Going wireless, streaming wirelessly

[Thomas savage]

with the increasing number of active speakers offering wireless streaming solutions i am asking is there any disadvantage to going wireless?

Or is there a inherent advantage in a wired connection when streaming audio?

 

[DonH56]

Interference and bandwidth are the usual drawbacks to a wireless connection. Either of which is very dependent upon your environment and network. In my case, the router is of necessity in the upstairs (second floor) office, and connectivity to the basement media room can be spotty at times even with an extender (which is not a complete panacea). And bandwidth drops when the boys are home playing their games or watching streaming videos... I like the way SONOS creates their own mesh subnet, seems to help keep streaming going, and is pretty solid once I moved from a wirelessly connected media server (wireless USB drive and media hub; dumb idea) to a NAS directly connected (Ethernet) to the router (as is the SONOS Bridge). For running Dirac Live, I forced my media room link to 2.4 GHz instead of 5 GHz as the lower frequency penetrates walls better and usually offers more range.

I have friends with similar systems that have never had a problem.

Our house is not wired for Ethernet; if so, I would use that instead. Generally more reliable and saves the wireless bandwidth for other stuff.

IME/IMO -- but I am not a network guru! - Don

 

[RayDunzl]

Which flavor of wireless?

WiFi should be Ok.

I'd avoid Bluetooth, unless it is in addition to WiFi.

(no expertise here)

 

[Ron Party]

Don, have you tried ethernet over the power lines?

 

[amirm]

With good Wifi access point, it is not a concern at all. The bandwidth required for audio is pretty low for CD. Even for high-res it is not that bad.

 

[DonH56]

Ron, I have not, though I have read reports saying it works very well. Years ago a friend loaned me a set and I tried them but they do poorly; the technology has improved significantly since then. I may yet try it but may have to get a power bridge since the basement is on a separate sub-service so it may be hard to reach through a power line adapter. Have you used them, and if so what do you think?

I have been toying with getting a commercial-grade WAP but keep gagging on the price tag. So far my home network works well enough for me so long as something isn't eating up the bandwidth. It is not usually (if ever) audio that is the problem, it is other things like streaming video and one time MS OneDrive tat was sucking all available bandwidth. I probably need to get more net-savvy to see if I can throttle some apps from hogging the network.

Bluetooth is historically a short-range, low-bandwidth link though the latest versions have extended range and bandwidth. Still, WiFi has much greater coverage and bandwidth. I routinely get ~400 Mb/s upstairs, can get pretty good in the basement, but dropouts are a nuisance. My son did discover the WiFi adapter in our MSI notebooks (we have similar models, same WiFi adapter) have issues with Win10 so he got an external adapter that seemed to help.

 

[watchnerd]

with the increasing number of active speakers offering wireless streaming solutions i am asking is there any disadvantage to going wireless?

Or is there a inherent advantage in a wired connection when streaming audio?

Wireless doesn't let you use those fancy audiophile Cat 8 cables that make things sound better.

 

[Ron Party]

Hi Don. I have an old 2 story home, lathe and plaster walls, with the wireless router on the first floor. I could not get wireless internet connectivity upstairs in the kids' bedrooms, even with a wireless access point. I've been using ethernet over the power lines for years now. Works perfectly.

 

[watchnerd]

I use both ethernet and wifi.

Moving to a mesh network solved any QOS problems I had with the wifi.

 

[DonH56]

Thanks Ron, I should try again.

watchnerd, how did you implement the mesh?

 

[watchnerd]

Thanks Ron, I should try again.

watchnerd, how did you implement the mesh?

You have to buy new access points from one of the mesh makers: Eero, Ubiquiti, etc

 

[DonH56]

Thanks watchnerd.