Connecting a streamer via an Ethernet cable

Always use a wired connection and only use wifi when you can’t use a wired connection. 

While I would agree a wired connection is always going to be more stable than WiFi, there can be absolutely no difference in sound quality between a good WiFi connection and wired. Between the inherent reliability of TCP/IP and the buffering built into any streaming device the end result is 0 difference. It’s all 0’s and 1’s with no room for confusion or errors. This goes the same for the argument of upgrading your Ethernet cable, it’s 100’s bull and happy to argue anyone knucklehead on the point.

Wi-fi is a PITA- especially when you're listening to Grumpy Dingo radio and miss the punchline as it cuts out

Here’s some reasons why the bits-are-bits argument is wrong from people that should know.

tl;dr It’s not about the bits. It’s about the jitter and analog noise that gets mixed in with the bits.

Bob Stuart, Meridian Audio"Of course digital bits-are-bits and with due care, each of the three interfaces (USB, Toslink, coaxial) can deliver the same data at approximately the same time. But the audio we hear is analog and real-world devices are subject to a variety of interferences including data-induced jitter, other process-induced jitter, (and) common- and differential-mode electromagnetic noise. In the ideal world, the data are clocked in by and buffered in the DAC (asynchronous mode) and then de-jittered before conversion. In my experience this can never be perfect, just made closer and closer to irrelevance."

Gordon Rankin (introduced the digital audio world to asynchronous USB transfer)when I transfer a file over USB to an external hard drive it doesn’t make transfer errors – the file at the destination is the same as the source – so why should sending digital audio over USB be any different? https://darko.audio/2016/05/gordon-rankin-on-why-usb-audio-quality-varies/

I was advised at World Wide Stereo that it would improve sound so I did run an ethernet cable from my modem to the back of my receiver. It may have improved the sound a little bit. My system is fairly modest (a Yamaha N803 receiver). It may eliminate the signal cutting out also. My run was fairly long so it was a bit of a chore but I'm glad I did it.