Wi-fi or cabled

Hi all,

I’ve just added a MS200 to my setup to get a better signal path to my DSPs; right now I have it working well over wi-fi with the Roon server in a different room and an the MS200 wired to an Airport Express.

Would there be any benefit to having the Roon server and the MS200 wired to the same router thereby avoiding wi-fi in the signal path?

Thanks.

I’ve tested this a few times a while back and concluded that the result can be a bit variable. If the wifi puts any kind of issue on the stream then I found that the zone might stutter or at worst drop of the network at random times. Sooloos zones weren’t originally designed to handle any flaky wifi scenarios.
You have to consider if you have others in the house hammering the wifi at the same time you are streaming tunes from the server.
Keep in mind that you stream to the server from NAS, decode in server and then send onto the zone.
V163 of zone firmware may have helped with that since I last tested this. With server wired you will get solid performance. Then just use a remote on wifi.

Not Meridian specific but leaving aside network congestion issues, Mr Wang of Auralic regards wireless as the best way to get data to a streamer because it guarantees complete galvanic isolation from all computers, NAS, routers etc. Ethernet data conductors are transformer coupled, but the shields are not. His opinion is not universally shared, some at CA prefer wired. I don’t think there is a clear consensus and the preference for one over the other doesn’t seem to be associated with particular gear. Some (including Chris) have said they can’t hear a difference between Wi-Fi and ethernet (router to Aries).

If you are in a position to compare and let us know the results I would be very interested to know how you hear it.

Ditch the Airport Express.

Instead, utilise Devolo AV+ 500 homeplugs. These have integral mains noise suppression. This is the best way to ensure a hard-wired Ethernet connect spanning the entire house.

Been there, got the t-shirt.

I’ve owned a few Squeezeboxes and a Sonos setup, before arriving at Sooloos. As my router is not ideally located, I have used homeplug and WiFi solutions – all were error prone sooner or later. It was not until I finally broke down and had ethernet cabling installed to my living room and server/core location that everything was 100% stable.

Most WiFi radios built into routers are just not very good and even with a quality WiFi access point (like Apples Airport Extreme), there’s just too many variables in play play to ensure flawless operation all of the time (neighbours installing new gear, DECT phones, etc.).

In this (switched and cabled) setup, Roon has been trouble free since day one, as far as networking/streaming to my MS600 is concerned. I’m deliberately leaving the ‘audio quality’ (hearing things or hearing differences?) can’o’worms closed, but for network stability nothing beats a wired setup.

Nothing more annoying than to finally sit down to listen to some tunes and ending up fixing network troubles instead…

Thanks all; will look to put a mini router near the main rig with the Roon server and MS200 both wired to it.