The EtherREGEN thread for various network, cable, power experiences and experiments

[Jud]

39 minutes ago, skatbelt said:

 

Yes, yes, but I am curious what his setup is now. The way I interpret it is him going from optical via switch to copper directly from eero pro router (from signature) made an improvement.

 

That is exactly correct.

[Jud]

Currently I have a cable modem connected to a router with Monoprice Cat 8; then the router connected to the ER with Monoprice Cat 6a with plastic connectors to avoid the "upstream" ground link to the ER. 

 

At some point probably between now and March, in place of the cable modem and router I will install a gateway (combined modem and router) with Wi-Fi 6 capability. https://www.netgear.com/home/products/networking/cable-modems-routers/cax80.aspx

 

Are shield-linked metal connectors required to achieve Cat 7 or Cat 8 specifications? Or to ask more specifically, does anyone know of any Cat 7 or Cat 8 cables with plastic connectors, or don't these exist? If they do exist, I might be interested in trying one between the gateway and the ER.

[Jud]

Thank you all for your responses. I wonder how nail polish on one connector (which is what I'd use) would affect the cable's performance relative to spec (not necessarily with respect to audio). I do have a couple of Cat 8 cables to play with.

[Jud]

6 hours ago, octaviars said:

CAT6A STP, CAT7, CAT7A and CAT8 all have the shield tied at both ends so I think it will be hard to find one with plastic plugs.

 

Monoprice Slimrun Cat 6a and Belden Cat 6a from Blue Jeans Cable both have plastic connectors as I recall.

[Jud]

On 1/23/2020 at 8:19 PM, lpost said:

 

Yes, CAT 7 and 8 are both shielded (STP) designs and require the metal shielded connectors, as does 6A STP (as opposed to 6A UTP).  

 

There are other variants of shielding:

 

Individual shield (U/FTP)

Individual shielding with aluminum foil for each twisted pair or quad. Common names: pair in metal foil, shielded twisted pair, screened twisted pair. This type of shielding protects cable from external EMI entering or exiting the cable and also protects neighboring pairs from crosstalk.

Overall shield (F/UTP, S/UTP, and SF/UTP)

Overall foil, braided shield or braiding with foil across all of the pairs within the 100 ohm twisted pair cable. Common names: foiled twisted pair, shielded twisted pair, screened twisted pair. This type of shielding helps prevent EMI from entering or exiting the cable.

Individual and overall shield (F/FTP, S/FTP, and SF/FTP)

Individual shielding using foil between the twisted pair sets, and also an outer foil or braided shielding. Common names: fully shielded twisted pair, screened foiled twisted pair, shielded foiled twisted pair, screened shielded twisted pair, shielded screened twisted pair. This type of shielding helps prevent EMI from entering or exiting the cable and also protects neighboring pairs from crosstalk.

 

Shielded Cat 5e, Cat 6/6A, and Cat 8/8.1 cables typically have F/UTP construction, while shielded Cat 7/7A and Cat 8.2 cables use S/FTP construction

 

U = unshielded

F = foil shielding

S = braided shielding (outer layer only)

TP = twisted pair

TQ = twisted pair, individual shielding in quads

 

On 1/24/2020 at 5:44 AM, octaviars said:

 

Yes if they are CAT6A UTP unshielded but if they are CAT6A FTP they are shielded. CAT6A can be both unshielded or shielded in some way.

 

You have many different types CAT cable besides the category.

 

U/UTP (no sheild at all)

F/UTP (sheild around all pair)

U/FTP (sheild around each pair)

S/FTP (sheild around each pair and sheild around all pairs)

 

The letters describe how the cable is sheilded. First letter is all four pairs and the following three letters is around each pair.

 

The cable I use is a CAT7A S/FTP.

 

7 hours ago, magnuska said:

Hi Jud

 

What do you think of this CAT 8 from Ghent? Shield tied or floating?

http://www.ghentaudio.com/pc/et12.html

 

Regards Magnus

Hi Magnus - The product page you linked says S/FTP, so according to the two very helpful (thanks!) posts I have quoted above yours, the shields would be tied, as apparently would be the case with all Cat7 and Cat8, and many Cat6a cables.

