The speeds of the faster mesh systems are reputed to be 10-mbit Ethernet or better. The better area coverage of a mesh system would solve a few connectivity problems, but more than anything else, would support higher bit rate transfers which I do not currently have. Having a transceiver close to my audio system wouldn’t be optimum, but I can use a CAT-5 cable to add some buffer distance.
Has anyone tried WiFi 6 in place of Ethernet? What was the result?
I have the Orbi 6 RBK752 and rock solid so far. NUC connected to the satellite via Ethernet. Two RPi 4s via WiFi. Qobuz exclusively. I only briefly played with DSD256 upsampling and couldn’t tell a difference, but worked flawlessly.
DSD 256 takes about 25 Mbps to transfer with some headroom. Your current Ethernet/wireless setup isn’t that fast? You certainly don’t need WiFi 6 to transfer music files.
The motivation to upgrade the wireless system is not strictly related to audio. Phones, tablets, etc. struggle with the current poor connection. We have fiber optic service to the house and the wireless feed is currently from the built-in capabilities of the modem the service provider requires us to use. Download speeds for a connection directly wired to the modem is usually 600MBPS or faster. I just ran Speed Test on the wireless from my tablet and it is 10MBPS.
All of my music is CD-based and has been ripped to AIFF. Playing the native bit-rate across wireless works fine. Hi-def files are unlistenable because of dropouts. Using a service like Qobuz to stream hi-bit rate music would also be a nice to have.
Your feedback is appreciated.
Only running one wireless streamer that is fed by a NAS using the wireless built into the cable modem. Wired connections are fast. Wireless is currently not.
The Orbi 6 is the system I’m considering, so I really appreciate your feedback! Thank you.
I have built a Wifi6 Mesh network, making use of Asus ZenWiFi AX (XT8) appliances.
All my wifi endpoints are now communicating at speeds > 80Mbps, even at the worst places in my home.
My internet speed offered by my service provider is about 100Mbps.
I still run a CAT5 ethernet network with 1GBps switches. The mesh network is doing duty as backup for my ‘Cat 5’ backbone to the attic, as I cannot reach that cable anymore (pulling a new cable using the old one would be exteremly risky).
Each Zenwifi router has a builtin switch so Ihave some devices connected directly via ethernet as well.
Overall very happy with the solution. I have considered the Orbi 6 as well, but price difference was too big.
Dirk
Netgear RBK 853 , very fast and trouble free.
No WiFi 6 and I have very good speeds, with my Ubiquity APs. Speeds for most things are not the problem though it’s the lack of full duplex which WiFi 6 does solve.
OFDMA allows an 802.11ax access point to service multiple client devices simultaneously. Regardless of how many clients are doing the OFDMA thing with a given access point, each AP<->client interaction is still half-duplex.
Just to expand on the above posts, full duplex means that you can send data both ways at the same time, like a telephone connection where you can talk over each other. Half duplex means one way communication, like a radio connection where you have to say “over” to signify the other person can speak.
Wi-fi is half duplex and Ethernet is full duplex. This makes a difference to your Roon architecture and is an important reason why your Core should have an Ethernet/USB connection to stored music and the Internet. Controls, of course, can use Wi-fi. Outputs can be Wi-fi, but may have limitations due to bandwidth, which is where Wi-fi 6 might assist.
That is good information for us all.
Well put and nicely laid out.
I read a few early articles where it says it is full duplex which is why I mentioned it, but it looks like it’s not after reading up kore as others have now mentioned, looks to be some confusion and contradiction on exactly what it supports out there.
I recently upgraded from the original eero Pro to the eero 6 Pro. Both with three units. Much better coverage out into the yard for playing Roon music to iPhone for yard work. Some speed increase with iPhones inside the house, but not really that noticeable. For Roon I have hard wired Cat 5 to Sonore Ultra Rendus in three rooms of the house.
I am running the same Asus ZenWiFi AX devices. Having three boxes to cover the complete house. Internet speed is 1 Giga (from Friday, 14th of May it will be 10 Giga). WiFi is between 400 and 600 Mb (externel). That is quite ok.
I will never run my Stereo-Set with WiFi. It is and it will be connected by Gigabit-Ethernet-cable.
802.11 doesn’t support collision detection so full duplex would be a nightmare (to put it mildly)
WiFi is rubbish but it’s just a case of finding the least awful implementation of it.
No matter what anyone says WiFi 6 (802.11ax) is not full duplex, it just uses a clever method to ‘nearly’ emulate it.
It takes just a short moment to speed up when I start a performance meausuring tool. That is no problem with an Ipad or notebook surfing or downloading a file. But Ih do not know what it will cause if Wifi 6 is used to play music, esp. 24/192.
Roon downloads the song file to a cache before playing so in theory wifi performance is not one of the most important factors (beyond providing sufficient bandwidth and access availability)
Roon creates a lot of ‘chatter’ which isn’t great over WiFi, 802.11ax will manage this monumentally better via a thing called OFDMA (it’s complicated but manages data tx and radio freqs/channels much better)
If I had to run Roon over WiFi at home I’d be looking at a SoHo AP rather than the home products.
What do you think of PakEdge?
Never heard of it, presume it’s a US thing.
