Router for Audio Streaming

In my understanding, a digital signal (defined by a stream of binary bits) can be distorted in one of two ways ("failure modes"):  a) a "high bit" or "1" is read as a "low bit" or 0 or vice versa, and b) the timing of the bits is unsteady or fluctuating.

In order to prevent failure mode a) the bit stream includes checksum bits which are verified and in case of error the packet is either corrected or rejected which causes buffering or a drop, not a distortion (amplitude, phase, harmonic) of the sound.

The way to minimize failure mode b), which is also called jitter, is to use good clocks and power supplies.

With careful setup of my wifi network I am not experiencing failure mode a).

The reason for my original post was the potential to minimize failure mode b), the current extent of which I am not able to discern without hard comparison. I am open to practical and cost effective (not pie in the sky) suggestions that target potential jitter with an approach that I can understand.  The battery concept proposed by @romanesq makes some sense in this regard.

Please note that once we move to the DAC and analog stages it's a different story.

Cheers!

Thanks, @yoramguy1 as I think this is a well-accepted power supply issue where different hardware benefits in an audio system.

With the 15v unit, I don’t even run it technically off the battery alone. I have it plugged in and the results are the same.

Oddly, the combo router/modem cost me far less buying the used Motorola. But the benefits are definitely tangible and noticeable in my system. Previously, another Motorola connected to a Richard Gray Power Company RGPC 600 RM Pro Power Conditioner caught my attention with some improvement when I tried connecting it.

But the router connected to an LPS-type battery is better in my system so I go that way first.

This is a couple years old but it may help.

@jerryg123 , thank you. That's a pretty good article.  What I'm missing is an explanation exactly how the power supply and switching affects the audio stream sound quality in the digital stage (switch and streamer).  What is the mechanism.  The signal is still bits, so what happens to them, and what control or error checking, if any, is occurring in this stage.  Anyway thanks again.

Let us know what you try and how it works. Get the latest spec’d wifi and avoid mesh if possible. It’s just wireless feeding wireless so it would be worse. The client side will need to be upgraded if it doesn’t support the latest wifi. Keep in mind that you don’t need to have your wifi AP located where the router is. Buy another AP and locate it as close to your system as you can, You’ll need a wired connection or you’re back to using mesh. All things are possible if you want them badly enough. You might buy or borrow a long ethernet patch cable and run it along the floor just to see what you’re missing. +1 etherregen and +1 to teknorob23’s setup, but I can clearly hear things upstream. I don’t have clock for the ER yet but that is planned.

As to why it works, it must be noise and jitter and multiple types of each.