[Jud]

22 minutes ago, octaviars said:

 

Ghent uses S/FTP cable but over the cable he puts another shield and connect the shields at the ends so it has whats called a JSSG 360 shield but it is not connected in the metall connectors at any end. 

 

Just because the cable is a S/FTP for example does not mean that the shield has to be connected in the connectors even if the standard says it should be. 

 

I own some of the original ET11 Ghent cables and asked him about his new ET12 how they are made. I then decided to build my own and not buy the new ET12.

Right, the outer JSSG360 shield isn’t connected, but without any reason to doubt I assume the inner Cat8 cable does have shields connected to the metal clad terminations.

 

I will use one of two simple cheap expedients, the Monoprice Slimrun 6a with plastic connectors, or the Monoprice Cat 8 with nail polish on one of the metal connectors.

[Jud]

2 hours ago, octaviars said:

 

No the inner shield and the outer sheild is connected togheter but not connected to the plug.

 

This is from Ghent him self.

 

"Regarding new CAT8 ethernet cable in JSSG360, certainly no shielding connected to metal plugs. 

JSSG or JSSG360 are in the same way, no shielding connected to metal plug.

 

Thanks,

Ghent"

Well now I have reason to doubt. Thanks!

[Jud]

21 hours ago, sahmen said:

 

About Shielding :

 

1. So what kind of shielding or no shielding format is appropriate for the ER? So far I have used the Cable Matters Cat8, and a Monoprice generic ethernet cable whose specs I do not remember, and they have both worked fine. I may soon try DIY Supra Cat8 cables too with stock Supra Cat8 connectors, but I do not know anything about the shielding part and how it is to be configured, which is why i am asking. Do the Supra Cat8's come with the correct shielding configuration for the ER?

Whether the cable shielding is tied to the connectors (usually the case with Cat 7, Cat 8, and other shielded cables with metal connectors) doesn’t matter on the “downstream”/output side of the ER, as long as there is only one downstream/output cable.

 

On the “upstream”/input side, it is best not to have a cable with shielding tied to the connectors.

[Jud]

1 hour ago, Mike Rubin said:

This still begs the question that I raised above, so please consider this a bump.  I am using the ER B to A, with only CAT8 coming into the B side and only optical going out from the A side.  It sounds fine to me - still breaking in my $10 Monoprice CAT8, and it already seems an improvement over Blue Jean 6A to my ears - but I have no problem reverting to 6A if I am creating ground issues in the system.  Any thoughts? 

No problem on the output side.

 

On the input side, just think of electricity as flowing in a circuit (which of course it does). The connection through the Monoprice cable will allow the cable and the portion of the ER before the “moat” to be involved in the flow of leakage current. Whether this might make any difference in your system, I don’t know.

[Jud]

51 minutes ago, Guidof said:

 

Jud: At the moment, I'm using monoprice CAT 6 (not 6a) with plastic connectors between ER and ultra RENDU. I could not find any monoprice CAT 6a with plastic connectors. Do you know a source? Thanks.

 

https://smile.amazon.com/Monoprice-SlimRun-Cat6A-Ethernet-Patch/dp/B01BGV26L2/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=monoprice%2Bslimrun%2Bcat6a&qid=1580079782&sr=8-3&th=1

 

Various lengths and numbers of cables available.

[Jud]

18 hours ago, Mike Rubin said:

Thanks for responding.

 

One of the things I liked about the new Monoprice CAT8 (moreso than Cable Matters) was that it affected image width almost spectacularly in the few days it was in my system, which is attractive to me because my room’s layout and my speaker placement seem to box in the image.  I switched back to 6A just a few minutes ago and, immediate, I noticed the image return to its normal size.  That’s not the change I expected in CAT8, but I would gladly take it, even as a placebo, unless I am creating risk or problems elsewhere.

 

Each of these cables has been connected at one end to a plastic wall plate with CAT6 in the wall.  Its other end is connected to the ER’s metal B port.  The ER has the standard Uptone-branded SMPS powering it and the FMC connects to my rendu‘s optical port via fiber?  If the cable is metal tipped and grounded, what power issues am I facing if I use CAT8 rather than 6A for the ER in this application?

 

1 hour ago, lmitche said:

I am not sure what you mean by power issues. Cat 5,6,7 or 8 will have zero operational issues, as they will all work properly.  SQ differences are the only things that should impact your cable choice.

