WiFi streaming — streamer vs. through iPad

I tried extender technology with not much success.  I dropped the cash for a Linksys Velop mesh network.  Plugged the Roon server directly into one of the nodes.  Totally stabilized my system and my home network as well.

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

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.