cpurdy, but they do carry RFI and EMI that compromises the music streaming signal before it gets to a DAC. Of course you’ll deny this too because you don’t know what you’re talking about. You obviously have no experience with buying, setting up, or using streaming audio gear. Typing in all capital letters is what children do when they cannot back up their words with experience or expertise. Carry on. You’re absolutely too funny for words. Just like listening to music, you’re nothing more than a short moment of lite entertainment.
For the sake of argument, I'm gonna jump in here and reply to this post. Seems you're in scenario #2 territory - you think that standard networking (which is somehow sufficient for trillions of dollars worth of economic activity across datacenters servicing major financial institutions every year, human lives in our hospitals, and mission critical military systems all over the globe) degrades the audio signal compared to more expensive audiophile grade networking. And you think the mechanism by which this happens is RFI and EMI that compromises the signal. Interestingly, you think this occurs before it gets to a DAC, showing that you fundamentally don't understand any basic knowledge of how ethernet networking operates, because the music streaming signal doesn't yet EXIST before it gets to a DAC. It's all just data still at this point. But IF...and that's an impossibly big IF...the interference could compromise the "music streaming signal," please explain to me how it would do so in a predictable way. How would noise reduce soundstage and instrument separation? How would it render treble regions too bright or harsh?
By definition, signal noise is random. If signal noise from cheaper equipment were compromising any audio signal, it would manifest itself as static or distortions. It would not influence the audio signal in any form of repeatable, consistent way resulting in audio that sounds "less smooth" (contrasting with claims of "more smoothness" in the audiophile networking equipment listening experience), "more digital" (contrastic with "more analogue"), "more compressed" (compared to more spacious, an opened up soundstage, etc.)
In short...no matter how you cut it, the descriptions of the listening experience coming off this audiophile networking equipment are not consistent with any known reality driven by our experience with ethernet networking standards, how digital data operates, how electrical signals work, or even simple common sense.