I am guessing this is my fault for talking about “leakage current,” etc., without being more careful to explain what I mean.

 

In a home audio system, leakage current will be of concern, if at all, as a cause of noise impacting sound quality. So as @lmitche says, just pay attention to SQ.

 

(I must admit that having learned the Ghent cable is nicely shielded without having the connectors tied, I have ordered one to see what difference it might make in my somewhat unusual future circumstance of having a combined modem/router feeding the ER. But I consider the $80 price quite expensive for an Ethernet cable, so it will need to be quite good to convince me I should use it rather than, for example, a Monoprice Cat 8 with nail polish applied to one connector.)

[Jud]

Sometimes I am a little slow. 🙂 In physically arranging my system I'd been using a USPCB and Ghent JSSG360 USB cable to and from my ISO REGEN, and decided I preferred the USPCB coming out of the ISO REGEN into the DAC. I hadn't thought of the implications of this since I got the ER.

 

Since I preferred the USPCB after the ISO REGEN, that essentially means I prefer it to the Ghent USB cable. Having the ER in the chain makes it physically possible for me to use USPCBs both before and after the ISO REGEN. So I ordered another from UpTone and put it in the chain Monday evening. Nice little bump in sound quality, and the system as a whole now just sounds amazing.

 

I have noticed that since the new arrangement has put more torque on the connections (having the short, stiff USPCB rather than the longer, more flexible Ghent USB cable between the microRendu and ISO REGEN), network connectivity with the fairly stiff Monoprice Cat 8 between ER and microRendu has become more finicky. If that becomes too much of a pain I may go back to the Cable Matters Cat 8 or another cable (I have a spare 12 foot long Cat 7, or the Slimrun, which puts no torque at all on the connections) until I try the Ghent JSSG360 Ethernet whenever it arrives - it's New Year in China and Ghent's business is closed (except for ordering) for the holiday until February 1st, I believe.

 

Subsequent to that, I'll be looking forward to purchasing and installing the Netgear CAX80 gateway, which will give me Wi-fi 6 (gigabit wi-fi - nice!). Since it's a modem and router in one, it will eliminate the wire between my current cable modem and router from the path to my streamer and DAC. We'll see whether and how that affects the sound.

[Jud]

13 hours ago, skatbelt said:

 

John Swenson's advice (and this is also my own experience) is to no not use a lan-isolator after te ER  / from the B-side. So this would eliminate the SOtM and Shunyata's from your list because these have build in isolators. I would add the Ghent CAT6A JSSG360 to your list. It is on mine.

 

I have a couple coming to use between the router and ER, and between ER and microRendu. Things have been a bit slowed, first by lunar New Year, then by delays in shipping due to the havoc the terrible coronavirus tragedy has created, but they're now on their way.

[Jud]

By the way, I wanted to mention: I think the sound with the inexpensive Monoprice Cat 8 cable I am using is great, but I want to see if the Ghent will improve my impression of the sound at all. (I have Monoprice Cat 8 with shields tied between cable modem and router, and between ER and microRendu. Between router and ER I have Monoprice Slimrun Cat 6a with plastic connectors.)

[Jud]

52 minutes ago, lmitche said:

The Cable Matters and MonoPrice cables are good enough for me.

 

Yes, I'm very happy with what I'm hearing. I have this nagging curiosity about whether a well shielded cable without the shield tied to ground at the connectors will do a good job, particularly upstream of the ER, so I'm trying the Ghent. But that's as expensive as I go.

[Jud]

4 hours ago, lmitche said:

Eventually I'll jssg360 the cat 8 as well.

 

Yes, with cables as inexpensive as that, if you can roll your own it's a nice experiment to do.

[Jud]

34 minutes ago, LewinskiH01 said:

Hey @Jud. Wondering how the Ghent test is turning out for you. Any updates? 

I seem to be in your same line of thought.

 

Cheers

 

Hi - just came this afternoon. The tragic situation with the coronavirus has understandably slowed shipping from China.

[Jud]

21 hours ago, skatbelt said:

 

Hi Jud, can you already share your first impressions about the Ghent ethernet cable? And what length did you get?

