Ethernet

Excellent comments by mswale, all of which I agree with and are relevant to my system.

I currently have a whole house wired with Cat5, but to the theater/audio system there are several switches along the way.  I plan to run a Cat6 cable directly from the Wifi 6 MESH router to one switch which will connect to 12 units requiring internet in the theater.    The router  is connected to a good 1 GB modem, 1.2 GB internet service. I have good ceiling access, making this an easy task.

This is a tweak, and I am not expecting a big difference.  Why bother?  This is a simple and inexpensive upgrade which will also be a step towards future proofing the system when I upgrade the internet service, modem and router.

 @hjdca

I purchased a LKS LPS based on your post so thank you for that. I know one could go crazy in filtering. The power supply to the 10Gtek is also a 5v/ ( x 2 of them) I was wondering if there would be any value of getting a second LKS to power the 10Gtek as it has two 5v outs.  The 10Gtek is in the signal path . How does one decide what should be filter and what is ok to use the OEM wall wart ? I agree the noise from the house/modem should be filtered. I guess it comes down to how crazy you want to get with this. Again I appreciate your post. I am always looking for tweeks to make the streaming better. 

Lots of responses here. As someone who has used streaming for a decade here is my advice. 1) Always use ethernet where possible. It’s as close as possible to 100% reliable for transmission path, wifi is not. 2) put all your audio gear on a common switch with 1 connection to your router for internet traffic and DHCP. Doing this keeps your audio gear local traffic off the router so that it’s not competing with your other home electronics for traffic handling and bandwidth. 2nd hand Cisco Catalyst switches are an excellent choice because they are hardened for business networks. I use HQPlayer streaming at DS256/512, can’t do that reliably with wifi