No they are great running on Ethernet backhaul. We tried running them in Mesh mode in my factory where we have 70+ Ubiquity devices and was just not reliable. Ethernet and miles of fibre sorted the problems and they have proven very reliable.
They have proven a good purchase.
We now have 10Gb backhaul on our visitor network (and a DM Pro as well) given that the 1Gb was becoming the bottleneck. Along with some of the newer and faster devices they have made a huge improvement in throughout and number of connected devices compared to the original devices, especially as I make people use a VPN from the visitor zone to the Lan. Hopefully user’s will notice as they spend more time in the office.
In case future Rooners come on here looking to see if their gear of choice will work with Roon, I’d just like to add my experience with the SMSL-su9 DAC unit. Don’t hesitate; it works well. If you are using your desktop or laptop as the core, you may have to futz with it for a bit, and make sure that the streaming bits are going directly to the DAC, and not coming through your onboard soundcard (in my case a Xonar). The soundcard will give you many difficulties, not the least of which are the limitations of the card and the difficulty in finding and changing the settings. Have patience and don’t be worried if you have to turn your unit, Roon software, or computer off a few times. The driver didn’t want to upload for me at first, and I had to erase the first one and do it again. On the other hand, the sound is crystal, rich, and fast. PrAT is satisfying. I use the SMSL to feed a Flux headphone amp, which is also known for a meatier presentation, and the combo is fantastic. I have found that the best sounding settings are to default Roon to prefer MQA and to play all non-MQA material in DSD (in my case, 128 with CLAN 7). For my setup and Senn HD650 headphones, this combo gets me closest to a consistently clean and rich sound. I also highly recommend using the Oratory1990 settings in your parametric eq to bring balance to any shortcomings in the bandwidth of your cans. Finding and saving such a quality setting that works for all recordings sets you up. You can noodle with EQ for the fun of it, but you always have that pure setting to fallback on. Finally, with MQA, let Roon do the first unfold so that you can adjust your equalizer on mastered material. You can set this up in Roon software by selecting your device and making the SMSL the “renderer,” and not the decoder. Why, you may ask? Because even the best amps and cans have shortcomings, and you want to use eq settings to get the best from the recordings. Again, SMSL-su9 is fantastic, and you will appreciate the finesse and quality of the MQA. You will also enjoy listening to non-MQA music in DSD7, as the quality comes in a close second to MQA, to my ears.
There is no doubt it sounds good leaving with no upsampling. Every level of stream sampling on the unit is very well done. I have lived most of my life without doing it, so the shiny-new-thing syndrome is probably part of the reason, but I do actually distract myself by how carefully I listen to things. So I’m hearing something more organic and smooth in the dsd, even if the technology is far from organic and smooth!