Actually, there are different grades, as well as specifications for Ethernet cables.....
- Shielded Twisted Pair (or STP) vs. Unshielded Twisted Pair (or UTP). Shielded cables have a braid/foil screen throughout the length of the cable, as well as shielded connectors. This protects against signal noise. These cables are primarily used in datacenter environments, and are usually a lot more expensive than similar unshielded cables. Personally, I used unshielded Ethernet cables for home use. Shielded cables tend to be thicker and are much less flexible than unshielded. - Category 6 vs. category 5e. Category 6 has a higher transmission performance compared to 5e, and a higher available bandwidth of 200 MHz vs. 100 MHz for 5e. Category 6 will eventually supercede category 5e, as streaming video/audio, etc. applications begin to require higher and higher bandwidth. Given the negligable difference in price between a category 6 cable and a 5e one, and the fact that category 6 is backwards compatible with 5e, I'd recommend buying category 6 Ethernet cables. - Category 6 overkill for the home environment ? IMHO. No, I have recently wired our home with category 6 cable, and we have Gigabit Ethernet (with "Jumbo Frames" up to 9K) available throughout. Both PCs, the Mac, and NAS all use Gigabit with Jumbo Frames, and happily co-exist with the slower devices (printer, DVR, Squeezebox, and Transporter). Link Depot cables are good value for the price ($ 1.99 for a five foot category 6 cable from Newegg). I also used the generic category 6 cable from Newegg for the longer cable runs under the house. - RFI, noise, etc. I have also tested Ethernet cables, and the Intel Gigabit Ethernet cards in our PCs gave the UTP cables a higher rating once a clamp on ferrite RFI filter was added to one end (TDK RFI filter are available for $ 0.99 each). I use a filter on each end of the long cable runs under the house, and a single filter on longer patch cords (three feet or more). -- DLloyd ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DLloyd's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9063 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=31080 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
