Ethernet Cable or Not?

Excellent post, as always, from @almarg 

More specifics on your front end and any connections will be helpful.

David_ten,

Thanks, here goes, 

WiFi ——Tunebox 2, TB20 (Budget WiFi receiver) —- generic coax out to a Schiit Modi Multibit—— Morrow Level 4 RCAs —— Anthem Integrated 225.

I’m pretty content, but I perceive the quality varies at times, That’s why I’m curious about a hard wired connection to my router.

Other things it could be;

i plug my equipment directly into a wall outlet, so my power quality may vary. 

My Tinnitus varies in intensity. (Three cicadas out of five currently.)

May be all in my head/mood. 

All in all I’m content, but willing to try some simple measures. 

@almarg Thanks, as always for your thoughtful counsel, I’ll pick up a decent Ethernet cable and experiment.

@rego Good point.I’ll gut check my hearing with my GP and follow your cable advice. 

Regards,

gary

OP,

Solid advise so far, I would recommend Supra CAT 8 cable for your trial. Based on my experience, wired connection should yield improved SQ and stability in your system.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Supra-CAT-8-ETHERNET-cable-1-meter-Made-In-Sweden-THE-BEST-FOR-NETWORK-AUDI...

@uncledemp Thanks for the information and additional details.

If I have the correct unit (Tunebox 2 TB20), it appears to be powered by a wall wart via a micro USB cable and is rated at 5V/0.5A

My advice is to invest in a Linear Power Supply (there are many affordable options with cabling included).

I believe you will obtain far better results doing this than parsing the differences between WiFi vs. a LAN cable, in your setup.

In either case Wi-Fi or Ethernet you deliver exactly the same data.  Wi-Fi might have advantage here, separating electrically noisy computer from the DAC, but the question is what happens with the received Wi-Fi data?  When your receiver converts it to S/Pdif serial stream adding timing it also adds jitter (instability of this timing), that might affect timing of the D/A converter (that is often based on the timing of the incoming stream) resulting in basically added noise (jitter=noise).   Coax, that you mentioned might also add to timing instability (affecting shape of transitions).  I don't know how jittery is output of your receiver or how sensitive to jitter is your DAC.  My Wi-Fi receiver (Airport Express) produces small amount of jitter (280ps) but my DAC (Benchmark DAC3) is jitter suppressing.  It seems that Ethernet or USB might be better since DAC clock is independent of incoming data timing, but they tend to, as Al mentioned, inject electrical noise into the DAC, indirectly inducing timing instability of D/A conversions (noisy clock=jitter).  I use WiFi (5GHz) across the room because I don't have any way to run Ethernet cable.  If both sound the same to you - go with Ethernet to avoid possible signal dropouts.  Get shielded Ethernet cable.  If you decide to go with Wi-Fi get dual band router and 5GHz receiver if possible.  Lower band has only 3 independent channels, since each channel is almost 4 channels wide.  5GHz has more channels and less traffic.