Wifi vs ethernet revisited

Good Morning @debrajray ,   I certainly concur that any wifi on the audio LAN can  create noise.  But the Clean Wifi (wifi on the clean network) is designed to have minimal impact by its designer Chris at DeJitterit.  Also, there are no other appliances on it to chat with except my one ipad, so minimal traffic.  I would refer you to DeJitterit to further cull this thought, Chris is great, brilliant and approachable if you are interested.   He helped me get it all set up.  I keep my ipad on this clean network, so there is not much switching back and forth.  Everything else in my home weather wired or not, is on the main LAN.

I think this is simpler that trying to get my Eero wifi to jump over to the clean network every time I want to play / search with Roon.

I also have some Sonos gear, bedroom, bathroom and soundbar, again all on the main network.

I think a lot of people forget how much traffic in a typical home is on their Lan, and it grows continuously.  TV's, Wireless speakers, thermostats, cameras, security, PHONES, and now even kitchen appliances, lighting and even more.

@fastfreight I don't get the need to have ipad on clean side of network. I  use Android tablet getting wifi from the dirty or daisy chained whole house router for my Roon remote, has no problem seeing my server/streamer on clean side.

I also find your differing experience in regard to switches to be par for the course, many differing views and experiences with audiophile switches. I can only say my experience with  a Renolabs switch was inferior to no switch, and I kept things on level playing field using same top quality power cord and Audioquest Vodka ethernet cable. With switch in chain excessive focused images, far too precise image outlines, I strive for more live music presentation in which images blend somewhat on a large sound stage. I've found I can manipulate sound staging/imaging quite easily with my streaming chain, this also with I2S or usb setups which are both optimized. I've theorized this mostly due to differences in implementation of clocks in these devices. Harmonizing all the clocks in streaming devices/chain can be a tricky  thing.

Hello @sns,  Always enjoy hearing from you!  Yes clock harmonization and redundancy is an issue.  It could easily be an argument for combined streamer / DAC where it would obviously be optimized.  Instead, great streamers tend to have upgraded clocking, which we then bypass with USB to get to our even better clock on our DAC or outboard clock.  With my Nadac C and D, USB is the way to go to use the MF clock.  With my Grimm MU1 I like AES into my Tambaqui.

With the clean network / wifi discussion, I think maybe it is the way my DeJitterit switch / modem walls off its clean network, but I can not see anything on this side from my main network, either on wifi or connected macbook.  I believe this is the way this is designed.  In your system, how do you create 'clean side'?

@fastfreight On the clean side router which feeds my custom build server (use two computer setup, streamer is OpticalRendu, the custom build can also act as streamer with usb out, running Euphony operating system on custom build which allows bridged or unbridged modes with Roon) wifi is disabled, this router feeds the second whole house router  via ethernet cable in which wifi is enabled. The entire network within my house is seen by the clean side or first in line router, this allows the Roon remote to communicate with streamers.

As for clocking, few months ago purchased Denafrips Gaia as I wanted to investigate I2S implementation vs usb. Gaia uses OXCO clock with quality power supply for the clock, this vs Femto clocks on both my dacs, this on I2S within dacs which is standard pathway prior to analog conversion, usb clocks on usb boards is an entirely different thing. Note usb and i2s implementation can vary greatly between dacs, various quality clocks and the important power supplies for those clocks. My Musetec 006 has an extremely well implemented custom usb board, this superior to the Amamero board used in prior Musetec 005, my Laiv Harmony has a rather ordinary usb implementation. Anyway both dacs benefited greatly from using the Gaia clock vs internal I2S clock (usb board bypassed completely in this configuration). Difference with this is presentation now nearly indistinguishable from my very nice vinyl setup. Any and all semblance of a digital sound presentation was eliminated, music now flows pretty much exactly like my analog setup.

Some hurdles to overcome with streaming, one is extracting max resolution/transparency, this by paying extreme attention to noise on every single link in streaming chain. Good test for this is to have cd rips on either a streamer hard drive or well implemented NAS, compare exact same recordings, streams and rips should be indistinguishable, and streams in general should be fully immersive as rips.  Once you have this, presentation becomes the issue, clocking key to this, no excuse to have to put up with a digital sound signature. If one has vinyl setup easy to compare, otherwise aural memory and/or sense of relaxation or lack thereof will have to suffice. One other parameter of sound quality I've been able to control via streaming is tonal balance, this with usb and I2S cables, generally silver vs copper.

@fastfreight Thought just occurred to me, you should try eliminating both switches and/or just the Dejitterat and simply daisy chain your whole house wifi to your Verizon modem which if I understand you correctly is also a router, wifi remains disabled in Verizon. You still have your clean side, your Roon remote/ipad will see the entire network including streamers, and you can experiment with no switches, one switch or keep the two switch setup.