Ethernet

I run a 75' ethernet cable from my home office, through the attic, and into the listening room where it connects to my streamer/DAC. 

I bought tested and terminated Belden CMR Cat6 cable from Blue Jeans Cable, for less than $100 shipped.

@mike_in_nc ​"Cat 7 and Cat 8 cables are shielded by spec, which sounds good, but noise then can be transmitted over the shield. In lower categories, there is usually no shield (though it is optionally available), so noise transmission through ground lines is not a consideration."

Hi Mike, so isnt using an unshielded cable leaving it open to EMI? My router is not grounded, btw. ​​​​​​

I have never had an issue with EMI over Ethernet. If you live in an area with strong EMI/RFI, that may be an issue, although I don’t know what effect I’d expect it to have. This is not an audiophile-approved opinion, but I’vve found Ethernet to be pretty bullet-proof. Less prone to problems than, say, our brains are.

While a short ethernet run is obviously ideal over long, I prefer WIRED from my switch by my modem vs wired to a mesh node.  Why put your signal over  wifi and then grab it back??  I do it in my vaca home where I really don't have the option to run a long wire.  But in my main home with drop ceilings in the bsmt easy (ha ha) to run 25' of reasonably good cable.  I feed a GTT DeJitterit Switch from my modem and run only audio from this feed.  My modem and Switch are both powered by LPS. One wire out of the switch 25' to my audio system, through the plate in the wall, JCAT junction to Network Acoustics  Moun Pro filter to my streamer.  The last  cable into your streamer matters a lot.  So wire it direct if you can.  GTT DeJitterit creates an entire separate (clean) network in your home and only the music (or a tv if you connect it to the switch) use this clean network.  So by removing cell phones, tv's, appliances, cars, cameras, other computers etc the network is very much quieter.  Finally, my internet is delivered over fiber, and only goes to copper in my garage.  So I feel little need to convert it back to fiber to clean it. I like the sound of an all copper network wired.

@maprik 

Hi Mike, so isnt using an unshielded cable leaving it open to EMI? My router is not grounded, btw.

I’ve never used shielded ethernet cables and I’ve never experienced EMI/RFI on my LAN or ethernet-connected devices.

I believe you can’t just use shielded cables and call it a day. The connected devices need to support using shielded cables, and you can’t mix with non-shielded cables. I may remember that a bit wrong, so happy to be corrected.

Just don’t use shielded cables and you’ll be fine.