Darko on Ethernet vs. WiFi

[woodford]

I have two logitech transporters, and a BS Node 2. in a previous setup, i used one of the transporters in an apartment in NYC, and i conducted listening tests comparing wifi and ethernet. the result was unambiguous (to me)- ethernet was clearly better (i won’t attempt to define what “better” meant to me in this context).

we then moved to a 100 year old house, and i again used ethernet. overtime, i replaced other components in the system, including amp and speakers, and i began to hear a nasty “hash” in the system. i replaced the roon server (new mac mini), moved to NAS from USB attached storage, upgraded to shunyata power cords and power strip, and added fiber converters between the transporter and the rest of the network. of theses tweaks, the biggest difference was the NAS, but the FMC definitely improved the noise.

i was happy, or at least as happy as an audiophile can be.

we then underwent a remodeling project, and i was forced to use wifi…and it sounded fine; no noise, but i did experience an occasional drop out. as part of the work i had a dedicated outlet installed for the audio system, and now with the remodeling done i use ethernet again, but no longer have the FMC in the chain. and it sounds really great.

separately, i have a transporter in another system that has always used wifi. it’s used as a transport with a separate dac. i’ve never had a noise issue. for a while, i tried the Node 2 in that system, also wifi, but went back to the transporter. as a transport, it just sounded “better.”

[RBM (René)]

Bravo.

I’ve been selling off a lot of stuff-I-thought-I-needed lately, keeping the stuff-I-actually-use.

I have played around for six months with my headphone setup (Project Pre Box S2, Mojo, Brooklyn, Meridian Prime, SBooster Linear PSUs, MicroRendu, USBridge) – only to find out that about the only place I did not use my headphones is where my DAC du jour was. I ended up with a DragonFly Red / iPad combo – happiness all over the place. Of course the DFR is not the last word in fidelity, but surprisingly it’s good enough for musical enjoyment away from my listening position.

I learned a few things along the way: I am definitely not a fan of (DSD) upsampling, I mildly prefer MQA over Redbook and I was not overly impressed with linear PSUs. (The SBoosters made little difference in the various permutations of said headphone setup – and no difference whatsoever when connected in my main (all digital) system).

My main set is straightforward (a pair of Meridan DSP5200’s, a Meridian MS200 endpoint and a MiniDSP with Dirac Room Correction). It is 10 years old, limited to 96/24 and hopelessly dated by todays standards – but Meridian’s DSP implementation still holds its own against modern day ultra-high bitrate DACs just fine. If they were to fail beyond repair today, I’d get a replacement pair.

Of all the toys I have played with, the only thing I’ve found indispensable is room correction. I had fun during the ride, but it’s time to get back to the music.

[Robert_Kosara]

Very well said! I think a lot of people also get sucked into chasing after certain things that they hear they must have, like tubes or high-end headphones, or even turntables. I know I did, I bought a Schiit Lyr 3 to play with tubes and some expensive headphones, only to find out that I really don’t like headphones all that much but instead much prefer speakers (especially once I figured out how to position them better).

The whole thing is a learning experience, so it’s important to keep a critical eye on what you’re doing and making sure you’re not just falling victim to confirmation bias – of course that reclocker makes things better, or that USB decrapifier, etc. I think a lot of people are offended by the idea of confirmation bias and think you have to be dumb to fall for it, but it’s a deeply human thing and we’re all affected by it. But being honest with yourself and questioning the things you hear and read can help a lot.

It’s also helps when you realize that you just fooled yourself, that can really open your eyes. When I got into Roon, I bought some high-res tracks to try them out. And man, the high-res version of an album I had heard a few times before did sound a lot better! It was livelier and clearer. Only I realized later that I had made a mistake and had played the Redbook version of it instead. All that liveliness and clarity was just me wanting to hear a difference… I felt like an idiot, but I also learned something about how easy it is to fool myself.

[dabassgoesboomboom]

Thanks for sharing your experiences and observations Anders.

If we trust our own ears we can never be wrong in this fun hobby of ours

It’s great that we can all remain polite too. Far better than the alternative.

[hifi_swlon (Steve)]

Agreed there - we can measure to a phenomenal level of accuracy (Higgs boson anyone). Not that everyone has access to kit, training, knowledge, and the right environment in which to make such measurements of course. But GPS systems for example don’t work because someone thought the timing offsets needed to account for relativity ‘felt right’.

That said our auditory system is also amazing and has evolved over a very long time. It just has to be understood that it’s not a calibrated, precision instrument that always gives the same results 24/7. And can be persuaded to work better when we want it to (or of course when someone’s paying us to say it is.)

[catman]

Well spoken. You have now officially saved me from myself! From now on, count me as your official disciple. Thanks for this terrific and important gospel! Same applies to Robert_Kosara3h too!

