This is one of the most confident yet puzzled posts I've ever made.
I didn't intend to walk into the M101 room at this year's Capital Audiofest, but my brother and I were walking by when we were politely accosted by a vaguely European-sounding gentlemen who invited us to "learn why you need my cable." The room wasn't overcrowded so we wandered in and sat down.
Dr. Lubomir Dostal is the owner, inventor, and designer of M101. He handed me a tablet and invited me to pick a piece of music, so I chose something I've listened to hundreds of times: Miles Davis' Flamenco Sketches from Kind of Blue. It sounded very good indeed, with notably excellent tonalities and slightly surprising front-to-back soundstaging. He then said that we'd been listening to "his" cable, the M101 Nova LAN, but that he was going to now switch to a basic good-quality LAN cable. When he did so, the mids and highs were immediately harsher and the soundstage depth collapsed. My brother - a non-audiophile with only a multi-channel tv surround sound system at home - whispered to me that it didn't sound as good as before. Dostal swiched back, and the quality returned. My brother said "Ok, now it sounds really good again." We did the comparison twice and our experience was consistent.
I emailed Dr. Dostal after the show asking him about how his LAN cable might be applied to my system and also posted a similar question on WBF. The digital side of my system consists of a NAD M50.2 digital player/vault connected by ethernet cable to an eero mesh router and by a Hapa Audio Aero Cu S/PDIF cable to my Okto dac8 Stereo. A dedicated Intel NUC runs Roon ROCK and is also connected by ethernet to the eero router. The consistent advice was to try replacing the ethernet cable between the router and the NAD M50.2 with M101's Nova LAN cable.
Dr. Dostal sent me a cable to try out, and it arrived yesterday. Today, I bought it.
I'm not wealthy, but I'm a retired nonprofit CEO and I'm a scientist who's not prone to being easily fooled. And I know about cognitive bias. I did not want the cable to make a difference for me because I didn't want to buy it. But after listening through countless switches between the M101 Nova and the Amazon Basics cable I was using, the difference was so notable (and enjoyable) that I didn't even want to try other audiophile LAN cables.
The overwhelming impact of the Nova cable in my system is enhanced air, space, soundstage depth, and overall clarity. It manages this without harshness or a feeling of gimmickry or that artificial "special effects" sound. I had been primarily listening to my analog side for the past month or so, but my digital collection is now so compelling that I'm listening to music that I'd long ago written off as being too congested or dull.
If you have the chance to listen to the M101 Nova LAN cable, I'd highly recommend you check it out. I don't know why it does what it does, but it's indisputable.
I didn't intend to walk into the M101 room at this year's Capital Audiofest, but my brother and I were walking by when we were politely accosted by a vaguely European-sounding gentlemen who invited us to "learn why you need my cable." The room wasn't overcrowded so we wandered in and sat down.
Dr. Lubomir Dostal is the owner, inventor, and designer of M101. He handed me a tablet and invited me to pick a piece of music, so I chose something I've listened to hundreds of times: Miles Davis' Flamenco Sketches from Kind of Blue. It sounded very good indeed, with notably excellent tonalities and slightly surprising front-to-back soundstaging. He then said that we'd been listening to "his" cable, the M101 Nova LAN, but that he was going to now switch to a basic good-quality LAN cable. When he did so, the mids and highs were immediately harsher and the soundstage depth collapsed. My brother - a non-audiophile with only a multi-channel tv surround sound system at home - whispered to me that it didn't sound as good as before. Dostal swiched back, and the quality returned. My brother said "Ok, now it sounds really good again." We did the comparison twice and our experience was consistent.
I emailed Dr. Dostal after the show asking him about how his LAN cable might be applied to my system and also posted a similar question on WBF. The digital side of my system consists of a NAD M50.2 digital player/vault connected by ethernet cable to an eero mesh router and by a Hapa Audio Aero Cu S/PDIF cable to my Okto dac8 Stereo. A dedicated Intel NUC runs Roon ROCK and is also connected by ethernet to the eero router. The consistent advice was to try replacing the ethernet cable between the router and the NAD M50.2 with M101's Nova LAN cable.
Dr. Dostal sent me a cable to try out, and it arrived yesterday. Today, I bought it.
I'm not wealthy, but I'm a retired nonprofit CEO and I'm a scientist who's not prone to being easily fooled. And I know about cognitive bias. I did not want the cable to make a difference for me because I didn't want to buy it. But after listening through countless switches between the M101 Nova and the Amazon Basics cable I was using, the difference was so notable (and enjoyable) that I didn't even want to try other audiophile LAN cables.
The overwhelming impact of the Nova cable in my system is enhanced air, space, soundstage depth, and overall clarity. It manages this without harshness or a feeling of gimmickry or that artificial "special effects" sound. I had been primarily listening to my analog side for the past month or so, but my digital collection is now so compelling that I'm listening to music that I'd long ago written off as being too congested or dull.
If you have the chance to listen to the M101 Nova LAN cable, I'd highly recommend you check it out. I don't know why it does what it does, but it's indisputable.
Last edited:
