2. digital
  3. 180043-103897

Router for Audio Streaming

I have been streaming Pandora, Spotify and Qobuz through a wifi network streamer from a Netgear AC1750 R6400v2 router with no sound quality complaints.

Recently a router firmware update failed (a known issue with these) and as a result it is no longer accessible for administration.  It still seems to perform ok and accepts new devices however the network settings are "frozen" and I am unable to view device IP addresses or traffic, neither via desktop browser nor via the Nighthawk app.

I will try a factory reset but have read that quite often this does not work in these situations, so I started investigating getting a new router to be able to pull the trigger quickly if needed.

I heard/read that routers can make a difference in sound quality, beyond just being able to keep up with streaming with no buffering.  I'm wondering what router experience and recommendations folks have here for reliable audio streaming with superior sound quality at a reasonable price.

Thanks!

yoramguy1
soix
9,799 posts
 

What’s the rest of your gear?

yoramguy1 OP
69 posts
 

Thank you, @yage !  I ran the 'netstat -s' command and I see a bunch of lines in the TCP section but no '... discarded for bad checksum'.  What segment of time does this command cover?

For whatever it's worth, in the UTP section I get:

    396308 datagrams received
        0 with incomplete header
        0 with bad data length field
        0 with bad checksum
        1 with no checksum
        330384 checksummed in software
            246184 datagrams (53642392 bytes) over IPv4
            84200 datagrams (18592713 bytes) over IPv6
        351 dropped due to no socket
        80576 broadcast/multicast datagrams undelivered
        0 time multicast source filter matched
        36642 dropped due to full socket buffers
        0 not for hashed pcb
        278739 delivered
    130000 datagrams output
        138955 checksummed in software
            107355 datagrams (38385652 bytes) over IPv4
            31600 datagrams (6833860 bytes) over IPv6

Have no clue what all this means....

Cheers!

yoramguy1 OP
69 posts
 

To @soix :

Magna Mano Ultra LMS streamer
RME ADI-2-DAC FS dac
Sony SCD-XA5400ES CD/SACD player
Thorens TD 166 MkII turntable w/ Shure V15VxMR and JICO stylus

Parallel stereo systems playing together in same room from common source:

System A:
Bryston BP-25 preamp
Bryston 4B SST amp
JBL L150A speakers

System B:
NAD C165BEE preamp (and overall source selector)
NAD C272 amp
Magneplanar MG1.6/QR speakers

Pretty kooky, huh?

elliottbnewcombjr
5,637 posts
 

I would first order a new one from Amazon or Best Buy before I tried a factory reset.

Good, compare, keep or return new one.

Bad, new one at your fingertips!

yage
401 posts
 

@yoramguy1 

It appears those are network stats for UDP (user datagram protocol). It's another protocol that's used in conjunction with IP, usually for applications that don't require reliable data transmission. The TCP section should be the first displayed. You can try the command 'netstat -s | less'. The vertical line before less is the pipe character (hold shift and press the backslash key). You can now scroll through the output with arrow or pgup / pgdn keys. Here's an example of output for the TCP section when I run netstat -s as root on my Mac (output truncated for length):


tcp:
        6094285 packets received
                5166105 packets (3033536317 byte) received in-sequence
                3831 completely duplicate packets (2903268 bytes)
                103 old duplicate packets
                0 received packet dropped due to low memory
                32 packets with some dup. data (11212 bytes duped)
                589 packets received after close
                47 bad resets
                0 discarded for bad checksum

Here's the columns of output of netstat -i for my wi-fi adapter showing Ethernet stats:


Ipkts       Ierrs    Opkts       Oerrs  
6697785     0        6257972     0

Ierrs shows how many errors the wi-fi adapter encountered out of the number under Ipkts received.

 

More to discover