wiring was last year when I wired my basement but there were two BIXIE standards for wiring cable and terminating it, one was 568A and the other was 568B, I'm assuming that is what those color codes are for. If you did it consistently everywhere then it really doesn't matter. Off the top of my head one was a commercial standard and one a home standard, let me actually google this to see if my memory serves me right!

SCompRacer wrote: »

When I built our house, I ran video and CAT cable to three walls of near every room. Since your in the biz, one thing I always wondered about is why are there two color code methods to wire a CAT jack? Three actually if you include wrong....lol

mccarty250 · December 2013

Sounds like I was correct but here it is worded more eloquently:

(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.

disneyjoe7 · December 2013

Most people use 568B today and not 568A so I hope you used B side, but it isn't a really problem if you used A but you need to use A on the other end also.

headrott · December 2013

SCompRacer wrote: »

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.

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.....

dkg999 · December 2013

mccarty250 wrote: »

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.

Well I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but in the case of the cables I am using, you are wrong. Only variables that change are me unplugging one cable and changing over to the other cable.

SCompRacer · December 2013

disneyjoe7 wrote: »

Most people use 568B today and not 568A so I hope you used B side, but it isn't a really problem if you used A but you need to use A on the other end also.

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.

headrott · December 2013

SCompRacer wrote: »

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.

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?

SCompRacer · January 2014

headrott wrote: »

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?

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.

mccarty250 · January 2014

I have no answer for you.

dkg999 wrote: »

Well I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but in the case of the cables I am using, you are wrong. Only variables that change are me unplugging one cable and changing over to the other cable.

mccarty250 · January 2014

For those of you that are into both Vinyl and SACD, which is your preference at the end of the day? Just curious.

headrott · January 2014

SCompRacer wrote: »

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.

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.

mantis · January 2014

SCompRacer wrote: »

When I built our house, I ran video and CAT cable to three walls of near every room. Since your in the biz, one thing I always wondered about is why are there two color code methods to wire a CAT jack? Three actually if you include wrong....lol

T568A is the original standard. Whats nice about T568A is you can use it as a phone jack or a Ethernet jack.
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.

mccarty250 · January 2014

Mantis, thanks for chiming in, sounds like you have a lot more involvement in the structured wiring side of the house than I do, 20 years or so back I did some of it but now I'm on the architecture side of the house and that all gets subbed out. In my own home I opted for 568A personally. I'm not sure why commercial uses 568B so frequently but when it connects into my network infrastructure it really doesn't make a difference to me much in either direction.

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.

mantis · January 2014

mccarty250 wrote: »

Mantis, thanks for chiming in, sounds like you have a lot more involvement in the structured wiring side of the house than I do, 20 years or so back I did some of it but now I'm on the architecture side of the house and that all gets subbed out. In my own home I opted for 568A personally. I'm not sure why commercial uses 568B so frequently but when it connects into my network infrastructure it really doesn't make a difference to me much in either direction.

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.

People can argue all they want over digital cables. I have found my findings and thats all that maters to me. I've played the game as in the past people swore that Digital coax cables where superior to digital optical. I tested to I was blue in the face and never once heard any differences between to quality made cables at all kinds of prices into the extreme levels.

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.

mccarty250 · January 2014

Whether it's fiber or coax....1011 is still 1011. Neither cable type adds or subtracts from the data sent to the dac. Just different layer 1 signalling specs to transmit the exact same data, everything above layer 1 is independent of transmission medium. After reading up on the specs for toslink the interesting thing that I'm finding is that there are no provisions for transmission which in my mind implies that there may not be buffering. This spec was created before ram was cheap, if there were a modern spec I would expect there to be heavy buffering and provisions made for retransmission of data before the buffer was exhausted/played. I think that that is also part of the reason why there are so many dependencies on clocking to the DAC. It's pretty archaic.

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.

EndersShadow · January 2014

Eh, here is the issue. Whats your definition of a quality cable? Someone may think a Monoprice cable, other person might think a Audioquest Cinammon cable....

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.

SCompRacer · January 2014

Well 1011 wasn't getting there with 2.8MHz DSD files so I'll keep my $15 BJ data cable.

And Toslink/SPDIF won't do the high rez my DAC is capable of (up to 5.6MHz DSD) so well implemented I2S is better for me all the way around.

mccarty250 wrote: »

For those of you that are into both Vinyl and SACD, which is your preference at the end of the day? Just curious.

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.

mccarty250 · January 2014

If the cable is in spec it will do the job. As to quality I won't argue there, if it falls apart or is going to have a physical defect pay a little bit more.

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.

EndersShadow wrote: »

Eh, here is the issue. Whats your definition of a quality cable? Someone may think a Monoprice cable, other person might think a Audioquest Cinammon cable....

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.

mccarty250 · January 2014

Your solution rules. You are sending such high bitrate files that I bet almost no conventional solution will carry them within the signalling spec, no argument there. Do you not find it amazing that all of these esoteric cable types exist when a plain jane ethernet cable is more robust and has a better data transmission rate? Goes back to what I'm saying that the spec for SPDIF is archaic. As for your super high rez files my golden ears can tell between red book and 88khz or 96khz but the jump from 96khz to 192khz is something that I can't audibly tell the difference between. Again, 40 year old ears and when I take frequency hearing tests clearly I don't have the physical bandwidth of a 20 year old. I think i was able to barely hear 17khz test tones which is actually above average for someone over 30. I wish I could upgrade my physical hardware, my ears are my bandwidth limiter.

SCompRacer wrote: »

Well 1011 wasn't getting there with 2.8MHz DSD files so I'll keep my $15 BJ data cable. And Toslink/SPDIF won't do the high rez my DAC is capable of (up to 5.6MHz DSD) so well implemented I2S is better for me all the way around.

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.

disneyjoe7 · January 2014

mantis wrote: »

T568A is the original standard. Whats nice about T568A is you can use it as a phone jack or a Ethernet jack.
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.

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.

SCompRacer · January 2014

I'm over 60 and lost some in the higher freq range, but still pretty good considering I embraced hearing protection late in life. I've had thousands invested in cabling but am pretty modest now. Give me quality copper of suitable gauge and I'm happy.

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.

disneyjoe7 · January 2014

It may bug me.... But in the end A or B is koooooool don't sweat it.

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