 

Hi, yes. To my ears it has both the vocal and high end prowess of the Cable Matters Cat 8 and the body/bottom of the Monoprice Cat 8. But it does not seem to unduly emphasize either. It just seems accurate to me (speaking subjectively, of course). I've reached "final cable" for copper Ethernet. Due to the price, I would say anyone who would like to roll their own JSSG360 version of a Cat 8 cable and has the capability should give it a try.

 

These are quite stiff. I got 2 of them in 2 meter lengths, and in my system that's about the shortest I could go without putting undue torque on the components they connect to.

[Jud]

2 hours ago, kennyb123 said:

For those of you who had been following my fiber adventures, I just posted thoughts on using the Sonore opticalModule upstream of the ER.  I believe I may have previously commented positively on this here but thought it might be helpful to close the loop.  
 

I think many of likely wondered early on how much the upstream will matter once the ER is in place.  Unfortunately the answer is that it still matters.  I wish it wouldn’t have been true that noise from an FMC could have be passed down a run of fiber - but I that’s exactly what I heard with the Startech FMC.  Crazy hobby, isn’t it?
 

 

 

Was it being passed down the run of fiber, or was it getting into the system from the Startech's power supply or its circuitry, I wonder?

[Jud]

2 hours ago, MartinT said:

On the subject of grounding, many of you have grounded your ER to house ground (we call it earth in the UK).  Has anyone tried what I will experiment with, using a grounding box?  The idea being to suck away noise from the ground plane of the ER without affecting safety ground or creating hum issues.

 

A "grounding box" doesn't actually electrically ground anything unless connected to ground, so why not just connect the device to an electrical ground directly and save the extra wiring, boxes, and money?

[Jud]

On 6/16/2020 at 2:05 PM, jamesg11 said:

I went with the Ghent Linkway Cat8 jssg360 pair into the ER & moved my original Ghent Cat6 jssg pair out of macmini into Netgear gs105 switch (in other room).

Another incremental uptick!

 

On 6/16/2020 at 2:38 PM, Pokey77 said:

 

@sandervdp

 

 

Can you buy the Ghent jssg360 cables assembled or is this DIY only?

 

On 6/16/2020 at 2:41 PM, jamesg11 said:

http://www.ghentaudio.com/pc/et12.html

They are a Ghent off-the-shelf. I don’t do diy!

 

 

The Ghent Cat8 JSSG360 are the ones I'm using, and I really like them. No desire at all to try anything else.

 

There are also excellent inexpensive cables from Monoprice and Cable Matters if you want to spend less.

[Jud]

On 6/16/2020 at 2:50 AM, Ponkbutler said:

I prefer the DesignaCable Belden CatSnake Cat6a by a long margin, which is what the Ghent uses

 

I have the Ghent Cat8 JSSG360, which uses a Linkway cable.

 

Edit: This one - http://www.ghentaudio.com/pc/et12.html

[Jud]

13 hours ago, Ponkbutler said:

That’s its Cat8 successor. How are you finding it compares (assuming you had the Cat6a in the past)? I’ve not yet heard a Cat8 that I really like, but I’ve never heard the Ghent.

 

I didn't have the Ghent 6a. I had the Monoprice Slimrun, which is Cat6. I also had the Cable Matters Cat8. Both seemed good in different ways - the Slimrun with a nice bottom, the Cable Matters with a more open top end. The current Ghent Cat8 seems to me to have all this and more. I don't feel as if there's anything missing when I listen, just very happy.

[Jud]

34 minutes ago, robocop said:

I said that only because Sandervdp has used a Belden Cat 6 cable first link between Cable modem and Netgear FS105 and the rest are Ghent JSG's. Surely one should have a Ghent JSG at this first stage or the best quality cable available. I mean this is the first wire link to the router which carries all the signals to be split at the router. Mind you assuming that the Ghent is better than the Belden, by all accounts in this forum it is rated better, I would not know as I have never tried the Ghent. I run Dynamix Cat 6 all the way from Fibre Modem, router to computer. But interested in what Cat 7 and 8 might do. Robert

I don’t recall whether the shield is connected with the Ghent. I don’t think it is, meaning it should be fine to use there.

[Jud]

9 hours ago, R1200CL said:

https://www.ghentaudio.com/pc/et11.html

 

You can even ask him to make a 100MHz version. 
 

No need to spend more 😀

Blue Jeans as an option. Probably also Supra. 

 

+1