Mesh network versus a simple Wi-Fi extender

I use an orbi mesh network and love it. For audio, I use a direct connection from the router to my node, broken by a fiber connection, which has a huge impact on audio. As for the wifi, portion it’s rock solid, but all my other nodes connect to the backhaul Ethernet  connections on the satellites. Short answer to your question about audio improvement is yes no dropouts. 

Range extenders worked for a few years, but as more devices use the wifi in my home, I started to have drop outs. TP Link power extenders got that fixed for a few years, while the Internet service went from 10 to 50 to 350 GHz, but drop outs returned.   So I got the  TP Link AV2000 Powerline extenders. Problem solved, for a while I guess.

Concerning sound quality, I hear no difference between Qobuz streaming and same songs locally stored on my Aurender. I also added LHY Switch and DH Ethenet cables. Again, maybe a very small decrease in listening fatigue, but I am not even sure the network is the cause.

I think the Aurender does a great job with network streaming. I don't see any other explanation.

I will take mesh over extender every day 

especially NETGEAR Orbi AX6000 series wifi 6 over everything out there 

@jperry

Thanks for your reply. I guess the only way to find out is try one of these newer routers/extenders if they make any improvements over my long discontinued Apple Extreme router. I have narrowed down my choices to Netgear Orbi Pro AX6000, Amplifi Alien and eero 6+.

@lalitk 

The only thing I can say for sure is my Innuos doesn’t have can’t find server errors anymore. The fix was rebooting everything at least once, which was a real PITA.

The Eero system was very easy to set up for a non-technical person