
The time has come to listen to Ethernet cables - davidgerard
https://rocknerd.co.uk/2016/11/25/the-time-has-come-to-listen-to-ethernet-cables/
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daxelrod
The best part is the linked article's Conclusion section. It includes such
gems as "zero and one values represent a lower and higher voltage in the cable
and in the sender or receiver. This is actually an analogue signal when we
look at it on a scope. We audiophiles agree that cables sound different with
analogue signals, so why not with Ethernet data?" and "Next, any interface for
Ethernet has a correction circuit for errors. With many errors this interface
has to work hard, that will result in a greater need for current from the
power supply and the processor heating up."

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wolfgang42
Also, "So a decent switch will do a lot of work to correct errors, but it has
no analogue sound circuit on board, that is why it doesn’t matter how much the
switch suffers from retries and all kind of errors and interferences. In the
end the switch nicely delivers the data to our music system and we have to
make sure this last part is error free. We don’t want to use error correction
in audio equipment after all."

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davidgerard
(OP here)

A sysadmin in finance on my facebook suggested we could start selling
audiophools the routers they use for high-frequency trading, which he found a
similarly sensible field. (I found this somewhat disconcerting news.) Or
perhaps the super-low-lag cards they sell to obsessive gamers.

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wolfgang42
I've never heard the word 'audiophools' before--I like it :)

It's never occurred to me that HF trading would have special routers, but I
suppose that makes sense. This sounds like an excellent business model--or,
better yet, sell custom routers with special 'audio quality algorithms' built
in. I'm sure there's some manufacturer in China that would be willing to
white-label a box with a few QOS setting tweaks, which can then be sold at an
excellent markup. I will leave this as an exercise for someone with a better
straight face than I.

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anonbanker
So, we're now resorting to submissions of audiophile trolling?

I don't know what's worse, the straight-faced delivery, or the fact that 5 HN
readers _upvoted_ this.

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cgvgffyv
Dude, I've seen worse.

Some Twitter rando is on the front page now saying he got MITM'd because he's
too cool to believe in corrupted downloads.

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gumby
the comments to this article are gold!

