For commercial applications grounded interconnects can absolutely be what you want - they may be a necessity. For connecting two pieces of home audio equipment with a relatively short run of Ethernet cable, I think having no ground connection can help to keep things simple and eliminate common problems.
If you’ve got big RFI/EMI interference problems maybe you want to go to optical Ethernet cable, but I think that’s probably a little beyond the scope of the current discussion.
Should be fine
Will work fine, you just don’t want to have it plugged in at the same time as the USB cable because of the possibility of ground loops Agoldnear mentioned.
The primary concern is inducted noise along the transmission line… so there will always be a drain-path to ground:
Drain path yes, power conductor no.
It’s going to matter where that drain is connected to ground/earth… and how it is implemented in the design architecture of the cable type… There is going to be a common ground/earth in these systems and optical will solve the noise potential gremlins.
Just let the nice man compare his Ethernet and USB cables and decide which he personally prefers.
yup
It’s a given… however having insights about factors that may or may not play into the quality of the perceived assessment of the playback on his system, is still important.
Many recordings have been ruined for posterity by the employment of the Apex Aural Exciter which really came to the fore during the Cassette Era for competitive reasons…
- Increased presence and clarity
- Greater perceived loudness
- Improved detail and intelligibility
- Extended low frequencies
- Tighter bass articulation
Exciter | Products for Professional Audio, Recording, Broadcast, Audio Applications | Aphex
In subsequent digital mastering, the ‘enhancement’ has been EQ’d out of the production as best possible.
My late friend and colleague, Clifton Whyte, was the live sound engineer for Public Enemy when touring Europe. I remember him ‘riding’ the faders on console, in a delicate balancing act between non-feedback/feedback, never going over the edge but just on it, that’s aural excitement, and powerful music is all the better for it, your insides wobble and your senses tingle, it’s an awesome feeling.
Here I use a Cat6 cable from the router to the Mac Mini M2 that I assembled myself.
For the DACs I use AudioQuest Cinnamon USB cables.
No noise that I notice.
After a few hours of tests, the USB solution seems more enjoyable to me.
Listening to MQA tracks with USB connection, Audirvana Studio gives more information about the MQA track:
With UPnP connection, this information is not displayed by Audirvana App.
Strange, I get all the same information from both sources. But in any case, good you have found what you like best. 
Isn’t testing signal quality with MQA source kind of an oxymoron… Can you say breaking small signals straight from the source…
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
