How do I switch from Wi-Fi to Ethernet cables?

You can use a Wi-Fi extender or a mesh system, plug extender or mesh node into the room where your system is located and run an Ethernet cable from the node to your streamer.  Works well. 

Ok, yes, @soix I was wondering about a mesh node or extender. Given that either of those also rely on Wi-Fi it would seem (on the surface) that this wouldn't really accomplish anything. However, I am wondering if a high quality ethernet switch between a mesh node and my streamer could result in better sound quality than just wi-fi to my streamer. 

imaninatural

The problem is that my modem is in the basement and the Bluesound is on a different floor. There is not a clear path for running cable. 

I've had issues like that and been amazed at what a pro installer could do to fish wire. A good electrician or network/alarm system installer can often work wonders. It's worth having one evaluate your situation.

I hear ya, and on the surface it doesn’t make much sense but it works.  Many people here with $$$ streaming setups swear by them.  My guess is that hardwiring the stream prevents the streamer from having to use circuitry to process the Wi-Fi signal over the air, but that’s just a guess on my part.  The good news it’s not all that expensive (in audio terms anyway) to give it a shot and if it doesn’t provide significant improvements just return it.  And yes, I believe inserting a quality switch, optical connection, etc. between the node and streamer could yield further meaningful improvements, but I’m sure someone here who’s actually done this could chime in further with more direct specific info.  The one thing I’ve learned is that with streaming everything matters — and matters A LOT — so there are lots of ways to engineer in further improvements, which is at once exciting and daunting.  Just my $0.02 FWIW, and best of luck.

I had an extender and didnt have much success with it. Went to a mesh setup and solved most of my dropout problems but hard to tell if it made an SQ difference cause I made several other changes that improved my SQ. But I believe it has a roll. My modem is on one end of the house and my rig the other, half dozen sheets of drywall to go through.

I have 3 nodes. The base node connected to router is in direct line of site of node #2 and the 3rd node is hard wired to streamer and is in direct site of #2. Node connected to rig is not in the cabinet with other gear. Its out in the open on the floor.

My neighbor had an extender but was still suffering droputs on his upstairs laptop. Went to a mesh and placed one node on 1st floor directly under the upstairs room where the laptop was used and in direct line of site of the base unit. Problem solved.

You can get a modem that uses a SIM Card, park it right next to your gear.

There’s no good adaptor solution that is better than your current set up.  Besides hiring an electrician to run a new cable for you I encourage you to find a Wifi analyzer for your phone or laptop to check the signal strength and also make sure you are an uncongested channel. Also, use 5GHz instead of 2 GHz if you have a strong enough signal. Fewer people use it and it has better bandwidth.

Keep in mind that audio requires very little bandwidth. A good wifi signal has many times more bandwidth than you’ll need unless you have many other users in the home.

IMO, even if you pour a bunch of money in your wifi, it will not be as stable as a wired connection.  Follow @cleeds advice and get a bid.  

I’ve been using Wifi and carefully analyzing it’s behavior and performance for both audio and video streaming, and I think this is a little unfair:

IMO, even if you pour a bunch of money in your wifi, it will not be as stable as a wired connection.

It really depends on a lot of things, like how congested your wifi neighborhood is, and where exactly your router is and the quality of the signal. I live in the burbs and I can easily do wifi for audio or video here. 4 other competing signals and 4 bars of signal strength. In my San Francisco apartment though, I couldn’t stream anything. :D

I do generally agree that those are the only two options:  Optimize the router channel and placements, and have a hard wire run.  The latter of course is best. :)

I think you want a nice set of wifi6 mesh routers. I have had good luck with ASUS AiMesh equipment.

That not only would solve your concern with the Node but would benefit all other wifi devices you have or may purchase in the future.

There are also power line adapters that plug into the electrical outlet and provide an ethernet connection if you are trying to connect just one specific device that is out of range of your wifi.

your cable company may be able to help your relocate your modem.

Upgrading from wireless to wired is one of the bigger upgrades you can make.

Many try to justify it because wireless is so much more convenient but it can’t support high end streaming.

I will add that my modem is only 15 feet from my system but there is no way to get a wire to the system invisibly because of doorways etc.  I have a multi hundred $ mesh system.  Finally I just ran a test cable across the room to compare wired with a generic ethernet cable to my wireless.  There was such a big difference that I left it across the room until I could run something more permanent.  It shows, but it is worth it.

