Wireless vs. Ethernet for Streaming


We live out in the country and we have just recently been able to upgrade our wireless service to something approaching "civilized."  (Our speed tests range from 70-300 Mbps, from a TMobile cell tower via the ether.) Our house is rather long and spread out, so I installed a Google Nest mesh network, and we now have a strong wifi signal, even in the far corners of the house.

I want to start streaming high resolution music from Qobuzz.  I have measured the latency of my wifi signal and it's strong--latency runs between 6 and 12 ms at my stereo.  But everything I read online says that streaming requires an ethernet connection.  Unfortunately ethernet is problematic here, simply because it would require a run of 140' from my main router. (The mesh nodes do not have an ethernet port.)

My current digital setup consists of a Bryston BDP-2 that feeds digits to a Bryston BDA-2 D/A converter.  I have ripped all of my cds onto a hard drive that is connected to the BDP-2 via a USB port.  I control the BDP-2 with my laptop via a Bryston wifi USB dongle.

If I can indeed use wifi to harvest digits from the ether I am tempted to purchase Bryston's new(ish) BR-20 preamp/DAC/digital source combo.  They recommend ethernet for streaming but offer several accessory USB ports.

What is your experience/opinion regarding wifi vs. ethernet?  How would a long run of ethernet compare to our wifi setup? Is it even realistic to expect to play high resolution music over wifi?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

discus99

If your device supports WIFI, I don't know that it would be any better.

Some devices don't support WIFI (Lumin streamers, for example).

I suppose it's also possible that a WIFI extender might have a better receiver than a particular device, making a marginal signal into a usable one. 

I have a remote home on a small island. I get internet via radio receivers that ping signals between 50 user members from a very small local internet company. I stream most content just fine but hi res albums via Qobuz will hiccup. 

@discus99 It sounds like you've done your homework!  Your setup looks like it will support wireless music streaming, 70mbs should be more than enough to stream hi-rez selections.

I’ve not seen anyone say that Wifi sounds BETTER than ethernet in any circumstance - does anyone have that experience? So long as all the bits get there, I would think that wifi should "cleanse" any noise riding on the wires, similar to inserting an optical patch in the chain?