August 16, 2012

  • AudioQuest Forest Ethernet Cable, Pt1

    With the profusion of computer-based music sources, connectivity can be one of those grey areas.  Should I go wireless or wired?  USB or Ethernet?  In my case USB is not an option since my router will only accept an Ethernet connection. 

    I've tried both wireless and Ethernet, and in the next couple of installments, I'll be describing my experiences.  The dramatis personae in this aural adventure are as follows:

    Let me begin by saying that my original set-up was to have my BDP-95 wirelessly access the music files on my laptop and O3HD via the dongle supplied with the universal player.  The dongle allowed the BDP-95 to communicate with the Netgear router which in turn would fetch the files from the laptop or O3HD and then send them along back to the BDP-95 for decoding and playback.  The O3HD music server was connected to the router via a generic Ethernet cable.

    The BDP-95 is also able to access services on the Internet such as Netflix, YouTube, Pandora, and others through the router.

    The system, as it was set-up, worked flawlessly and sounded very good.  So naturally, being a true audiophile I got to thinking what would happen in terms of picture quality and sound quality if I hooked the universal player to the router with an Ethernet cable and while I was at it, how about upgrading the generic cable on the music server to the same cable I was getting for the BDP-95?

    Thus into the picture enters the AudioQuest Forest Ethernet cable.  The Forest is the entry level Ethernet-only cable in the AudioQuest line and the copper wiring is coated with 0.5% silver.  They also do make a more generic type Ethernet cable which is fetchingly called RJ45-G CAT5e.  The Forest happens to be a CAT7 cable and while I know there are technical differences between the two, I'll leave that to you if you want to investigate further.

    The Forest is available in lengths ranging from 0.75M at $29, 1.5M at $35 up to 5M at $69.  I'm guessing that the connectors constitute the bulk of the price for this model.  Their RJ45-G CAT5e only appears to come in a 2M length and retails for $35.  As you go up the line, they have the Cinnamon (1.25% silver) at $69, the Vodka at $179 (10% silver), and the still-to-be-released Diamond at $595 (100% silver and the AudioQuest Dielectric Bias System).  All prices stated are for 0.75M lengths.

    Here are some pictures of the two cables I received today.  The 0.75M cable connects the BDP-95 to the router while the 1.5M cable is assigned to the O3HD music server.  In the next installment I'll report on what affect they have on sound and picture quality.

         

         

     

    NB:  AudioQuest states that the cables are directional.  I've oriented them in the direction of the flow of information with the cable from the O3HD pointing towards the router and the cable for the BDP-95 pointing from the router to the BDP-95.  If you want to think of it this way, the router functions as the preamp with the O3HD as the source and the BDP-95 as the destination (which would be the amplifier in other situations).

     

     

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