[WiWavelength (Andrew J Shepherd)]

That said our auditory system is also amazing and has evolved over a very long time. It just has to be understood that it’s not a calibrated, precision instrument that always gives the same results 24/7. And can be persuaded to work better when we want it to (or of course when someone’s paying us to say it is.)

Since you invoked the Higgs boson, the above must be the Audiophile Uncertainty Principle. Any true audiophile always can hear the difference between two entities under listening test – unless double blind testing or objective measurements are involved.

AJ

[Celts88 (John)]

Rene

Your post is a great example of when over complicating things can take away not improve. In regards to take away this can also mean taking away the enjoyment as much as the SQ, both need to be properly apportioned.

I got my new Antipodes CX the other week and without going too of track it comes with a duel Ethernet option, but no Wi-Fi. Mark Jenkins feels that this is their best option to clean up the incoming signal before outputting a clean(er) signal to the endpoint (DAC or whatever - in my case a Devialet 1000Pro). No doubt the amount of testing, re-testing, experimentation, etc. Antipodes do it was clear to them that this is the best approach. Off course if someone doesn’t have a hard-wired Ethernet house then this option is pretty much curtailed, and back to Wi-Fi.

As a side note (sorry) and going into room correction(ish), my set-up had my gear sitting to the side of my front room (left speaker 0.5m side wall, but right speaker 1.5m from the opposite side wall). Took measurements in REW and big dip in the 60Hz to 80Hz region. So after talking to a few people on Stereonet forum (a good, friendly forum for us Aussies, actually I’m a ‘Scaussie’ - originally born in Scotland, but moved downunder 30 years ago). So after some chatting it was mentioned best to centralise my set-up (speakers equidistant form side walls). So last Sunday spent a good part of the day having to move my TV (75” so not a 2 minute job, as also had to re-do the wall bracket). After a few choice words (&^%$#) shifting everything around I finally got the speakers nearly centred (Left - 92cm, Right - 93cm, Speakers Apart - 216cm), and shifting the Sub over to the left-hand side (was originally on right hand side, but WAF meant moving also) I sat down to take some new REW measurement and Voila the dip has become deeper, and now is from 40Hz to 100Hz . This is a very long-winded way of saying what the norm for most may not always be the best approach for others (really would love to hear more about your room correction story, but that would severely take off track this thread).

Going back to Darko and his article, theirs a few people on Devialetchat feel that Wi-Fi for playing Roon Air is actually better than the standard hard-wired Ethernet (cat amongst pigeons for some on there ). Also the good old ‘KISS’ approach can have as good an outcome for the majority of us Audioph… (I can’t use the full title as I only have limited knowledge in this Hi-Fi ‘Universe’). If your ears say it sounds good then crunching numbers, changing equipment, expending income, and shifting gear doesn’t mean the SQ will improve, but off course it could also (hopefully).

Very sorry for the massive ramble, but your post was a welcome piece of fresh air for me, as in my current life it’s been rather stale recently – thanks again for the wee uplift : +1:

Cheers
John

PS Keep enjoying the music everyone, it is (or certainly should be) the end goal after all, and everything else before is just the rocky roads of the journey to SQ Nirvana (ok, maybe that was just a wee bit over the top )

PPS Having WAF is VERY important too (happy wife, happy life) and I’ve got a very understanding one (love her to bits )

Before Speaker Move

After Speaker Move

[danny2]

All of this stuff is component, system, and implementation specific.

As Darko points out, wifi may usually be worse/noisier, but with the AriesG1 it isn’t (manufacturer claims special low noise wifi implementation).

In my setups using a network to USB renderer (SOtM SMS-100, microredndu, and Bricasti M5) has made an improvement over direct USB to my DAC(s). Powering them with good quality power has also helped. I’ve also found benefit in the past from some of the USB addons (Schiit Wyrd, Uptone Regens), but with my present playback I find no benefit to the USB add-on devices.This is apparently due to a well done USB implementation with galvanic isolation on my present USB input.

The improvements I have found certainly weren’t night and day improvements, but small ones in clarity and “cleanliness” of the result, as it were. The cumulative effect of the upgrades isn’t huge, but it is noticeable.
I’m sure that some of my individual improvements wouldn’t make a difference in some other setups. There isn’t any one universal truth here, and all of our setups/situations are different.

In any case, reducing room effects is certainly a much bigger issue in SQ than PS and source tweaks, and probably even a bigger issue than which electronics you use. If you haven’t done anything to reduce the room influence, do that before spending time and money on the other stuff.

[HBz]

I second my colleague. John is completely right and measuring jitter in a well interpretable way is extremely difficult if not impossible. As fat as digital interfacing is concerned, you might watch my video: https://youtu.be/grzoqEb2KMk