$340 audiophile Ethernet cable only rates “marginal” on the test bench

Our listening test set-up back in Vegas, in the process of being draped out of view of both audience and test participants. Here, the expensive Vodka and not-expensive Cable Matters cables were swapped back and forth between the listening laptop, into which was plugged our Grado RS2e headphones.

Lee Hutchinson

Our cable adventure is coming to a close. First we took our two $340 AudioQuest Vodka Ethernet cables to Las Vegas and subjected one of them to a live listening test; listeners were unable to tell it apart from a $2.50 Ethernet cable of the same length. Then we took the cable we didn’t use on stage and gutted it, exposing its innards. We found an interesting mix of high craftsmanship (a thick polyethylene sheath, genuine S/FTP construction) and corner cutting (masking tape, unterminated shields).

But listening tests and exploratory surgery would only get us so far. What we needed to cap things off was some actual for-real electrical analysis, and for that there was really only one place we could go: Kurt Denke and Blue Jeans Cable.

To be sure, we could have rented a Fluke analyzer and done some tests ourselves, but Denke and his company have a sterling reputation in the (surprisingly deep) world of cables. Perhaps most famous for standing up to Monster Cable’s lawsuit threats by telling the bigger company to go jump in a lake, Denke and his company produce high-quality tested cables of all kinds—and he’ll also test out your cables to see exactly how well they perform.

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