I'm really not sure where to put this, but I'll put it here since I first noticed the sonic effects in my main audio system built around the Sanders 10e speakers.
My systems are built exclusively around streaming. Some music is streamed from local sources--ripped CDs transferred to music files via dBPowerAmp software to files on my computer hard drive or to files on USB sticks plugged into the USB ports of my Lumin X1 or Roon Nucleus+. Much of my listening, however, is via internet streaming from Qobuz, Tidal, or various internet radio stations and other streaming services which provide less-than-Redbook CD quality--e.g., SiriusXM, Jazz Radio, or Spotify. I have no CD or LP players.
I've learned over the years that the quality of sound one hears from streaming is at least as dependent on the wiring of your connection to your ISP backbone as it is on rippers, modems, routers, switches, and even streamers. It's not just that the cable connection can literally fail or be transmitting data so slowly that the streaming program stops. No, there can also be an insidious continual degradation in the quality of the sound you are hearing from streaming sources either as a result in deterioration of coax RG-6 wiring used between your house or inside your house, any ethernet cables you have in play, and PARTICULARLY the connections between runs of RG-6 or ethernet.
You usually won't notice anything amiss until you start getting intermittent streaming. The program will stop for no apparent reason and may restart on its own or you may have to restart it manually. But what I've found is that once your streaming signal path is that "bad," you won't be hearing the best sound of which your system is capable even when the streamed program is playing apparently as normal.
A few years back, after repeated self-help troubleshooting and service calls by Comcast/Xfinity (my ISP) I finally corrected an intermittent internet connection problem. All the RG-6 cable and connections in the house up to the modem/router had been first replaced, to no avail. I finally got consistent service when a higher-level technician replace the RG-6 run from the backbone line high up on the telephone/electrical poles in front of my house to the internet service entrance on the outside wall of my home. I was told at that time that that run of coax appeared to be at least 15 years old since it was not the type of cable in current use by Comcast/Xfinity. The technician speculated that intermittent internet connections could be caused by water from rain/snow/ice leaking into the cable due to a deteriorated cable jacket.
Not only did the intermittent internet connection go away, but I noticed immediately that the TV picture color and detail improved and the sound quality of my streaming sources got in instantly noticeable uptick. The sonic change was not particularly subtle. Sound improved across a broad range of criteria and this was clearly noticeable in the first few moments of listening. What I discovered after that fix was that the varying sonic qualities I thought I heard before from various high-end after-market modems and routers vanished. All of a sudden, the stock Comcast/Xfinity modem/router sounded at least as good as any of the others. Since then, I have used all Comcast/Xfinity internet and video components. They perform fine and Comcast/Xfinity does not charge for service calls or equipment replacement as long as you are using their equipment, whereas you are pretty much on your own if you suspect a problem with any after-market unit.
All was well for a few years until the last few months. All of a sudden, my TV picture started pixelating at random times, not constantly. This happened on all channels and all TVs. I did all the routine system restart, system restore, and other recommended fixes, but nothing worked. It also seemed that Comcast/Xfinity often couldn't connect to my TV boxes or modem/router to diagnose the issues, but this was sometimes fixed for a while when a restart was performed.
I finally got a technician out to look at it; he saw the intermittent problem and confidently stated that that sort of pixelation is almost always caused by poor connections at the ends or RG-6 runs. He replaced a few connections he found to be faulty (both by measuring equipment and visual inspection of the terminations. The problem seemed totally fixed for about a week, but then came back with a vengeance. About that time I also noticed that my internet connection, which had seemed fine before, intermittently slowed way down, sometimes to such an extent as to drop streaming programs or prevent pages from loading on my computer for many seconds. Then the connection would be fine again for at least an hour, then the problem would repeat.
This time I undertook self help. I remembered that one of the connections the technician had not touched, since it involved a clearly modified wall plastic wall plate which once contained just an RG-6 connection, but now houses both an RG-6 and ethernet connection, had a bit of a loose coax connection since it lacked a nut on one side of the wall plate. When I looked closely at that female-to-female connector, the threads showed sign of wear and/or cross threading. I went to Ace Hardware and purchased some new Monster female-to-female coax connectors, replaced that connector and created a very solid connection from the RG-6 behind the wall to the RG-6 on the room side of the wall by cinching up the nuts on both sides of the wall plate. This RG-6 cable came from the cable service entrance and then, via a Comcast/Xfinity splitter, fed both my TV cable box and my modem/router. Thus it was probably a key connection for both my TV and internet service.
Bingo, big time! The intermittent internet went away, as did all pixelation of my TV picture. The TV pictures also now have greater detail, color saturation, and 3-D image quality.
But the best part has been the uptick in the sound quality from my Sanders 10e speakers. More solid bass, yet more three-dimensionality of staging, more solid and stable imaging, more high frequency smoothness, and even less high frequency "trash" yielding a yet clearer, more detailed, and seemingly lower in distortion presentation. Not a "just noticeable difference," at least not to me. This was a significant sonic uptick across the board.
All this was the result of replacing a single coax-to-coax connector, a $3 part.
Even when my "1 GB" Xfinity internet service was intermittently having problems, when all seemed fine it regularly showed speeds of 700 mbps or more via Wi-Fi in my listening room, and 900 mbps or better via the ethernet connections used by my Lumin X1 and Roon Nucleus+. In the analytic graphs from, for example, SpeedCheck, the consistency of the download and upload speeds was not as exemplary as they are now. Now, after the fix, I regularly get consistency rated at 99% or better on both download and upload speeds. Before the fix, the consistency ranged from high 80s to high 90s from test to test.
Maybe there is test equipment which can reliable show deterioration of your wiring connections before problems become obvious. Barring that, I would say that big hints are when neither the self-testing apps you can use via your smartphone nor your ISP can reliably communicate with your cable boxes or router/modem. The Xfinity support person would say something like, "I can't seem to connect with your device to run a diagnosis," or "your device seems to be showing some errors." It seems to me that if your ISP CAN reliably communicate with your devices, your network is probably in good shape, at least up through your modem/router.
