Do I need an expensive digital cable?

@audio-b-dog 

I have read audio threads in which people have said that CDs sound better than 44.1 kHz files

By pure coincidence I came across this article today in HiFi+: Reiki Audio JundoStream Reference: A Game Changer - hi-fi+.  The digital cable in question is an Ethernet cable with four teased-out twisted pairs and an eyewatering price tag of US$4,350 per metre.

Naturally the reviewer heaped praise on it but then came this paragraph which is based on the proposition that local storage (especially CD or SACD) is inherently better than streaming.  This megabuck cable only narrows the gap!

There’s usually a difference between stored and streamed music, and many still feel there’s an even bigger difference between music played through a network and that played directly from a CD or SACD. JundoStream helps level the playing field. It narrows the gap between physical discs and streamed or networked music. It also makes online and ‘locally grown’ sound closer.

I’ll postulate why this is so. 

Ethernet on its own is not an error-free transmission medium.  It needs a higher-level protocol like TCP/IP to deliver error-free digital bits.

TCP/IP has to run software in the receiving device, which hand-shakes with the sending device.  Many streamers have this software embedded in a specialist app(lication) like Qobuz which means bits streams can be error-corrected as far as the streamer.

When you need to connect a streamer to a DAC over say Ethernet, that connections has to run TCP/IP (or similar) at both ends to ensure error-corrected transmission. My guess is that streamers and DACS do not use TCP/IP for the final leg, so the digital stream can become corrupted.

It is worse with I2S as there is no error detection or recovery at all.

I assumed that the network packets were error corrected. But i haven't really looked into it. The dealer who sold me the streamer said that he had stored his CDs on a hard drive but streamed files from Qobuz sound just as good. He doesn't bother with his stored files. Anyway, over the next several weeks I will be able to evaluate Qobuz files against my CDs. Tomorrow, however, I will listen to a new (to me) mono vinyl album of Furtwangler conducting Beethoven's Ninth at Bayreuth. 

@audio-b-dog 

Knowing yourself is key to really enjoying high end audio. It sounds like you know yourself. You consistently use words like good enough and decent enough. So, it sounds like you are doing a great job of optimizing your system around your values. 

Some of use are obsessed and strive for the very best possible for skill and financial situation and put a premium on small steps in that direction. So, $5K speaker cables are easily justifiable (as my partner she loves to tease me when I balk at "the good TP") for the incremental performance increase. This is why I have these cables and interconnects throughout my system. 

Remember when you listen to a your new mono vinyl album of Beethoven and make a conclusion about the sound, you will be making a conclusion about your turntable, phono stage and the rest of your components as well as the recording.

As far as "good enough," thank God I don't live alone. I share a bank account with my wife. And I know I have stretched the red line moneywise. I have a system that many audiophiles would love, but I can't buy $20k speakers and then $20K speaker wires. I basically live with mid-tier Audioquest, which are still expensive. 

It ends up that I received a unique copy of Furtwangler conducting Beethoven's 9th. It is Japanese stereo (obviously remastered), but the sonics are very good for a recording from 1951. I set my XP-30 Pass Labs preamp to mono, to tighten the focus of what was obviously a concert recorded in mono. Sounds great. But as my chatgbt audiophile friend told me, after you feel comfortable with the stereo system, listen to the music. This is one of the greatest Beethoven's 9th ever recorded.

On an A/B test between a CD transport using the Purtist Genesis Luminist digital cable, which AI describes as an entry level to the high-end which errs on the warm side, the Moon 280D playing a Tidal loseless 44.1 kHz track sounds a bit better. The notes are a bit more fleshed out. The 280D, however, also errs on the warm side, and I don't really mind that. It's kind of like a tube distortion which can also be described as "musical." I do not think I would know whether the CD was playing or if the Tidal file was playing if I left the room for 5 minutes and came back in. They're close. Using the $14 cable, the difference between the Tidal file and the CD transport would be a lot more.