Wi-Fi Limitations and Sample rates...16/44.1


Help me clear something up. I am getting conflicting opinions on whether or not Wi-Fi necessarily limites sample rates to 16/44.1. I have read on Agon and at other sites, that most Wi-Fi routers have a limit of 16/44.1

This is a concern if you had anticipated playing 24/48 (or higher) flack files on your WiFi based server.

I have also read that in no way does Wi-Fi have such limitations. Is there some validity to this matter...in that some "routers" are limited...Wi-Fi in general? If so, how does one determine if their Wi-Fi router has limitations?

Thank you.
2chnlben
PR,

I recall the issue was with certain core programs/components bundled into Windows that dealt specifically with sound, not windows IO functionality in general. It had to do with maintaining throughput with older, slower computers not necessarily designed for high performance A/V.

Don't recall the details nor can I confirm that the problem truly exists, but it makes sense to me that newer OS versions have more refined software components for A/V since that is now a core application area that people buy the computers for.
MP,

Yes, you keep saying it was to do with sound processing and I'm agreeing with you. Networking, and streaming of audio files, has nothing to do with sound processing: apples and oranges.

Any computer can have problems playing audio files if it's trying to run too many processes at once, especially Vista because of the high overhead of the Aero interface and the increased number of security threads. However, I agree with you about recommending Vista for audio playback because MS replaced kmixer with core audio which sounds a lot better. To summarize, If I had to choose an operating system to listen to music on the computer, I'd choose Vista. If I had to choose an operating system to stream music, I'd choose XP or Linux.

I have an 1.6Ghz Atom based nettop computer, running XP, that I use as a music server. I've had it streaming lossless files to six different devices and it doesn't even break a sweat. However, I know it couldn't decode and play five audio files at a time.

You see, were saying the same thing. You say potato and I say potato.......