WiFi to Ethernet -WOW!

Roon Software Discussion
42

Well how’s this for a bit of irony?

Just yesterday we were talking setting a reboot schedule in my router, and sometime during the night when everyone was asleep, my router decided to die. Rebooting, hard rebooting, attempting to reset it back to factory default, nothing would work. You could press buttons and unplug it and re-plug it all day long, and nothing. Lovely.

So this morning at work on my break, I purchased a new one online from Office Depot (right up the street from my house). After work, I went and picked it up, got it home and hooked it ALL up, and the network it better than ever.

And yes, I meant “all” of it, as I purchased the TP-Link Deco M4 AC1200 which consist of three identical units, one of which is wired directly to the modem and in turn is the actual router, then the other two are configured as nodes to create a WiFi mesh around the entire house.

Got all three set up throughout the house in less than 20 minutes. So far, so good. We currently have a Roku streaming YouTube, another Roku running HBO, a Sony PS 4 streaming Netflix, my Raspberry Pi 4 streaming Qobuz, and me online on my laptop and with our Ring doorbell camera running in the background.

Not a single issue with any of it, and in fact, web pages pop up nearly instantly on my laptop now, which it never did before with the old router. If this TP-Link setup and can handle this little stress test, it’ll be a breeze in normal use. And the other nice thing about this setup is, I can add more of these units to the system later on if I want or need to.

Anywho…

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43

it seems that your previous router was an old n model and you paid for an internet access that you could not use at full speed for a long time.

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44

Cabled is always better.

Just as a tip if you are even surfing the web and downloading via WiFi to you router,
If you can plug in a UTP cable and see the performance difference :slight_smile:

Wi-Fi if you are lucky to router 170Mbps
Wired to router 1GB !

45

kabelgebundener Direktanschluß ist immer noch die beste Verbindung. Wi-Fi ist abhängig von vielen Faktoren und deshalb auch anfällig auf Störungen.

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46

Apparently so. It’s a shame because it was a good and expensive unit and only about 2 years old.

47

Yeah, I already know all that. But I’m not going to have cables running all over the place. Can’t anyway without going in the attic and drilling holes in the walls.

48

You’d be surprised what a good cable tech can do… but up to you of course

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49

I can do it myself, and have in the past. This is a rented house.

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50

Yes. For a rented house, MoCA 2.5 could be a good option, assuming most rooms have Cable TV jacks. You might need to upgrade the splitter in your house with one with a bit higher bandwidth: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0831G1X5R/

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51

I honestly don’t know why everyone is directing their responses to me and what I should do. I don’t have any bandwidth problems, no coverage problems or any other issues.

I was merely stating in that post above that my old router died yesterday and I replaced it with the Tp-link mesh system that’s working flawlessly.

Even with the old router I wasn’t having any issues. It just died.

52

I use ethernet for the main music distribution having installed ethernet cabling to all rooms when renovating, but echoing Charles Tidwell, I switched to a TP Link Deco system (M5 in my case) with 6 units for a whole house mesh, and with ethernet backhaul. It was a revelation on the wifi side, giving the best of both worlds. The set up needed to be done carefully, but it has been absolutely trouble free ever since. It met my hopes, and considerably exceeded my (pessimistic) expectations.

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53

I think a lot of people here just have problems with their wifi networks. If you can stream 4k video and play 4k streaming games at low latency you can easily stream some songs over your network. I’m using wifi and have no problems whatsoever.

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54

Lots of people have problems using WIFI to their Roon core. That’s why Roon recommends an ethernet connection. That doesn’t mean everybody who uses WIFI has problems. There is a lot of information being passed back and forth between your router and Roon core.

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55

I think lots of poeple just have problems with their WIFI. There’s no reason at all a properly working 5Ghz network shoudl not be able to handle the Roon data. If they are sending more than what multiple 4k audio streams with surround needs, then something is very wrong. Also, the fact that it works for some (me as an example) should prove that it’s a local environmental problem no?

My network is stressed to hell. Multiple cameras uploading videos. Everyone streaming music and shows. Multiple Zoom and Teams meetings happening. And I listen to Roon wirelessly all day through all of it. I’m not magic. I just have a solid network with low latency, free of interference, etc.

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56

Maybe you should tell Roon to change their recommendation. Maybe interference is one of the major reasons Roon recommends ethernet, IDK. If it doesn’t work well, that’s all that matters I think. I’m glad it works for you.

The OP of this thread seems to think ethernet is WOW.

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57

Wired is obviously the best solution.
Unfortunately I can not get a wired connection to the hifi set, so I depend on Wifi, but found a hybrid solution.

I set up an access point (meshed) and attached a switch to that, as the AP has 1 ethernet port.
In this way, the NUC with Rock and streamer are on the same switch. Music is stored on the NUC, but I could attach a NAS to the switch as well.
This way, only Tidal/Qobuz data will use the Wifi connection (apart from Roon Control of course). Recently instead of the access point, I replaced it with another router, also meshed.
In either setup, I never had any issues with streaming.

Living in Germany, I use the Fritzbox hardware, router models 7590 and 7580. I use another 2 access points model 1750, all meshed. During Covid with a family of 4, we never had any issues regarding bandwith with all streaming or having telcos. We have a 100 Mbit subscription.

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58

Just to be clear, the Roon Core PC is connected directly via CAT6 to the main Tp-Link router which is connected directly to the modem, obviously. After that, everything else in the house is totally wireless, including the Ring doorbell, cameras and Chamberlain garage door opener.

59

It’s the core that should be connected by ethernet. The rest can be WIFI. Of course, there can and will be exceptions.

60

Looks like this is all situation-dependent, not necessarily the norm for everyone. I have a mixture of ethernet and wifi endpoints, all of which work well for streaming music and video. I do think newish network equipment, good modem and router, is vey helpful.

61

I am 60 years old and I strongly believe that hardwired is the way to go. There is a lot less to go wrong between point A and point B when it is connected by copper (when routed correctly).

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