For some reason I can’t get a clear answer to this searching the forums.
I cannot wire connect a NUC/Nucleus to my router due to physical constraints. If I got a satellite that wifi connects to the main router and then ethernet connected the NUC/NUCLEUS to the satellite and ethernet connected the satellite to my DAC, does that work?
Yes it does. A well integrated WiFi access point hard wired to the core machine should work OK (it did for me). A strong WiFi signal is important obviously but the one I used had a throughput of 300Mb/s which is more than fast enough for multiple audio streams. The only issue is WiFi is simplex working while Ethernet is full duplex.
Hey @JazzBo, thank you for your question! Our help article on Best Networking Practices has some recommendations that may be helpful to you - please take a look!
I think you will still have an issue.
If your wifi router and the wifi satellite are only connected via wifi, you will never exceed the wifi rate limit. If they are connected via cat5/6 you will get faster speeds. Wifi will still only push 11Mb/s MAX though. It sounds like getting a hard wire there will be a problem.
My $0.02
11Mbps was the max rate for 802.11b, but that’s old technology now (released in September 1999). More recent standards are a lot faster:
See here for further details.
What! Only with a very ancient router and/or device. WiFi can easily do 500-1000 Mbps these days.
Mesh routers these days are quite fast. Especially the tri-band mesh systems have a dedicated wireless backhaul between the units. I get over 300 mbps from my satellite, which 12x more than what is needed 4K video. Even the highest res audio does not need anywhere close to that bandwidth. Near the main router I get 460Mbps, which is very close to the 480Mbps internet service I have.
I appreciate the correction.
Thank you.
This scenario is good because you have both your core and endpoint connected to the same satellite, essentially they have a wired connection to each other. The core will still use WiFi to reach out to Roon cloud servers and to stream music from Tidal/Qobuz. Roon controllers (iPhone, iPad, etc) to talk to the core over WiFi.
I think it should be good assuming you have a good WiFi Mesh system. The better ones have a dedicated “backhaul” WiFi channel.
Which model of router/satellite do you have?
Orbi by Netgear. I have been very happy with their performance the past year on my google fiber.
I have a similar setup.
My Rock and most endpoints are connected to a Ethernet switch connected to a satellite amplify alien.
My router is connected to another amplify alien.
The two aliens connect over WIFi.
It all seems to work well. I’d wire if I could - but not practical for now.
It may be ok. Just make sure you are at reasonably modern WiFi speeds, and that you do not do things like play high-rate content over a network share and then raw to a networked endpoint. You will stress the WiFi a lot if you do that, not only because of bandwidth but also because of the simplex nature of WiFi.
Update: I moved my Orbi satellite into my music room and plugged my MacMini M1 into the satellite via ethernet. Then plugged the satellite to my Mytek Brooklyn Bridge DAC via ethernet and viola no problems. Next step will be the figure out if the upgrade to a dedicated NUC is worth it. Thanks all.
