WiFi streaming — streamer vs. through iPad

With a good wireless network really no need to hardwire to an extender. A mesh wifi network should be part of this. An extender just uses a existing wifi network and extends it so really not getting any better speeds than before. I use mesh networks in two locations and fantastic speeds and nil latency. 

If your WiFi is strong, it should not be a problem. Fidelity is the same, WiFi or Ethernet. What is different is that with weak WiFi, one can get dropouts and lost connections.

I have two streamers that have both WiFi and Ethernet, and neither one sounds different via WiFi than it does on Ethernet.

One is an Auralic Aries G1; the other a Raspberry Pi 3 with Allo DigiOne card and external WiFi dongle. The latter I would think to be similar to the iFi unit.

I don’t know if you are considering one, but I did not have good luck with a powerline Ethernet connection, tried and discarded years ago. It would not make a strong, reliable connection.

And yes, for some reason I don’t quite understand, a directly connected tablet has never produced sound for me nearly as good as either of the streamers.

BTW, I don’t use Roon so that’s not an issue.

Even If I didn't have ROON I would plug my streamer directly into the Mesh node.  As mater of fact I have both the ROON server and the Streamer plugged into the Node as I sometimes switch over and listen directly from the Streamer when I want to compare SQ. 

How are you streaming through the iPad? Is that not wifi? I don't get it.

OP, I would just use the same company that makes your router… if Netgear get Netgear… if Linksys get Linksys.

If you later want to improve a bit get an EtherRegen to go in between the extender and the streamer. But good streamers isolate, cashe, and make up for signal deficiencies.