A router that will actually sing a beautiful song.
https://www.festoolcanada.com/products/routing/routers
Router for Audio Streaming
I have been streaming Pandora, Spotify and Qobuz through a wifi network streamer from a Netgear AC1750 R6400v2 router with no sound quality complaints.
Recently a router firmware update failed (a known issue with these) and as a result it is no longer accessible for administration. It still seems to perform ok and accepts new devices however the network settings are "frozen" and I am unable to view device IP addresses or traffic, neither via desktop browser nor via the Nighthawk app.
I will try a factory reset but have read that quite often this does not work in these situations, so I started investigating getting a new router to be able to pull the trigger quickly if needed.
I heard/read that routers can make a difference in sound quality, beyond just being able to keep up with streaming with no buffering. I'm wondering what router experience and recommendations folks have here for reliable audio streaming with superior sound quality at a reasonable price.
Thanks!
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- 149 posts total
@yoramguy1, I use a $100 Calix Aspire CAT6 router that was provided by our cable company, and it does its job without any fuss. My point being that you don’t need a fancy router to stream music and watch football at the same time. What you do need to do as @teknorob23 suggested is to isolate your streamer from the network. And to that end I have two moderately priced network switches with their own iFi power supplies in cascade, or in sequence back to back as it were, a decent Ethernet cable between the two switches, and then a passive ENO Streaming filter before the signal ones to my music server. To say that I was skeptical about even trying this type of setup would be a humongous understatement. But taking things slow and going step by step eventually convinced my brain that what it was hearing sounded much better than the music did before. |
@retiredfarmer I actually have a 1400 and a 1010 router. They are the best routers I own, puts my Bosch and my Porter Cables to shame. And you can use an upgraded power cord with them. |
Folks, so much good input!! Thank you all! I will look into most of these suggestions. One point to keep in mind: Bypassing wifi altogether in my situation is not a practical solution. I am pretty much stuck with wifi considering the amount of time, money and effort I am willing to invest in this. I also heard of some issues and mixed results with powerline signal transmission, so, again, I am staying wireless. I have had wireless streaming for years with no signal problems that I am aware of. Of course I don't know what signal quality I'm missing, but my wife and I are quite musically discerning, we also listen to our Thorens/Shure turntable and our Sony ES SACD on the same system, and find our wifi streaming sound with the current streamer and DAC quite good, certainly on par with the CD player. The quest is for a good wifi router solution with obvious streaming and sound quality benefits in case the current Netgear ends up a brick.
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- 149 posts total