Cable vs fiber for audio quality

If you are referring to the conduit your internet service provider uses, any differences would be based on speed (based on your service plan) and reliability, and not whether they use coax or fiber, although fiber can provide faster speeds overall, but those are well above what is required for music streaming.  I found this:

Fiber can comfortably deliver symmetrical gigabit speeds (1 Gbps down and up) to your business. The fastest speed coaxial cables can achieve is typically around 1 Gbps down and 35 Mbps up. However, you're likely to max out at 100-400 Mbps for your download speeds, depending on your provider.

20Mbps

You don’t need a lot of speed to stream music from the internet. You’ll sip just half of a megabit per second from most music streaming services like iHeartRadio, Spotify, and Pandora. Any internet plan with speeds of 10Mbps or more can stream average-quality music.

Some music streaming services like Apple Music and Tidal offer high-definition “lossless” audio, however. These streams can reach just over 9 megabits per second (Mbps). You’ll need an internet plan that’s at least 20Mbps to handle these streams.

To see how much speed you need to stream music from your favorite service, just select it below.

Spotify | YouTube Music | Pandora | Amazon Music | Apple Music | iHeartRadio | SoundCloud | Tidal | Deezer | SiriusXM | TuneIn Radio | LiveXLive | Idagio | Primephonic

vendors speeds chart, updated march 2024

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What is the speed of a wireless network?

The main difference is speed.

Under ideal conditions, 2.4 GHz WiFi will support up to 450 Mbps or 600 Mbps, while 5 GHz Wi-Fi will support up to 1300 Mbps. But be careful! The maximum speed dependent on what wireless standard a router supports — 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n, or 802.11ac.

If you are just asking if there would be an audible difference between fiber and cable to the house, I think the answer is no.

Once they provide fiber to the house into the ONT, will you be using the same RG6 within the house you had before, or will it be a new ethernet cable(s)? or fiber to the modem/router?

The difference in sound will be achieved by the last connection(s) before the streamer, or some have noticed differences by isolating the hifi with a fiber connection into their renderer.

You have the deets on what factors a change in cable platforms may provide for you:

- speed

- reliability

I just changed over to fibre optic service provider  for these reasons ( mostly the latter)

As far as impact on my audio performance goes, there is nil / zippo,/ nada differences in my audio streaming performance in a $50K system,

Fiber has lower latency and jitter with all things being equal. But I doubt you'll be able to detect much of a difference in jitter (who knows what the ISP does to the signal before it hits the fiber network leg). Latency is much more likely to be better. I know it made a big difference in my situation. Even things like Netflix loaded much quicker (I had 1G copper and switched to 1G fiber). And it led me to eventually switching my LAN from copper to single mode fiber. I stream a crap ton of stuff off my media NAS as well my music NAS - both located in my LAN. With copper, it took several seconds to que up a 4K movie. With fiber, it's less than half and probably closer to 1/4 the time. I had a 50' run of copper from router to media area. That makes a difference as well.  

All this is now good to know. My main concern was it would be bright, I can’t do screaming at me bright.

I placed my order to be installed Monday. I know to some this maybe an odd question but will this new modem/router need break in. I owned my modem/router before I started streaming, so never new. 

I wouldn't worry about it. Besides, it's going to be on and in use 24/7 from the moment it is installed, so any theoretical burn-in benefits will take care of themselves pretty quickly.

Q modem “ burn-in” ?
A: nada … not an issue .,,, there was no run-in time on my new modem required from this last week . ( I use “ run-in” instead of “ burn-in’ as a better and more accurate representation of initial use )

If it’s irritating “ brightness” you seek to tame , here’s a list of the sequential journey of what did it for me. I’ve got a high-end streamer/DAC in a high-end 2-channel system . Certain add-on units and tweaks provided necessary audio performance improvements that took everything to the next level

- No change in the modem or the internet provide platform (copper line vs cable vs fibre optical ) had any noticeable impact to me.

Ethernet cables matter. Think high-end silver over copper quality build high-end Ethernet CAT7 cables, with Telegartner connectors. They smoked the run of the mill budget stuff . They DO matter. Think AVANTI AUDIO as what worked for me that bested too AUDIOQUEST in my system and at half the latter price . The digital glare and sibilance was significantly suppressed .
 

Read on

- next …. NETWORK SWITCH & LINEAR POWER SUPPLY:  .,,,, think Silent Angel audiophile network switch with an external quality build linear power supply add-on. I was a big skeptic and a non-believer too,  until I got one and I was surprised how much this duo further

- lowered the background noise and

- further tamed that digitsl “ brightness” “edge” and “glare”.

- YOUR STREAMING EQUIPMENT; $300 does not compete with $3000+ Build quality in both the high-end streamer and its stablemate high-end DAC matters big-time ….. full stop. The brightness / glare etc is progressively suppressed as you go up the food chain, If you need a litmus test, go toddle down to your bricks and Morse store and sequentially audition a bakeoff between sub $300 option against a then against a $$3K -  5K strata option.

- Digital recordings resolution and its bespoke mastering is a wide range outcome option, Think : /192 digital recordings over 16/44.1 in general whenever possible. if properly mastered , top hi-rez are another material step up from 16/44.1 cd rez files.
Depending on the recordings , they can compete with the performance of my very high-end REGA ISIS VALVE cdp/ DAC , and are true contenders and no pretenders

- STREAMING SERVICE PROVIDER : QUBUZ bested TIDAL in my system ….go figger. Who knew?

Unless you are streaming at the highest levels, and you equipment is at SOTA levels, I wouldn't be concerned about the differences between fiber and cable.

B

I don't think there's going to be any audible difference at all.  The quality will depend on your streamer.

Having said that, reliable is better than not.  My normal cable provider is fast/cheap and sometimes goes out for days at a time, so I also have T-mobile as a hot backup for work reasons.  Except in the middle of failover I never even notice the change has happened.  What I do notice is that I no longer have long stretches of time when my Internet is down.