Kubala-Sosna Fascination Ethernet Cables

A digital cable is a transmission line. Done poorly, it forces the DAC to spend its energy correcting for jitter and timing errors that should never have arrived. Done well, it lets the DAC do what it was designed to do — recover the music. Kubala-Sosna offers digital cables in five formats across the line: AES/EBU (DAE) for studio-style balanced digital, S/PDIF coaxial (DCX) for the most common single-ended digital link, USB for direct computer-to-DAC and streamer-to-DAC connections, Ethernet (LAN) for networked playback chains, and a dedicated 50Ω coaxial cable available only at the Realization tier for the most demanding clock and digital links. Each is offered at the tiers where K-S has engineered the cable to a level the digital chain at that price point can actually use.

Fascination is the top of the OptimiZ tier and the most fully featured rung on the entire OptimiZ ladder. It is the only OptimiZ tier offering DIN-RCA and DIN-XLR cables (a serious turntable / Naim-system requirement), Ethernet, and AES/EBU digital all in one tier. The right customer is the listener building a complete K-S loom across analog, digital, and network — without yet stepping into OptimiZ2. The step-up to Temptation is a real architecture change, not an incremental one — that is where OptimiZ2 begins and the line's character takes a noticeable forward step.

Fascination as the Ethernet cable is the K-S line's entry into networked playback at the top of the OptimiZ generation — the configuration for a listener whose streaming chain runs through an audiophile network switch (an Innuos PhoenixNET, an XACT N1, an HzProject LAN Isolator) and into a serious streamer or server. Ethernet is the format where the cable's noise behavior in particular — galvanic isolation, shielding, conductor geometry — directly affects what the streamer hands the DAC. This is the Ethernet cable for the listener building a complete OptimiZ loom across analog, digital, and network without yet stepping into OptimiZ2. The step to Elation! Ethernet is the generational architecture change.

Series: OptimiZ™

Architecture: RevolutionZ™

Configuration options: Ethernet (LAN), CAT-spec engineered for audio use

Termination options: RJ45 (both ends)

Length range: 1.0m to 3.0m in 0.5m increments

Pricing formula: First-meter price plus per-additional-meter rate

Made in USA — Kubala-Sosna Research, East Hanover, NJ

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