Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming RJ45 Cables (Ethernet and SpeakerLink Use Cases)

Although, as I said, I personally can't hear any difference between Ethernet cables carrying data (as opposed to SL) I question whether this kind of A/B/X blind listening test is really as 'scientific' as it appears. I have pointed out on this forum before that no less an authority than Bob Stuart himself believes they are flawed for various reasons. Given how well versed he is in audio engineering and psycho-acoustics, his is not an opinion I would dismiss lightly.

Also, it occurs that IF the differences people may be hearing in this context are real, it might well be due to interference/noise suppression differentials between the cables, which would potentially be highly system/environment dependent. E.g., we know that Meridian increased noise rejection (forgive me, I can't recall of which type right now - EM?) in ID40 to ID41, with the little ferrules in the cables (important point) of the Anniversary system in between those two design iterations. From this I surmise that a) they found that better shielding or noise suppression of some kind, in the cables before ID41, was of benefit, or why bother (unless Meridian do things randomly in R&D which I don't believe), b) would the addition of correctly designed ferrules make as much as/more of a difference in this application than an apparently minor tweak in cable design, or use of exotic materials with associated price tag, c) better equipment design to suppress/reject noise at the source/receiver might mitigate this, including cleaner PSUs on switches, etc.,, d) the environment in which the system is played might have more or less interference present (RFI, etc.). It would be interesting to know if the test attempts to take into account points c and d, as well as the psycho-acoustic problems Bob Stuart raises. If it does not, I would question whether the test is itself good, or pseudo, science.