Ethernet Cable

[markush]

To sum up my experience of many years including very costly investments in high end cables, power supplies, fibre media converters, filters etc.
If you have Ethernet in your system just use a Network Acoustics ENO2 streaming system (consists of the ENO2 filter and the ENO2 ethernet cable) and you outperform nearly every other approach. Even high end switches don't make such a difference most of the time.
It's actually quite crazy to see what Ethernet can achieve or on the other hand what needs to be done to get this connection type right.

[hardcore]

Another few findings after some tweaking:

1. If your router / switch / NAS has an option to turn off the LEDs, then try turning them off. Lowers the noise floor a bit for my system.

2. When connecting the ethernet cable to the router / switch / NAS ports, avoid using the ethernet ports at the edge. Try the port next to the first / last, for example in a 4 port switch:
[ ] [ X ] [ ] [ ] or
[ ] [ ] [ X ] [ ] or
[ ] [ X ] [ X ] [ ] for 2 cables for example

Experimenting with a few different brands and devices, the 2nd or 3rd port seems to sound better than the first / last ones. The first / last ports sound sharper, while the adjacent ones sound smoother / deeper. Each port sounds slightly different.

3. If you switch or router supports the 802.3az EEE (Energy Efficient Ethernet) setting, try to turn it ON. Most devices have it on by default, but my Asus router had it off by default. Both ends of the ethernet chain need to support EEE for it to work. When EEE is on, it takes into account the length of the ethernet cables and lowers the power and voltage on the cables during idle time, so this decreases the EMI caused by the ethernet cables.

Some people recommend turning EEE off, but in my setup turning EEE on sounds better. Note that some studio streaming systems or network devices run into compatibility problems when EEE is on.

4. If your router / switch allows you to manually set the link rate, try using 100M Full Duplex instead of 1000M. 100M may sound a bit different vs 1000M.