Wifi is a good solution if you have no neighbours competing for your channels and a strong internal network. In all other instances ethernet or fibre are preferable. Nevertheless great care needs to be taken to suppress RFI/EMI when using ethernet and on fibre the conversion quality at either end is crucial.
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+ on the Mesh suggestions. I been dealing with this for years as modem on one end of tri level and my main unit on the other with many drywall between. First just a modem/router, then dedicated router then extender finally to Mesh. The first mesh node hard wired to modem and in a position to have line of site to the 2nd node down the hall and all the way to other end of house. 3rd node next to main unit and in line of site of 2nd node. Streamer hard wired to 3rd node. Sounds great and is reliable. The only thing I might do if I want to burn more cash is convert it to optical at the main unit but right now Qobuz rivals CD and my vinyl setup. I is a happy camper. |
z32kerber: Why guess? If your streamer supports it, see if packets are being dropped or retried on the WiFi interface, and then plan your strategy based on the data. (for example,
if your router is running Linux under the hood, you may need to log in via ssh.) If necessary, try to improve the performance of your WiFi setup before investing in a mesh router or running Ethernet cable. The simplest first step is to download a phone or PC app such as "WiFi Analyzer" and use it to find a channel with a low access point count. Also, make sure your WiFi router is correctly configured. For example, mine had a "smart" feature that was supposed to automatically direct devices to 2.4 or 5 GHz. I turned it off; it wasn't that smart, and would switch bands fairly randomly, causing my streamer to disconnect. As far as jitter, etc. over WiFi, suffice it to say that people download software (including O/S updates), back up laptops to NAS, edit documents on network storage, etc. via WiFi all the time. I have no problem reliably streaming Hi-Res Qobuz via WiFi. |
My streamer is a MacBook Pro and when I moved from WiFi to either network gigabyte the difference in quobuz was one of the most noticeable upgrades i ever made to date. Two biggest notables are bass and soundstage. It makes sense as WiFi has limitations on the speed and amount of data that you don’t get with a hardwired delivery. My next upgrade on this same line is bringing in fiber through the small green computer solution. I still love vinyl and will not turn this into one of those arguments. Bottom line I love music from any source I can and like some more than others but it is about the music in the end! |
- 49 posts total