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But Jud... I can't think of a noise scenario where there is noise but it is not affecting the signal carried by the cable yet that same noise can be mitigated by improving the cable itself. e.g. ground loop noise is not going away no matter how fancy your cable.

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I never said what I think you are suggesting I said. Ethernet cabling is standards based, other cabling is not. Once you have surpassed the requirements of CAT5, any additional noise shielding that is added to the cable is negligible. That is, unless you have an inordinately high noise environment. Remove the CAT qualification, and all bets are off. Exactly what problem are 'audiophile' Ethernet cables trying to address?

Keeping noise out of the audio electronics is the job of the electronics itself. The cable is not going to help with that beyond the fundamentals of its design. All Ethernet cable is fundamentally the same design (4-twisted pair with or without shielding) or it wouldn't be Ethernet. I suppose I did somewhat contradict myself. But in fairness, the benefit of an isolated connection will only be to the audio equipment manufacturer. With an isolated interconnection technology, they can be much less careful about their connection. e.g. no electronics designer worries about ground loop noise if they have a TOSLINK connection. To 'realhifi' point: Can noise affect the data of a lesser made cable? Sure. But once it crosses a certain threshold it will no longer qualify as CAT5 for example. So long as the cable satisfies the requirements of CAT5, and you are not in any special environment requiring special handling, a higher quality cable will provide absolutely no benefit.. You can: 1. use a shielded cable 2. use a CAT 6/6E cable. 3. use a dedicated network path. 4. Choose a slower sync rate (100Mb instead of 1000Mb) I wouldn't do any of these things unless I had evidence of packet loss. I personally have experienced packet loss from bad cabling. Cabling I crimped the connectors on. Worked great for years until I tried to use it on Gb network. Then I got 5-10% packet loss. Figured out my crimps were not good enough for Gb. My cables would have never qualified under CAT5. I now purchase most of my cables...

I use WD. I buy only the models with the 5y warranty.

Absolutely no need for a managed switch in your case. A managed switch allows you to isolate your network into effectively multiple networks. You don't have any reason to do that yet. As the other poster mentioned, if you start using your phone with VOIP over the network, or if you start downloading files while playing music, you might consider it then. But in that case, you will need more than just a managed switch... They definitely cost more.

I'd like to add something to this discussion. Transmission over Ethernet is packet based. On multiple levels. The Ethernet layer has its packets. That layer has its own error detection. The error detection is good. On top of the Ethernet you will have an IP layer packet. This also has error detection. On top of the IP layer is either TCP or UDP data. These both have error detection as well. TCP will flag errors and retransmit the bad data. UDP will just flag the error and leave it up to the application to resend or not. Audio requires pretty good packet stream. There is often no time to retransmit. This is why you use a buffer. If a bad packet comes, you keep playing while you wait on a retransmission of the data. During this time you will be eating away at the buffer. The packet comes, and fill your buffer again. So you should be transmitting data over the network faster than it is being used in order to maintain this buffer. The only way to drop quality is to drop enough packets to empty the buffer. Your audio device is fully aware of this packet loss and can easily tell you about it if they so chose. Ethernet cable uses twisted pairs of wire. This is a poor mans way of doing coaxial. This provides a level of immunity against noise. Additionally, you can get 'shielded' Ethernet cabling. For more protection. Incidentally, there is one real advantage of fiber over Ethernet. No conducted or radiated noise is picked up with the laser. I think most of you probably have experienced this during the TOSLINK vs. RCA digital data days... Audiophile network cable is snake oil. There is no entity in the computer world that can or will accept bad data. That is why network cables are made to a standard.