Is optical mostly a waste of time versus Ethernet?

A router and a switch are two different components of a network. The router is actually a computer that assigns the IP address to a Mac Address (network card) so that multiple MAC addresses can use the connection at the same time. The switch is a different component that reads the packets destination and sends them to the correct endpoint.

WIFI is a separate component that uses radio frequencies instead of hard wire to transmit and receive ethernet packets. As WIFI is now so prominent it’s built in but you can still purchase routers without WIFI.

https://www.amazon.com/MikroTik-Gigabit-Ethernet-Router-RB760iGS/dp/B07F7HDRKX/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=Non+Wireless+Router&qid=1660763397&sr=8-5

Routers can do a lot of cool things like separate groups of users to share / hide resources from each other for instance creating a departmental printer that can only be used by assigned users or limiting access to the payroll computer only to the payroll department.

Everyone should look at the routers admin pages to see what can be accomplished BUT DON’T MAKE CHANGES UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING AS IT’S EASY TO DOWN THE WHOLE NETWORK WITH A SINGLE SETTING!!!

So maybe a router that is Wi-Fi free should be used to connect all the audio stuff and you can then connect a router with a Wi-Fi daisychained to the first router, because everyone needs Wi-Fi.

Does this seem like a really good idea?

To me the Wi-Fi free router looks like a switch. Maybe connect an audiophile Grade switch directly to the modem and then connect a router to the switch for all those non-audiophile related item. And then connect all the audio equipment stuff to the first switch that is connected to the modem. Does this solve anything?

Of course excluding gear from a router may impair security concern issues.

For us generalists and/or audiophiles not expert in all the technicalities of streaming we have to rely on the designers of streaming equipment. @fredrik222  proposes himself as the expert above all experts, simply ignores designers of the steaming audio equipment audiophiles use to good effect. Many of us have used general service or streaming equipment not designed with audiophile in mind, we've heard improvements in sound quality with specialty equipment, he dismisses our perceptions as faulty. 

For the novice, you can go with ones and zeros or you can go with trust in your senses. The one thing the objectivist can never answer is why we hear things they can't measure,

@sns here is the thing, I am guaranteed the foremost expert on networking on this site. I don’t know a lot about everything, but networking is the one thing I do know, love and have made my life and career off. 
 

Therefore, like I said, confirmation bias is a real thing, and what you are proposing, where you could modify, in your favor, the payload, in real time of encrypted and digitally signed protocols, is a joke. Trillions of bank transactions every single day happen securely just because you cannot do what you think you hear. Money talks, and billions, if not hundreds of billions of dollars move every day on the basis that what you say you hear, cannot under any circumstance happen, ever. 
 

those are the facts. 

@jumia   so, I would skip the “audiophile” switches, and go with a enterprise switch. You can find cheap Cisco, Juniper, or other enterprise grade switches on eBay. 
 

“Audiophile” switches that I have seen actually have no real networking specs, just terms that doesn’t apply to networking at all.