Router for Audio Streaming

@brunomarcs , sorry for encroaching on your lofty audio forum.

I think I made it very clear what my parameters, constraints and reasoning are. And I received a wide range of very good advice here, both wifi and wired.

There is more than one way to skin a cat, even in audio. Even in audio, as in life, there are tradeoffs. I am looking for the best solution within constraints, not the absolute best solution in the universe at any cost or effort or side effects.

The audio world is full of many approaches and solutions in a wide range of cost and complexity. It is also full of myths and dogma.

Even with my doctor and lawyer I am always listening and evaluating very carefully but am not obligated to accept their advice. So let’s relax a bit.

Cheers.

Destination Overload: Destination socket buffers can become full because of an application's inability to drain data from them in a timely fashion, potentially because of the server being overwhelmed.

Well... good news and bad news.

The bad news first: I won't be able to use yet any of the good advice collected here.
The good news:  Contrary to the Netgear horror stories I was able to hard-reset and update my current router and all is well.  So both new routers will be dropped off at Kohl's tomorrow...

I do appreciate all your inputs and will refer to them again when the time comes to replace the router.  And to all the wifi skeptics (and believers):  If any of you happen to pass through upstate SC and have an hour or two to spare, drop me a line here with some advance notice and we will welcome you to our home for a brief (or longer) audition.

Cheers,

Yoram

Even the most basic home router you can buy can EASILY keep up with audio, as long as your provider/cable modem can also keep up.  You do not need anything fancy.  Even the most basic routers can do 100 Mbits/sec which is more than enough for even the highest sampled digital music, as long as you are not sharing the channel with a lot of other devices.

Since you want to use wifi, there are 3 band choices: 2.4G, 5G and 6Gig.  2.4 has the most penetration and as a result the highest RSSI.  5G has better bandwidth but is prone to radar detection requirements, especially if you live any airport or military installation and hence you will be auto channel switching all the time anytime a radar pulse is detected (this is an FCC requirement).  6G is very new and is most likely prone to firmware errors so I would hold off on it.

So probably your best bet is 2.4G band and if you make your streamer the ONLY device on that band, you are likely to get very good response.

@cakyol , thanks.  I have been streaming audio over wifi for over 10 years, more than 3 with the current router.  My streamer requires 2.4GHz.  As I mentioned a few posts up I have around 10 devices on the same network and do not have issues.  Sound quality is on par with, maybe better than my Sony ES CD player (most likely thanks to the DAC). Speedtest is showing regularly 300-350 Mbps download at my Mac over wifi.