Wireless vs. Ethernet for Streaming
We live out in the country and we have just recently been able to upgrade our wireless service to something approaching "civilized." (Our speed tests range from 70-300 Mbps, from a TMobile cell tower via the ether.) Our house is rather long and spread out, so I installed a Google Nest mesh network, and we now have a strong wifi signal, even in the far corners of the house.
I want to start streaming high resolution music from Qobuzz. I have measured the latency of my wifi signal and it's strong--latency runs between 6 and 12 ms at my stereo. But everything I read online says that streaming requires an ethernet connection. Unfortunately ethernet is problematic here, simply because it would require a run of 140' from my main router. (The mesh nodes do not have an ethernet port.)
My current digital setup consists of a Bryston BDP-2 that feeds digits to a Bryston BDA-2 D/A converter. I have ripped all of my cds onto a hard drive that is connected to the BDP-2 via a USB port. I control the BDP-2 with my laptop via a Bryston wifi USB dongle.
If I can indeed use wifi to harvest digits from the ether I am tempted to purchase Bryston's new(ish) BR-20 preamp/DAC/digital source combo. They recommend ethernet for streaming but offer several accessory USB ports.
What is your experience/opinion regarding wifi vs. ethernet? How would a long run of ethernet compare to our wifi setup? Is it even realistic to expect to play high resolution music over wifi?
Thanks in advance for any replies.
My router is upstairs and connected to a Google MESH network that services an Ayre QX-5 Twenty upstairs and an ultraRendu downstairs that sends USB to an Ayre QB-9 DSD. The QB-9 displays 192 for files that Roon shows as 192/24. I’ll be connecting the QX-5 directly to Ethernet by replacing the MESH node with an Ethernet switch, but I don’t expect to hear any difference. db |
@dbphd I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts after going hard wired. |
I've got just a regular old Comcast Modem/Streamer and I use it for streaming music and video into my system in the next room - I live in an apartment building downtown and I've not had issues with any kind of streaming through that; the signal does not have drop-outs. I'm still interested in upgrading to a better quality streamer, though... |
I have posted a question in a Google Nest forum asking if it's possible to add a second router to a mesh network. My current network consists of one Nest router (placed at the incoming internet box) and two Nest points. If I can add another Nest Router I think I can use it's ethernet port to feed the streamer. |