Jerry

I have a multi hundred $ mesh system.  Finally I just ran a test cable across the room to compare wired with a generic ethernet cable to my wireless.  There was such a big difference that I left it across the room until I could run something more permanent.

@carlsbad2 That is very useful and valuable info Jerry.  Thanks!

Wifi6 can do 1.2Gbps and most home ethernet is 1.0Gbps.

If you are streaming say hi-res Qobuz which is a few hundred kbps typically (max is 9216kbps theoretically for lossless hires but never achieved) and wifi6 does 1200000 kbps then just do the math.

Saying wifi cannot support music streaming is simply false and misleading to those searching out help.

This is a very interesting discussion. My goal is to get the best sound quality from my system. Given that I am currently running my streamer with wi-fi, it seems worth considering the cabling options that many say are superior. I haven't had any problems with wi-fi dropping out, so it's more a curiosity of what I may be unaware that I am missing and optimizing this particular link in the chain.

I don't expect a massive improvement from this, but even slight improvements at this stage are very satisfying. So thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience in this area. Sometimes I feel like I may be chasing my imagination, but it is a good time...so I keep doing it! 

If you do not have wifi drop out then money best spent would be on a better streamer. Innuos Pulse Mini, Matrix Audio I2 to name just a few of the many out there.

Bluesound Node is ok but more of an entry level product. You dipped your toes in the water so now jump in and have some fun.

@calieng +1 on the Asus Ai Mesh system,I have 4 Asus Mesh capable wireless routers and it is the best wireless setup I've had in my home thus far.WAY more powerful/capable than eero and the like. The UI can put a lot of other posters issues to rest as you can see the up-down bit rates and what is connected to the network and assign bitrate priorties to a device.  What I've found is there is no appreciable difference in sound quality between wireless streaming and a wired set up (with devices I own,YMMV) as stated previously you don't need a ton of bandwidth to stream music. The OP would be wise to stick with wifi using the Bluesound Node the added preformance is likely to be not worth the headache because the Bluesound Node has an excellent wireless receiver built in. Some have experienced better results via a Lan connect but in those instances my guess would be the wireless module in the unit is likely an older wireless protacol which is not the case with the Node the real magic depends on what you are feeding the Node into for most mid teir systems much like dacs.

There is a lot of debate regarding this topic if you disagree with me fine, but please lets be adults and civil about it...

@balooo2 yes I have yet to find any issues with the equipment I have owned for wifi versus ethernet. Wifi actually isolates from electrical interference that can be picked up on ethernet cables some times.

I actually tried a Lumin U1 on a $29 Netgear mini travel router powered by the Lumin USB port and there was absolutely no change in sound from hardwiring it with ethernet. The only difference was being able to ditch a long ethernet cable running along the baseboards.

Even old Wifi N can do up to 450Mbps which would allow for a couple hundred Tidal streams at once in theory.....

Digital data transmission is basically an all or nothing proposition. If you don't have dropouts, hiccups, or pops during playback then the audio data is getting from point A to B intact. There's no logical reason for the sound quality to be different whether you're using a wireless or wired connection.

Let's think about this rationally, if wireless transmission were so fragile, why would you use wi-fi to do even more important stuff like banking online? Why would you trust a wireless system to help you navigate on a highway?

Your time and money is more effectively spent on better headphones / speakers and finding well mastered / engineered releases of your favorite recordings.

Digital data transmission is basically an all or nothing proposition. If you don't have dropouts, hiccups, or pops during playback then the audio data is getting from point A to B intact.  There's no logical reason for the sound quality to be different whether you're using a wireless or wired connection.

@yage You’ve obviously very little experience with various streaming setups and have no idea what you’re talking about.  Go back to ASR where you’ll find many friends and disciples. 

I knew that statement of (no need to run a hard line because wireless is just as good) was coming.  I'll get my popcorn🍿 

If you end up running any wire, I would suggest cat out to a fibre media converter, make the long run to where your dac sits with optical fiber, then use another media converter for optical back to ethernet with a very short, shielded cat 6/7/8 cable.

Should not only “clean up” any analog interference from the router side, but also, as optical isn’t affected over that run from electromagnetic interference, you’d end up with a pretty dang clean signal to the dac.

