Sound Quality - Rule 5: Use Ethernet between Core and Output. Really?

[ogs]

@Antonio_Bendezu

“sound quality” would include notions like dynamic agility, soundstage size/dimension, tonality, detail, imaging, etc. The other way the term “sound quality” gets used here, especially by the Roon staff, encompasses more obvious problems/issues, such as drop-outs, stuttering, etc

Very good observation @Antonio_Bendezu! Drop-outs and stuttering has nothing to do with sound quality. Those are transfer errors of some kind. Sound quality is, as you say, soundstage, tonality, detail, imaging, etc.

[Antonio_Bendezu]

I’ve been watching John Darko’s YouTube videos. He reports wifi sounding better than ethernet in some devices he tests, and ethernet sounding better than wifi in others. In audio, it’s wise advice: listen for yourself - there are no rules.

My wifi has always failed to perform well enough to even do a sound quality comparison between wifi and ethernet, using any of the devices I’ve had in the system (Squeezebox Touch, NUC, laptop, Raspberry Pi). Then again, I’ve never really tried to optimize my wifi…

[James_I (The truth is out there but not necessarily here)]

I use a crossover cable. No switch. Dedicated connection.

[Speed_Racer (Threatened Dinosaur)]

You probably don’t need the crossover cable…

[QuinnT (BANNED)]

Hardwired ethernet cable for me, I did consider wifi before I had the Google wifi, it was terrible, music dropoffs all the time and it drove me crazy.

Now we have the wifi mesh technology, so maybe I can try wifi again to see if it is OK this time.

[Jeremy_Jones]

Sure you should try again, now that you have mesh. I’ve been using an Orbi system for a couple of years. I honestly can’t hear any sound quality advantage with Ethernet and I never get drop-outs. It may even be worse but the difference either way would be half of nothing.