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Powerline or Wifi

babysnake

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Hi

Because my internet enters the house in a different room to my hifi (Roon based) I need to use either Wifi or EoP to get it into the listening room

I get that neither are as good as a hardwired solution, but which is superior in terms of noise/distortion?

I understand that in both cases bandwidth is more than adequate, I'm just trying to appreciate which of the options is 'cleaner' in RFI/EMI terms?

Many thanks
 

BillG

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Unless you're buying uncertified/forged products, or live in an area near a very high powered RF source, all general purpose computer hardwares built in RFI/EMI suppression circuits should be more than adequate for your needs. I'd picked whichever was most suitable, and cost effective, and not worry about it.
 
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babysnake

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Unless you're buying uncertified/forged products, or live in an area near a very high powered RF source, all general purpose computer hardwares built in RFI/EMI suppression circuits should be more than adequate for your needs. I'd picked whichever was most suitable, and cost effective, and not worry about it.

Thank you
 

Roen

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My personal preference, in order, is network cable, then powerline, then wifi.
 

Willem

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The good news with digital is that when it works you will know, and when it does not work you will also know: it is either transmitting or it is not. The bad news is that reception is not always good, depending on the construction and size of your house. Our modern house is pretty large, with concrete floors/ceilings and some steel beams. Therefore, wifi in some rooms can be marginal for the Chromecast Audio, so the signal gets dropped, or our mobile phones cannot find the CCA to initiate a listening session. I use a good modern Netgear router.
I have a similar problem in my home office, and there I use a ethernet connection for the desktop computer that I work on but that also serves as an audio source.
 

bravomail

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If you are planning to use Bluetooth in any form, Wifi 2.4GHz will interfere with it. They will likely to live happily together, but, in rare case, if you will have Bluetooth drop-outs, you will know why.
https://www.ecnmag.com/article/2012/03/wi-fi-and-bluetooth-coexistence
Apparently, Bluetooth has "Adaptive Frequency Hopping" to avoid issues (and other ways). So I might be exaggerating the issue.
 

zalive

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My recommendation is Ethernet wire, because wireless depends a lot on how it works, channels, interferrence and similar, in practice. I experienced some issues with wireless in the past and decided that wire simply works better in this case. And to my ears, it sounds better too, wireless sounded harsher in my home/system.
 
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Kal Rubinson

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My personal preference, in order, is network cable, then powerline, then wifi.
My personal preference, in order, is network cable, then MoCA, then wifi.
 

darko

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Hello,
I would advise against Powerline. I had massive interferences by using Powerline (I'm in Europe). It seems to me that Powerline works like a big broadcast antenna.
I could hear it clearly in my speakers. The interferences were loudest when turning on the turntable. That's why I switched to wifi and got myself a repeater.
 

DonH56

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WiFi is also a big broadcast antenna. Chances are the RFI suppression in one or more components was inadequate. If it is coming on the power line to the component, there are filters for that.

I have hardwire, powerline adapters, and wifi in our house. Hardwire is best, natch, but wifi is used most other places. I had to add a range extender to reach the basement media room but it was still spotty. I bought a power line adapter for my son (basement bedroom) and it works great; faster and more reliable than his wifi connection. The room next door is my media room and the power line adapter did not work; it is on a separate circuit. I could buy a bridging box to place in the service but wireless works well enough for what I do (I rarely stream anything, and a WAP linked to the extender's subnet is working well).
 

304290

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Of course ethernet is best by far. Up until recently(last couple of years) my vote for second best would have been powerline. Its has it's own issues, but has alway been more stable and reliable than wifi. For me bandwidth has always been good enough to steam up to 96/24. With the introduction of 5g, especially with wireless ac, it has completely trounced any powerline solution I have tried. Even on a bad day I can get real world speeds of 19Mbs(around 152mbs). But on average I get about 37Mbs(around 300mbs).
 
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