Network cable rabbit hole

Honest question: how does the short cable improve the sound (or minimize degradation)? 

@total111 Switch regenerates the signal. So on the output to streamer you should see a cleaner and unattenuated data transmission without the electrical noise from the router.
Having the best Ethernet cable on that leg, from switch into the streamer, improves conductivity, minimizes jitter and EMI/RFI. Negligible for transfer of a word document(you won’t know it). Important for audio. Purchasing a higher quality short cable is more economical than buying the same cable in 12’. Plus you’re adding an obstruction layer between noisy router and streamer. Ideally you would use same quality cable into switch and out of switch. I was approaching this from the balance of cost to performance perspective. 

Interesting points, thank you @audphile1 

A Etherregen reclocks the signal, but a normal switch has not necessarily a better clock than the router. Also, electrical noise WILL pass the switch. But not an Etherregen.

Conductivity? Yes, if cable is so lossy that frequent retransmit have to be done, I agree, otherwise litterlally yes/no/binary/works/works not. 

Neglible for a word document? I beg you pardon, I demand and expect a 100% copy and not a 99.99999% ....

Jitter? Yes, I agree but cant see how a cat6 vs Cat8 would change that. Both Cat6 and Cat8, at the short distances typical in a house, deliver a bit‑perfect, full‑duplex link with far lower error rates and latency variation than anything else in the path. Only if an extreme noisy envoironment triggers retransmit, jitter might be afftected.

I appreciate your thoughts, but can see how your points explain anything. Again, I am not (NOT) stating that there cant be any advanage, but it would be outside of what you explained.

A optical to cat6 converter can change jitter however, I agree.

For me with the rabbit hole, snake oil type high dollar cable situation I’d get my hearing checked. Then I’d A/B test with several people and most likely end up very happy with the money I saved, and no egg foo young on my face….lol 

If you want to improve your network, try an Etherregen or upcoming v2 of it. It removes all noise upstream plus reclocks the signal with a decent clock. No more expensive than a "high end" cable (whatever that is with whatever effect it claims) but with actual technical claims behind it which a cable alone could NEVER do.

An Ethernet switch is a repeater. (It also remembers network addresses so it can send data out the intended destination, as opposed to a hub, which repeats the data on all ports, creating traffic all over the network.) It sends exactly what it receives. It won’t clean up the data stream. Unless your cable is over 300 feet, you have no need for a switch. It’s just another possible point of failure. Believe it or not, a good quality CAT6 cable is all you need to get binary packets quite safely and cleanly from point A to point B. Keep the cable away from fluorescent lights and AC motors.