The Reiki Audio RakuStream+ network cable
By Roy Gregory
One of the things that gives cable manufacturers such a bad name is their constant efforts to separate or distinguish ‘their’ bit of wire and pair of connectors from all the others. Some cables are obviously and visibly different, even if it’s only because of the impractically large and heavy boxes built into each end. But, given that many of the others use the same OEM plugs and wrap their ‘carefully constructed, hand-polished, cryo-treated and/or superheated, artisan constructed and magically breathed upon’ conductors in exactly the same nylon outer braid, you’ve got to feel for them. Coloured braid only gets you so far…
Which rather begs the question, who in their right mind would enter the already crowded cable market with yet another offering clad in nylon braid and with generic OEM connectors? You’d have to be mad, right? But meet Nigel Bell, the man behind the Reiki Audio network components and it’s hard to conclude that he’s anything other than sober, stable, incredibly grounded and, when it comes to technical questions, extremely competent. Which suggests that there might be more to the Reiki network cables than (quite literally) meets the eye. It’s a safe assumption. Despite looking very like an awful lot of other cables on the market, the RakuStream+ has one, salient (if less than apparent) distinguishing feature. But to understand its significance, it’s necessary to start by looking at network/Ethernet cables in general.
Although Ethernet standards are relatively loose in physical terms, their definition of overall topology is extremely tight, specifying the gauge, number and purpose of conductors, their twist rate as well as the shielding topology if present: which is one reason why most audiophile companies refer to their products as ‘network’ rather than Ethernet cables. As bandwidth and data rates have increased, so have the issues around RFI and shielding, leading to the evolution from Cat 6 cables (which are largely un-shielded) to Cat 8 cables, with their dual layer shields: a Mylar foil around each twisted pair with an overall, external braid. Even the twist rates of the different pairs are varied to help combat crosstalk, although the precise twist rates are not defined. In theory, you’d think that all of this was a ‘good thing’, but this is yet another example of what suits the computer world and high-speed data transfer being at odds with the specific requirements of high-quality music file replay.
Cat 8 cables are designed to create a single RFI protected pipeline from one end of the signal chain to the other. With that in mind, their shields are connected at both ends, to create a continuous link. Unfortunately – at least as far as audio performance goes – that continuous link also allows ground noise to fly from one component on the network to another – from router to switch to server to Streamer/DAC…
In other words, the level of ground noise on your network is going to be set by the noisiest component – and that’s never a great thing. It’s also contrary to the Reiki Audio view of all that’s good in the network world. If you work on the basis of killing noise as close to the vulnerable Streamer as possible, flooding the network with ground noise definitely isn’t a good thing. It’s even worse if your streamer and DAC co-habit in the same chassis. Throw an amplifier into that box too and you’ve got real problems to deal with.
