What does your age have to do with anything?
Letās stop with this topic 
The first half of my life has been hardwired, the second half has been wireless/Bluetooth. I have equally experienced both and a physical connection, in my opinion, always works the best. Todayās society settles for convenience and portability over dependable quality.
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Weāre lucky enough to have fast wifi with solid coverage, so we experience zero issues to 6 wireless endpoints from a NUC attached to our modem via ethernet.
Iām pretty sure everyone knows that a physical connection is best.
Having been in IT for quite a few years, Iāve seen pros and cons of both, and thereās definitely a place for both, whether it be business or residential.
Using WiFi isnāt always just about āconvenienceā. Thing such as living in an apartment or renting a house, sometimes going wireless is the only option unless youāre happy having CAT5 cables running up and down the hallways, in and out of doors, etc, etc.
And quite honestly, being good, long time friends with who Iām renting from, they would let me run cables if I really wanted to (they pretty much let us do whatever we want). But this house is on the small side and the modem/router is roughly 30 feet from any part of the house for the most part, so coverage is not an issue, especially with this new mesh setup. The old router even had excellent coverage out in the garage where the garage door is connected via WiFi.
Anywayā¦
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A landline to landline phone call beats any cell phone call, and yes, I still have a landline 
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Continuing to drift off topic, and this may not be the same in the US, but the sound quality of HD 4G calls and WhatsApp over mobile data puts old landline call in the UK to shame. 
Getting back to the subject, I agree with you ā¦ and also the wireless adherents. The issue for me is whether your LAN, wired or wireless is well sorted to minimise problems.
Iām lucky having both CAT5 (installed 25 years ago when we renovated) and a good UniFi wifi with 3 wired access points covering a large (for the UK) brick-built detached house on a large suburban plot. Most of us will face differing wifi issues, as I do, some helpful, some not so, which can get pretty technical to resolve.
The beauty of wired in my experience, is that usually itās just plug and play. I havenāt had any issues with my hardwired Roon gear, but recently a firmware upgrade to the gateway and switch firmware resolved an occasional dropout issue weād experienced watching 4K Netflix on either our Apple TV or Fire TV (both wired).
Isnāt tech just wonderful when it works š¤ø
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I agree going from wireless to wired UTP IS the way to go, many and I mean A Lot of ā¬or $ orĀ£ to spend on this ā¦ a reasonable priced wired option would be Fiberoptic, or Polymere ā¦ and this is a Quantum Leap in sound!
Of Course you donot have to believe. But you better try before you dye ā¦ and man! You keep it this way!
Pricy??? No! Here my expenses.
UTP CAT 7 (50 meters) brand Audioquest (bargain) ā¬280,00
4x RJ45 each ā¬8,95
Tools ā¬ 45,00
Labour friend (good Belgian beer) ā¬ 19,95
Quality?
The sound is very good!!! Satisfied? Yessss
After several months we moved and I am now using Polymere fiber optics
Complete set
The supplier provided me FiberOptic regular Glass and PlasticOptic I listened for several weeks to both, but could not find any discrepancy
Quality?
The sound is PERFECT good staging clarity and definition Satisfied ? Over the MOON and to my humble opinion ROON sounds even much much more better!
A whole story, but I bet if you give it a try, your beloved high-end Audio sound like Super High-end.
Regards Max
@Jazzfan_NJ Agree IMHO Ethernet all the way (if possible). roon ready streamer and or DAC = endgame connectivity. That said, I have a PS-Audio DAC with Bridge (Ethernet card IN) ā¦ then Digital to Digital Converters (DDC) just got better and on that DAC Iām back to COAX. Same with a CHORD Streamer/DAC - Ethernet IN was the best for SQ until streamer tech/DDC just got better and went to BNC COAX for that bit better SQ!!! Goes against what I try to do: Minimal components of higher quality, so adding a DDC was a disappointment/tech gap!? Suggests Ethernet for audio might be implemented better for the future !!!
Iām surprised to find no mention of the sound quality improvement when moving from Wifi to Ethernet. It really opened up my system soundstage while lowering the noise floor dramatically.
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Yes I mentioned sound quality in the original post:
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Yeah I do a lot of tech support on our products and I often get call from customers having issues with WiFi. I usually tell them to use HomePlug and send their Ethernet over their power lines.
This works well and is very inexpensive.
If they are looking for an improvement in their sound I tell them to go with optical fiber instead of Ethernet wiring.
I switched from ethernet to WiFi - and zero regrets. Would not use ethernet again. There is an audible difference given my setup using wifi.
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Itās all the same as long as you are not getting drop-outs, etc.
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I swallowed my ego and hubris a few days ago and connected my core to ethernet rather than wifi. I had convinced myself that the two connection methods were interchangeable. I have since reconsidered that opinion based on the following observations:
- stability and signal strength. Before the change my endpoints ( two Squeezebox Radios and one Roon Bridge) were Constantly losing their connection to the core. They are now stable.
- SQ. I base this assertion on my listening experience with music i have heard so many hundreds of times that hearing a previously āunheardā bit of audio information makes for an āaha!ā moment. Strictly unscientific.
My wifi setup was constrained by bedroom walls. The wired setup has a clear path from the core to the server to the bridge. However the 2 radios are still constrained by walls. Yet their connection is solid.
Just my observation. Itās probably the worst kept secret that a wired connection is superior to wireless. It just took me 5 years to figure it out!
UPDATE: in the 8 days since my original post i have needed to restart my Core 3 times. Before going from Wifi to wired,this restart was happening almost daily. At least one of the restarts seemed to coincide with using a microwave ( the Core is installed on a Lenovo T440 in a corner of the kitchen ). BTW, the modem is a run-of-the-mill Cox Cable white tower. So, all in all, my switch to a wired connection to the Core has been wonderful.
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Everything in my house that is stationary and can be wired is wired, including my Roon Core, Wiim Pro, NAS, TV, and printer. My WiFi is plenty fast, but the latency of Ethernet will always be far superior.
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While you donāt say where the Roon core is located, try to use the best ethernet cable that you can afford. There is now Cat8 cable available and the transfer rate is amazing. Just a thought if you play large music files, 24/192 etc.
Only if ports support it, otherwise, donāt waste your money.
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Cat8 only gives you advantages if you use 10GBE over copper. Otherwise stay with Cat6. Any seriously manufactured cable, which complies to the standards will do the job.
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I did say āif you can afford itā. I use cat7 but I do shift a lot of files around my network. Noted that cat 6 is fine.
Iāll get cat8 in due course as files get ever bigger: I like to keep a bit up tp date.