Big issue with my fiber optics internet for Qobuz streaming

@musicfan2349 

Thank you. With all the support I received from several individuals and AI, I am glad to have that issue ironed out in a relatively short time.

Your security precautions are well taken. Since the ISP modem is in bridge mode with Wi-Fi disabled, I have my own router handling firewall, NAT, and DHCP functions, which provides basic protection. Beyond that, with AI’s assistance, I will perform several straightforward steps to strengthen security further, including changing the router’s admin username and password, disabling WPS, disabling remote management and WAN administration, and using encrypted DNS.

You also raised an interesting topic regarding sound quality between wired and Wi-Fi connections. I previously used a 6-ft wired connection with Cat-8 cable and believe that a short, shielded ethernet cable should not act as an antenna that couples noise. Nevertheless, after resolving the Wi-Fi issues, I now feel that more stable Wi-Fi produces slightly better sound quality (or prevents degradation, I should say) — with a more open and richer sound in a nontrivial way. I was concerned about being subjective or imaginative, so I asked my better half to listen as well, and she felt the same.

With the wired connection, I made sure Wi-Fi was turned off to ensure a fair comparison. This finding remains somewhat of a mystery and counterintuitive, but it might be related to my Cat-8 cable not being truly high-end, the LAN port quality, or the need for a higher-quality network switch.

For now, with the issues resolved and the better sound quality ever I have experienced so far, I am going to relax and enjoy my streaming.

@erik_squires 

Thank You! for speeding up my fiber network. I used your suggestion, asked grok how to do it and now my whole home wifii network is faster. I already had google home and nest. Grok even hooked me up to cloud fare IPv6. Don’t yet know how my EVO will react yet but I imagine it will love the faster loading speed too.

Thanks. 

I agree with the poster that people don’t know networking. MTU default is 1500 and should be left alone. I used to set jumbo frames on our enterprise network which is setting MTU to 9000, and this can improve performance.

Use AT&T’s modem then buy your own mesh network from there. My house uses 4 routers so I can get 900Mb from all 5ghz devices anywhere in the house. Plus, if you get mesh routers, always get the wifi 6e or newer routers because of their dedicated backhaul used to talk between each router if they are not wired. Then from each router, I use either the ports on the routers or hook up a 5 or 8 port switch so I can hook up each device by Ethernet, I never use wifi unless if I can’t go wired.

1 more tip, I use a commercial switch in my audio room and it improved the sound quality because this switch  doesn’t use a wall wart, and instead of going out of the router to the streamer, I go thru this switch and it improved the sq.

Only use wifi if you can’t use a wired connection.

I would try streaming TIDAL. If it happens with TIDAL, then it's AT&T.

It's not a DNS issue.   If you had a DNS issue, your PC would be struggling to even get to this site to post.

If you're having dropouts there's a good chance its the local network (which is my hunch).  

Try this on your PC (or Mac) in a browser.   Open your browser, type in play.qobuz.com.   Log in, and just start listening to music on your PC (or laptop whatever you have).   If there is no dropouts, it's not your ISP.   Try that for now and see what happens.  It will take you 5 minutes.