Pure By Name…
By Roy Gregory
Reiki Audio has made quite a splash with its minimalist network components, their ‘back to basics’ facilities and unadorned, understated physical appearance chiming nicely with high-end audiophile sensibilities. But the less-is-more presentation and feature count also obscures a deeper-seated engineering logic and overall approach to network integrity. Products like the SuperSwitch aren’t about simply stripping out everything you can, from extra ports to LEDs: they derive from a deeper understanding of the fundamental operational protocols that define network data transfer. Outward simplicity might be (at least a part of) the answer in the case of the SuperSwitch – but it’s far from the whole story. In the case of Reiki Audio, it’s not so much a case of ‘back to basics’ as back to a basic understanding of what seems to me a much-misunderstood problem. Too many of the audio-specific network components being offered by specialist audio manufacturers simply apply existing audio dogma to the problem, often using techniques and technology that’s inappropriate to what is an entirely different functional and technological landscape. In stark contrast, the Reiki products are firmly lodged in and based on the functional realities of that landscape. Their new JundoStream network cable – launched at the Munich Show, where it contributed directly to some of the best sounding streaming performance and systems – is the perfect case in point.
Just one look at the JundoStream and it’s fairly obvious that it ain’t like other ethernet/network cables. There are other cables that use a similar, skeletal, spaced construction, but that’s mainly for speaker and interconnect applications – and even there it’s rare. The JundoStream is decidedly and deliberately different, its difference dictated entirely by performance considerations. But to really appreciate the logic behind it, you need to start with the Cat8 Ethernet specification itself.
So, what does the Cat8 standard define? The number of conductors, their arrangement and their shielding, to wit: four twisted pairs in a single, continuous outer shield. It also specifies capability when it comes to data rate – which is what Cat8 is really all about: moving large amounts of data, quickly, around large-scale networks. In turn, that defines two of the critical performance characteristics: the continuous shielding, such that the data is protected from external RFI/EMI pollution; and the adoption of a different twist rate for each of the closely packed conductor pairs, to help minimise crosstalk between them. It’s in these aspects that the network protocols and audio specific concerns diverge. An audio dedicated network doesn’t need the sheer bandwidth that a large-scale network demands. It is also far more sensitive to noise – both externally induced and internally generated or transmitted. That noise might not impact the data being transferred, but it sure as shootin’ upsets any DAC that it reaches. Take those things into account and the priorities and the constructional response to them takes on a very different shape.