Repeaters halve your available bandwidth by their very nature. Don't do it. Wifi6 supports multiple simultaneous streams and is a very good idea - but all your equipment has to support it. Mesh routers help even out coverage and the best ones support a dedicated backhaul to the master. They can work wonders if you have coverage problems. Contrary to the nay-sayers, wiring up your system will not get you better zeroes and ones. That's simply not how Ethernet works. After you recable with Cat 6 wire, rather than use patch cables of the same Belden wire, they would have you believe that $100 or $200 or more for a 10 ft patch cables will somehow sound better. But none of them can come up with a shred of a theory or facts or data to support their claims. Like Bill Maher says, "I can't prove it, but I know it's true...[insert punchline]". My two cents, as someone who has worked with Ethernet for almost 40 years, put in a good WiFi 6 mesh router setup, put a good network analyzer on your phone and learn how to assign WiFi to unused channels that give you good signal strength. That is the state of the art.

I compared a couple of wi-fi set ups from 1, 5,10 feet to the Node 130, and direct cabling with a 1 meter ethernet cable I had laying around.....there was a definite audible benefit to going wired direct. Even more noticeable was upgrading the cable to a Supra Audio Cat 8 and/or an Audioquest Vodka ethernet cable.

Do I care that there is no technological reason for that to be true? No.

Cat 8 Ethernet cables are best, as shielding is part of the specification. I've had success with DbillionDa as they have 4 shielded foiled twisted pair(F/FTP). They are available up 150ft long, so an electrician might be able to help you find a way to get it to your room.

DbillionDa
 

There is a thing called power line wi-fi adapters, TP-LINK is pioneer and better. Two is needed for one connection, comes in various bandwidth options sizes. Get one pair which more/suitable bandwidth. Moreover performance is defendant on tightness of connecting parts and lesser clutters the better the bandwidth.

This method is next best than drawing new Ethernet line, Try in Pre-loved market as it is cheaper and doesn't age.

I tried hooking up a Matrix Element M2 tonight in my office to Cat6 a few feet from a 10Gbps switch and there was significant pops and crackles coming thru.

Disconnected the cable and used wifi - dead silent.

Well at least I actually tried it. Common knowledge ethernet can introduce electrical noise especially in locations with computers and other electrical gear. Google it sometime.

Enjoy the popcorn.But I'll have a scotch 🥃

If you have cable throughout your house you could run an MOCA ethernet to coax adapter. Had a similar situation of modem on one floor and streamer on another. I had coax running through home so installed MOCA ethernet adapters on each end of coax. Works well.

https://worldwidesupply.net/blog/moca-adapters-beginners-guide/

The OP @imaninatural mentioned a desire to move from wifi to wired. It was not stated what his/her reasons are. Is it in the hope of better audio quality? Or is it because the wifi has hiccups?

Hiccups can probably be mended with a wifi extender or a wifi-mesh setup.

I would not put my hopes up for improved sound quality if there already is enough bandwidth for lossless streams. They will reach your Bluesound Node without error, otherwise your Bluesound would not be able to update it's firmware without error.

I use the TP Link Power Line adapters and they work great .  From the TP Link  AC adapter I run ethernet cable to a TP Link switch.  The switch has two SFP fiber optic ports.   I use a fiber optic media converter for my Vault and another one to my Aurender N200.   Works great, quiet, you would never know i am running an ethernet over AC adapter.

Anyone use two Apple AirPort AirPort Extremes as a WiFi mesh setup? One hardwired to the router & communicating with a second in their audio room? That's what I use with quality cat 8 cable. Wondering what, if any, the limitations are in this type of mesh network?

So many people commenting, so few facts and so little knowledge, really sad.

First, Wi-Fi is wireless Ethernet. So the medium changes. But the same protocol.

Second, properly designed Wi-Fi can support almost all applications, outside multi-gigabit transfers and systems they use. 

Third, Cat8 cables are made for 10G and above, and so far no consumer grade streamer supports those speeds.

Fourth, a fundamental concept of Ethernet is that as long there is stable connection, your data is transferred 100%. 
 

Fifth, streaming from Qobuz, Tidal, and others are actually not streaming, they are download at maximum available speed, and then that song is stored in a cache for future playback. This fact alone 100% invalidates any and all “Ethernet upgrades”.

@fredrik222 

Thanks for this, I am a 100% with you.

