Ethernet Cables make a difference

[kmjy]

This isn’t music reproduction. This is simple file transfer. Not an audio stream. Not analogue sound. Not anything other than a transfer of a digital file over a digital medium. We aren’t sending this audio to Phantom over auxiliary cables.


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[kmjy]

Well then we disagree! I do not think your printer can play music by the way... I've promised myself earlier that I would not participate in these discussions. I now remember why I promised that.

The printer receives the file perfectly and prints it according to its capabilities. Just because a printer may only print in black and white doesn’t mean the printer didn’t receive the colour version. The Phantom receives the file perfectly and plays it according to its capabilities. Just because the cable was crap doesn’t mean Phantom receives any less of the perfect file. And it doesn’t receive any better or a file if the cable is above the needed requirements. It’s digital to digital. The file will always arrive the same. Perfectly. As it was at the source.


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[IanG-UK]

These threads always go this way on audio forums as long as they last long enough for maybe 15 or 20 posts. The effect here is generally smaller than on the broader forums like pink fish and whatsbest - probably because the heart of this forum is based on interest in, effectively, two or three Devialet core products.

So we enter many of these threads with view I or view II or my view I/II - and exit the thread rarely changing our views. QED.

... that was post 15 ... but sometimes on DevialetChat they get to 40+ posts and differing views rarely change but just get slightly more heated ...

[thumb5]

This had potential to be a more interesting thread than most on the topic because the cables in question weren't physically connected to the Phantoms, but nevertheless it seems to have followed pretty much the usual course...a shame.

[kmjy]

This had potential to be a more interesting thread than most on the topic because the cables in question weren't physically connected to the Phantoms, but nevertheless it seems to have followed pretty much the usual course...a shame.

Dialogue still sends the audio the same way. As a digital file regardless. It’s the design of the system. The system doesn’t bow down to the network. The network needs to bow to the system. That’s why you need a very stable network to use Dialogue or multiple Phantom.

This exact same topic in regards to Devialet Expert amplifiers and the outcome would be actually different depending on cables and more. It just isn’t how Phantom works though.

I don’t see it as a shame. I see it as a positive because every user gets the same experience. No messing around. No experimentation. Just the seme experience, always. No customer confusion or disappointment that the supplied cables or technology isn’t performing at its best because the customer hasn’t gone and purchased a thousand dollar cable to make it do so. The whole point of the Phantom existing was to completely simplify the complexity of big audiophile setups while keeping up with the same or ‘similar’ audio quality and sound experience. One box. Plug and play. That’s it. How Phantom is out of the box is how it always will be no matter what cables or additions you ‘think’ will change it. The only changes you’ll get are ones Devialet implement over software updates. If you want to experiment then Expert amps still exist and aren’t going away. They share technology but they don’t handle it the same.

Money should be invested in treating the room, not purchasing unnecessary cables and additions that have a ‘perceived’ effect.
Placement and room acoustics are absolute paramount to Phantom performance.


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[alphafox]

Interesting thread! It is quite funny how digital transfer is not understood by most people. Coming from the analog world, one may consider all signal transport as real-time and definitive, i.e. if one equipment tempers the signal, there's no way you can correct it later. Digital transfer introduces the possibility of asynchronous protocols, the speed of transmission being much higher than the required data throughput.
When investigating cable influence on sound quality, you should just wonder "is the digital signal synchronous or asynchronous?". In the case of early USB DAC connection, the PC and DAC were synchronous on the PC clock: poor quality of the USB cable could cause the loss of some bits, impacting the sound quality (not mentioning the poor PC clock quality introducing jitter...). However, with Ethernet connection (or WiFi), the transferred audio data is buffered and lost packets are re-resent asynchronously from the playback. So, the Ethernet cable cannot impact the digital data stream.
The only reason one may invest in high-quality cables is for electronic perturbation, assuming the DAC is of poor conception, not isolating properly the inputs... When it comes to Deviatet, I assume its engineers are competent enough to ensure the isolation of the input stage!

[Rufus McDufus]

Although streaming audio over ethernet is typically done using UDP which is better for real-time transmission but does not retransmit. I believe from someone's analysis of Devialet AIR on this forum a while back (apologies I've forgotten who it was) it looks like the Devialet AIR protocol does have some sort of inbuilt error checking (and retransmit? edit - no, it couldn't could it?) to make it behave a little more like TCP.
Ethernet NICs do have (or should have) galvanic isolation built in, which I believe is effective against common mode noise but doesn't protect against all forms of noise. I suspect Devialet would have put a standard off-the-shelf NIC in their amps.

[thumb5]

Although streaming audio over ethernet is typically done using UDP which is better for real-time transmission but does not retransmit. I believe from someone's analysis of Devialet AIR on this forum a while back (apologies I've forgotten who it was) it looks like the Devialet AIR protocol does have some sort of inbuilt error checking (and retransmit?) to make it behave a little more like TCP.
...

Might be this thread I started (seems ages ago!): https://devialetchat.com/showthread.php?tid=276.  At least then, AIR was using UDP as a transport.  There are sequence numbers in the AIR protocol presumably to allow for re-ordering, flow control and detection of missing packets.

[Rufus McDufus]

Although streaming audio over ethernet is typically done using UDP which is better for real-time transmission but does not retransmit. I believe from someone's analysis of Devialet AIR on this forum a while back (apologies I've forgotten who it was) it looks like the Devialet AIR protocol does have some sort of inbuilt error checking (and retransmit?) to make it behave a little more like TCP.
...

Might be this thread I started (seems ages ago!): https://devialetchat.com/showthread.php?tid=276.  At least then, AIR was using UDP as a transport.  There are sequence numbers in the AIR protocol presumably to allow for re-ordering, flow control and detection of missing packets.

Thanks Ian - I thought it was you but apologies for not crediting you!

[Johnnydev]

Well then we disagree! I do not think your printer can play music by the way... I've promised myself earlier that I would not participate in these discussions. I now remember why I promised that.

+1