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I have an expensive, fancy Ethernet cable. What measurements...
- Thread starter Jinjuku
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Post anything we'll argue about it.
Full S-parameters and bit-error rate (use a JBERT). Run a few protocol tests as well, natch. 
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
Measure it's LCR just for shits and giggles?
OP
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I don't have an LCR meter. I can plug into an ADC and take measurements with my mic.
Can you measure DAC output? If so, I would simply test the DAC with this cable feeding the server versus garden variety.
OP
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I'll be using rightmark, audacity, and my mic system. So I can take output from the DAC or the speaker. I want to see some spectra plots.
I have a 315 5e foot cable I also terminated. The ping and transfer rates are identical between the two. Using a dual port Intel PCIe server NIC. The cable is supposedly CAT 8 but I don't see it being that with the terminations they are using.
watchnerd
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I was joking, sorry.
That would be great.
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I know with CAT cabling inductance can get quite high...
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Audacity has WASAPI loopback so I can look at response before the DAC also to see if something is going on before the DAC. It may be of limited value to some since the sentiment is that we are dealing with 'Mixed Signal Systems' and by omitting the DAC in those cases I would be missing the forest for the trees. My understanding of mixed signal systems is it mainly deals with integration of digital and analog on shared PCB space.
Yes, we need the DAC output to have a message useful to audiophiles.
Can you measure the magic dust by the gram, teener, or eightball?
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Microsoft and Intel don't make it easy. MS at some point in the Windows 8 build cycle released a build that stripped out LBFO teaming and it's not supported in Windows 10 at all. Intel stopped support for ANS in Windows 10. ANS is Intels teaming software.
So I clean install a 90 day evaluation of Windows 8.1 Enterprise X64 so I can take advantage of ANS.... And guess what? Intels Proset 21 comes up with a message about 'No Intel(r) adapters are present in this computer'. I'm looking at the freaking adapter in device manager! So I have some Intel server NICs also. Put one in, let the OS bring it up and still nothing.
I tried version 20, 19, 18. Nothing.
So I'm not able to go with a dual port NIC. I've setup the LAG on the switch and have both the WireWorld Starlight and hand terminated cable and just swapping at the Intel CT Desktop NIC.
I'll record a few tracks on each cable and post them for comparison. I'll also record a few tracks and swap out the cable during playback and see if anyone can track the changed in the 'Mixed Signal System' that Lavorgna and others like to trot out when they can't reliably pass in a blind test but still think there are differences to be heard.
Currently with a 15 foot CAT5e I terminated off of spool:
My subjective evaluation both on speaker and headphone is that I can't tell, by sound, when the buffer emptied and filled back up and I certainly can't hear a difference when the cable is swapped in realtime which is another argument people are making that by simple virtue of the cable being plugged in there is a difference. Due to the LAG on the switch I'm able to successfully swap cables out and experience zero drop in play back just not optimally how I wanted it setup.
On my setup, so far, there isn't a difference.
So I clean install a 90 day evaluation of Windows 8.1 Enterprise X64 so I can take advantage of ANS.... And guess what? Intels Proset 21 comes up with a message about 'No Intel(r) adapters are present in this computer'. I'm looking at the freaking adapter in device manager! So I have some Intel server NICs also. Put one in, let the OS bring it up and still nothing.
I tried version 20, 19, 18. Nothing.
So I'm not able to go with a dual port NIC. I've setup the LAG on the switch and have both the WireWorld Starlight and hand terminated cable and just swapping at the Intel CT Desktop NIC.
I'll record a few tracks on each cable and post them for comparison. I'll also record a few tracks and swap out the cable during playback and see if anyone can track the changed in the 'Mixed Signal System' that Lavorgna and others like to trot out when they can't reliably pass in a blind test but still think there are differences to be heard.
Currently with a 15 foot CAT5e I terminated off of spool:
My subjective evaluation both on speaker and headphone is that I can't tell, by sound, when the buffer emptied and filled back up and I certainly can't hear a difference when the cable is swapped in realtime which is another argument people are making that by simple virtue of the cable being plugged in there is a difference. Due to the LAG on the switch I'm able to successfully swap cables out and experience zero drop in play back just not optimally how I wanted it setup.
On my setup, so far, there isn't a difference.
that sucks
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What sucks is under Windows 10 there isn't a way to team NIC's that I know of now. MS stripped out LBFO support and since Server 2012 and beyond support switch independant teaming the various NIC silicon vendors have less incentive to write in their own.
It's a step back for a niche use market.
That's weird as my little NAS has link aggregation. Wonder if Microsoft dropped support to tilt things in favor of Windows Server.
https://www-ssl.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/network-and-i-o/ethernet-products/000005667.html
Last Reviewed: 23-Jan-2017
Article ID: 000005667
Adapter teaming with Intel® Advanced Network Services (Intel® ANS) uses an intermediate driver to group multiple physical ports. You can use teaming to add fault tolerance, load balancing, and link aggregation features to a group of ports.
Note Intel ANS and Teaming is currently non functional in Windows 10. Creating Intel ANS teams and VLANs on Windows® 10 is currently not supported. As a result, when created, teams and VLANs do not pass traffic. We expect that ANS will be supported on Windows 10 client in a future release.
OP
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Client OS teaming is a big mess. MS's reason for doing this, as far as I can tell, is SKU related. Never mind there are certainly high performance work station loads that could benefit from the throughput of link aggregation. Funny enough you can do this with desktop versions of Linux.
While 2.5 and 5GB solutions have been on the the table for a while because the cost gap for 10GBe is comparatively cost prohibitive, they just haven't materialized as of yet.
MS has signaled to Intel, Marvell, Realtek, Broadcom etc... that they want to move all the teaming and subset features into the OS. Probably a confusing time if you manufacture network hardware and it leaves customers in the sling.
While 2.5 and 5GB solutions have been on the the table for a while because the cost gap for 10GBe is comparatively cost prohibitive, they just haven't materialized as of yet.
MS has signaled to Intel, Marvell, Realtek, Broadcom etc... that they want to move all the teaming and subset features into the OS. Probably a confusing time if you manufacture network hardware and it leaves customers in the sling.
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