I just spent a bunch of time playing with a bunch of VPN technologies on this thread so that I can access my Roon library, and stream this library remotely, over a VPN, over varied wifi, over great distances, and sometimes, maybe even over LTE, to a Roon remote running on an iPhone 6+.
On the remote side of that configuration, I have an iPhone 6+ talking OpenVPN to my home Linux box running ROCK, ultimately feeding a Chord Hugo 2. Even with all that “mess” in the way, I don’t feel any different about how my Hugo 2/iPhone setup sounds when I’m at home on the same AP vs. remote. The astute will notice, however, that the iPhone offers no wired option, but I still don’t think that’d make a difference in audio quality, given what the Hugo 2 is doing to the data before it plays it.
The issue is not about galvanic isolation and this can be achieved with a iso data coupling adaptor about 90 usd
It can be bought as a cat6 data coupling patch cable or a rj45 jack on one side and a punch down on the other.
Now going back to the topic some makers do claim WiFi is better but these products are not st the level of a custom caps
So one has to wonder it may be fine for it’s lower sound quality.
WiFi streaming has many pit falls that are not just product quality issues. Saturation is a massive issue there are programs you can run that not only see other WiFi but also the channels they are using. This can help to reduce quality issues
Even if a wired network is used it too has traffic issues
An audio network should be on its own networking path
This can be done by using one port of your router and making it dynamic with its own IP so use this port to supply your Audio network switch.
For me I have yet to hear a WiFi that is steady and as good as wired but we all have preferences that is attached to convience
To not be on the rest of your home or apartment
Imagine you’re steaming a movie at the same time your steaming yoir music. The router has to handle all of this at one time. The music and or video suffers it’s why movies have to buffer so imagine your sound in this traffic.
For me I use three pc servers to play music
One is a player pc for roon alone
The second is a CUST nas server synology on a full size Main board. Was using win SER 2016 and AO now using synology hack. It’s also my router and network SW as it has a 4 port lan SW inside.
Third pc is dac pc it plays HQ player out to dac via usb or HB
any can be WiFi
Dac I have two
Msb stack
Lampi gg head dac
WiFi is not close to this wired sound the HB can be steamed to and usb connected and the Msb is also a streamer too it’s a four pc stack. If I use WiFi on Msb it to degrades the sound
Don’t get me wrong I am not saying it’s bad or no one should do it. But for me it clearly is a few steps backwards.
What exactly is going to happen to the sound? Get its clothes dirty?
The network packets either make it or not in time for RAAT.
Airplay, from what I understand, is a synchronous protocol and will in fact insert silence when it’s missing packets, so a sluggish network will in fact alter the bitstream that enters your DAC.
But I am pretty sure this isn’t the case for RAAT.
Nah, 100Mbs gear has plenty of bandwidth for both simultaneously, gig has 10x more! Where are you learning this stuff (rhetorical). If you experience buffering with audio or video you need to fix your network.
Can you stream video and music from the internet simultaneously?
Your internal network in the house probably has 10X the bandwidth of your internet connection.
I don’t just learn or read i do. Your correct in bandwidth a dsd 512 is under 20 but it’s still effects the
Sound. Don’t just go by specs use your ears
If you hear a difference, that’s all that matters, use wired. I use all wired because I am a network guy and cabled my whole house, but I have also used WiFi, enterprise class APs throughout, and it sounds identical to me on my rather resolving system.
Remember to enjoy the music and not get too caught up in trying to convince others anything.
Based on what ever buds my system is a infinity IRS v complelty redone
Point is it matters ona system that can show you
Resolution, details , impact all show this.
And your right it’s jitter except the kind it is.
Timing jitter is not noise like Electrical is or rfi emi is.
What your getting is many forms of noise
I removed my previous post, which consisted of a quote and a reply. I don’t think this conversation will ever be resolved at this pace, in these terms, and at best all we could hope for is a double-blind A-B listening test with empirical results to even have a chance of convincing or educating people.
Someone with the experience, time, equipment, and desire, please do this.
I can tell the difference the moment I press play and nothing happens. I will know immediately that is WiFi. If you invest in a Mesh setup and do the whole belt and braces thing you can reduce those incidents to zero but a length of ethernet cable is cheaper and easier. Not every case is the same but my reason for switching to wired was consistency in performance, not just with Roon but my AV streaming as well.
True but the difference between hearing no music because of a WiFi problem and actually hearing a difference in audio quality during playback is different.
I recall reading numerous articles on ALAC vs FLAC to the point I believed I could hear a difference until I put the two files side by side, inverted one and the sum of which was 0. At which point I stopped getting paranoid about the best way to rip my CD collection and just continued to enjoy my music.
My opinion and it’s just an opinion is that while there may be clear advantages over wired network, dedicated, WiFi, pure silver hand twisted network cable for the last meter from the switch to the endpoint etc. None of these should make the slightest detectable difference to the average music lover.
I love hifi and spend a lot of money on it but I am also a music lover. If I invite someone round to listen to my system I’d rather they bring a bottle of wine rather than an oscilloscope and a packet sniffer.
Actually Mathew it isn’t different. It is precisely the point of the advice. People see that advice and assume it is given with SQ as the driver. The reality is it is given with consistency of the user experience in mind!
If by sound quality they mean user experience then I would agree with you fully. There is no doubt that a stable network in digital transmission is fundamentally key to the user experience.
However I believe rightly or wrongly that this topic was discussing the sound quality (sonic) differences between different network types. From my perspective regardless of the type of network between my core and endpoint the sound quality appears identical.
If I rub a bit of sandpaper over one of my LPs the sound quality is awful but it plays, if I do the same to one of my CDs it either works or it doesn’t. When it works it sounds no different to when it did before but when it doesn’t, it’s broken.
So I’m not disagreeing with you but in the spirit of the topic I do not believe this is about the service working or not in my opinion it’s about the auidable differences between WiFi and wired transmission.
So facts are second class to your ears, and Robert’s system is probably too low quality to show such magic effects of transporting some bits near some more bits. Got it.
