Wifi vs hardwired for streaming

@vicweast You make some good points (ie points I agree with! ) and some others.

"So, NONE of the network upgrades sold to audiophiles -the audio grade routers/switches blah blah expensive cables blah blah matter one tiny "bit".

On this I fundamentally disagree. And this asertion does not follow from your preceding statements about the the data always arriving as intended.

TRANSLATION: MONEY SPENT FOR MINIMAL (if any) GAIN. 

Disagreed.

FOCUS ON THE LAST PIECE OF CONNECTION THAT ENTERS THE FIRST ACTUAL "AUDIOGRADE" AUDIO DEVICE. 

Agreed, and this could be a fiber media converter or a switch.

Thus: put in a media converter at the last leg if you are using WIRED as it STRIPS all the noise to THAT point. (The converters are the next new challenge, but you are now 90 some odd percent to the goal -- and CLOSER than using silly "audio grade" network components, they are not helping at the end point, at least not in a cost effective manner."

Agreed as just one possible approach.

@zlone @lanx0003 Good posts.

@nigeltheflash well then that's entirely your choice, but I am absolutely certain about this for more reasons than I can go into beyond those I have listed.  My explanation was deliberately complete. 

I'm curious as to your technical or experience-based explanation for your opposing opinion...  If you just want fancy expensive stuff, hey it's your money.  If you have a technical explanation that counters mine: you owe me an explanation. If its just your opinion, you are free to not reply...  peace

@vicweast 

It is simply that a switch installed in exactly the same position as you suggest an FMC should be installed has a similar effect due to the galvanic isolation inherent in the switch circuitry design.

All switches are not the same. An audiophile switch is simply a better (ie. lower noise) one of these, perhaps adding less of its own noise back into the mix, being better shielded than a regular switch. It's all about noise, some choose fiber and an FMC before the streamer, some choose a switch before the streamer. It's absolutely nothing to do with the data in either case, both work, and some work better than others.

Hope this helps.

There’s no way WiFi can best a good cat8 ethernet cable.  1st and foremost is that there’s no dropout in a cable. 2nd is that there’s limited interference from outside sources if you’re using a well shielded cable, such as a cat8, in which each of the 4 pairs is shielded and then covered by an over-all shield (does required also using cat8 couplers). Because I have over 2 dozen competing close-by WiFi stations (SSIDs) next to my house, I dumped all my Cat6 STP and went cat8 and noticed an immediate improvement, even for my 1G connections. My streamer’s performance also drastically improved.

I should to note that I my house has a 10G backbone, a 5GB fios connection, and for its core there's a SonicWall TZ470 2.5GbE firewall, a Zyxel XS1930-10 multi-gig RJ45/SFP switch, and a Dell 8024F SFP-only switch. I run mm fiber between rooms at 1GB and use HP 1820 Office Connect switches as endpoiints.  And, of course, cat8 and mm fiber. For 1 and 10GbE fiber I’m using Finisar 10GbE SFPs and ipolex multi-gig RJ-45 SFPs.