I read that it’s better to go ethernet (and the rest of my Roon system is in fact wired) … but my question is, if when going wifi there are signal issues that result in non-bit-perfect RAAT will Roon tell me that? Will I know or will I only know if I hear something amiss?
thanks,
RAAT uses TCP so, if a packet received contains a bit error, it will be retransmitted - hopefully without the error. This all happens quite quickly so it it usually happens before the buffer in the receiving device is exhausted, you will not hear any degradation in the audio because, even with the errors in individual packets, the stream presented to the endpoint DAC will remain bit perfect.
However, if a lot of packets are retransmitted due to to transmission errors, the endpoint device can exhaust the buffer causing dropouts. If the dropouts occur too frequently then the stream will fail.
You will know if something is wrong because tracks will skip
But a limited number of devices on high quality WiFi, with a Roon Server on Ethernet should work fine
Indeed. Modern WiFi should be good enough for sending the streams to endpoints provided that the WiFi is not being heavily used for other purposes at the same time.
Super those are the answers I was hoping for
So far no issues — except when I discover over my headphone rig that oops, this version was mastered horribly 
and then it’s off to discogs to find a CD from the 1980s 
. I guess of all the shopping hobbies one could engage in, it could be a lot worse.
It will still be bit-perfect (assuming your signal path is bit-perfect, of course). If the connection is too bad and packets are lost, you will get dropouts. And eventually Roon will complain (probably something about "media files loading too slowly). It will not fall back to something that’s not bit-perfect though.