The OP says that 'his' wifi has no dropp outs. Therefore, no need to change anything.

BDW, I am using both ways, cable and wifi to hear music from Quobuz. I cannot hear any difference in sound quality.

@yage 

Banking is undoubtedly an important actvivity, but one doesn’t need ultra reliable digital information transferance to achieve it.  Correct perception of sound is a different process, where a few microseconds in timing can affect the architecture of the data read.

  Wired is better, but it’s a matter of degree, not a night and day difference if one has optimized their WiFi setup

@panzrwagn +1

My two cents, as someone who has worked with Ethernet for almost 40 years, put in a good WiFi 6 mesh router setup, put a good network analyzer on your phone and learn how to assign WiFi to unused channels that give you good signal strength. That is the state of the art.

The Asus Ai Mesh system does exactly what you mention above regarding assigning signal strength.

@fredrik222 +1

You are also 100% correct songs are stored in a cache. To prove this if streaming music and someone sitting next to you watching video on an Ipad etc. asks "do you have an internet signal?" and 30 seconds to a minute later your media cuts out also. That is the cache dynamic in play.

 The world is going wireless most new home builders are not even offering Eternet wiring on build playlist anymore because most don’t find value in it. In 5-10 years this will seem like a silly conversation. Most younger folks under 25 don’t even know what Lan is.

 

I can second the recommedation for using powerline ethernet adapters. I have one running from my modem to an adapter plugged into a wall socket. I have 5 streamers of various brands scattered about my house (including the garage) - each plugged into an adpater in a wall socket (even one plugged into a powerstrip). They all stream perfectly with no drops or lags in signal. 

Another poster mentioned TP Link. They are great and so are others. I've learned that you don't have to use the same brand. I use a mix of TP Link, Netgear and Tenda. 

Audiophile purists will likely say sumthin about noise from all the other things using electricity on your circuit. Maybe my ears are defective bcuz everyting sounds just fine to me. 

fredrik222

.... streaming from Qobuz, Tidal, and others are actually not streaming, they are download at maximum available speed, and then that song is stored in a cache ...

No, streaming really is streaming, it's not something else. Qobuz, Tidal, Spotify all use streaming protocols.

@cleeds You and fredrik222 are both correct...The term "Streaming" is a term we’ve all come to understand and accept as movies or audio distributed via the internet or satellite. However streaming in a truer sense is AM FM radio or analog TV. no caches etc. You hit the nail on the head by stating "Qobuz, Tidal, Spotify all use streaming protocols". To crumble up the differences between radio transmission and internet/sat transmission a perfect marketing tool was required hence "Streaming" and to go any deeper would make the average persons head explode to crumble up the differences,not only that the intellectual curiousity isn’t there in the first place.

balooo2

... streaming in a truer sense is AM FM radio or analog TV ...

No, broadcasting is not streaming and downloading is not streaming either. Streaming is a specific protocol. These words have specific meanings, there's no need to redefine them.

A good example of what @balooo2 o2 is referencing can be seen by going to a YouTube video on right clicking on the screen. This pops up a box and then click stats for nerds. This brings up a data box and one of the stats is buffer health. While we all agree that Youtube is streaming, it downloads 10 to 60 seconds of video in the buffer (local memory) and then plays from the buffer. In the very rare event that your computer receives data with an error, the software simply requests that data be resent and fills it into the buffer. I am not sure how Qobuz handless their streaming / downloads but the theory is the same. I have read that for Qobuz a user an adjust the buffer size.  For some services, an entire song on your playlist can be stored locally.

I just moved the modem.  Might be the easiest solution.

Your best bet is to pull your modem out of the basement.  Have your ISP  company move it , thats a horrible spot for Access Point.     If you cannot  do that have someone run Cat6 in the walls to a spot where you can put the Router within the main living area.    The Wifi should be good enough if you pull it from the basement.  You can then also get a switch or use the RJ45 connections on the router to run the cable to the Blue Sound once you move it.

Do not use repeaters they are garbage and never work.  Repeaters half the bandwidth and you will have drop outs.  Even many of the consumer Mesh systems are just fancy repeaters unless they have three radios in the devices to connect. None of that will solve your issue and you might as well just stick with Wifi.  

What router are you using?  is it your providers?  Make sure its the latest as most ISPs provide WiFi6 routers these days.  if not get a Wifi6 router.

@12many Exactly.

@mahler123 

Banking does absolutely require reliable data transmission. As an example, do a search on 'swift financial messaging services'. You'll see just how much reliable data transmission factors into banking.

Even visiting your own bank's website requires reliable networking. Otherwise, you wouldn't see a little locked padlock next to the URL in your browser window. Cryptography would be useless if bits were being changed. Nothing would ever be validated.

You can test this out yourself on Windows using the 'certutil' program on the command line to generate hashes of your audio files. Make a copy of an audio file. Use certutil to generate a SHA256 hash on the original (e.g. 'certutil -hashfile <your_file> sha256'). Then right click on the copy and select Properties. Modify one character of the metadata, e.g. increment the year - if it says 2008 change it to 2009. Apply your changes and run certutil on the copy. The hashes won't match. Another scenario would be to upload a file to Google Drive and download the copy. The hashes wouldn't match if bits were being changed in the process.

Timing issues are minimized because there are multiple buffers for data - from the physical network interface card, to the operating system, and finally at the application level (i.e. the music player software). For example, I use moOde and the playback buffer is 4 MB. For 192 kHz / 24 bit PCM audio, that's almost 4 seconds worth of music.

Besides, I think many audiophiles would be surprised at what jitter actually sounds like. Here's a link to a website that gives you several examples with a pure 1 kHz tone and then with music - http://www.sereneaudio.com/blog/what-does-jitter-sound-like. There's also this - http://archimago.blogspot.com/2018/08/demo-musings-lets-listen-to-some-jitter.html.

I use power line adapter. Google it.

 https://www.howtogeek.com/210895/how-to-easily-extend-your-home-network-with-powerline-networking/

Plus 1 for the Powerline adapter.

Had mine a couple years now and it’s solid as a rock.

NETGEAR Powerline adapter Kit, 2000 Mbps Wall-plug, 2 Gigabit Ethernet Ports with Passthrough + Extra Outlet (PLP2000-100PAS) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0778Y6K6N?ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_dp_3PP9TGBV3EGDQQ9STFCK

I use power line adapter. Google it.

 https://www.howtogeek.com/210895/how-to-easily-extend-your-home-network-with-powerline-networking/

Please don't take what I say as gospel, it is merely my experience.

Several have extolled the Asus Ai Mesh system and for what I have found is good reason: It works. It is easy to set up and tune and provides excellent coverage. We have one base router and two extenders. The router is upstairs in my office as I spend a lot of time there and it's easy to cycle the power on the network should I need to reset anything. It's also easy to log into the nodes via my PC or the app on my phone for firmware upgrades.

One extender is in my wife's office. It supports her work PC, her VOIP phone and coverage out to our gazebo. Makes it easy to stream music out there or control my BBQ smoker via wifi. 😉

The other extender is in our living room. It supports my Bluesound Node2 and sits across the room from the hifi. Note: Any wifi appliance will be "noisy" and can upset sensitive stereo gear. My CJ phono preamp was unusable! So the extender was moved and lives in a bookcase about 15' away then I ran Cat8 to the Node. I also shut off the LEDs on that node. No need to have them on. Voila! Clean, dependable streaming. No drilling. No one drilling holes, etc.

Some may denigrate using ANY wifi at all however consider this: Think about where the signal is coming from. Where on the planet is the music server originating and how many hundreds (thousands?) of hops between switches, etc. has it had to make before it reaches you?? 

Happy listening.

In other news members of the Audiogon forums have petitioned Elon Musk to extend Cat 8 cables from Starlink satellites to the surface of the earth as they are extremely concerned with signal quality over the air.

@musicfan2349 +1

To anyone interested in the Asus Ai Mesh system an "Extender" is any Asus wireless router that has a "Ai Mesh" designation (which is almost all the new Asus wireless routers).So don't be thrown off by that... What I also like about the Ai mesh system is you can buy a inexpensive Asus router with the Ai system capabilty and add it to a more capable unit or use it a stand alone down the line truly mix and match if you like. I've encountered some folk who are under the impression wireless Wifi and a mesh system are two different things they are not, mesh is simply daisy chaining a wireless signal.

balooo2

I've encountered some folk who are under the impression wireless Wifi and a mesh system are two different things they are not,

Huh? All wifi is wireless. Many wifi networks are not mesh so yes, they can be two different things.