hi guys,
hays anyone experienced that their wifi connection sounds better than wired ethernet? I certainly have. I stumbled upon this by accident where by i was having connection issues with my wifi so i hooked up the streamer via ethernet. The connection issue was solved but the sound quality was poor via ethernet when compared to wifi.
I replaced the router which fixed my wifi connection. I switched back and forth between wifi and ethernet and the wifi certainly sounds better, cleaner.
has Anyone has experienced this? Please share what you did to fix the issue?
Thanks
hays anyone experienced that their wifi connection sounds better than wired ethernet? I certainly have. I stumbled upon this by accident where by i was having connection issues with my wifi so i hooked up the streamer via ethernet. The connection issue was solved but the sound quality was poor via ethernet when compared to wifi.
I replaced the router which fixed my wifi connection. I switched back and forth between wifi and ethernet and the wifi certainly sounds better, cleaner.
has Anyone has experienced this? Please share what you did to fix the issue?
Thanks
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What you describe runs contrary to established norms... wireless connections have always been bandwidth limited and subject to interference which therefore produces lower quality audio compared to the matching hardwired solution, but that isn't always the case with digital transmission. Really there should be no difference so the fact there appears to be one suggests the two inputs aren't processed exactly the same inside whatever device you are listening with.
Im using an rpi 4 and bluesound node2i as streamers. On both streamers, wifi consistently sounds better.. wired- sounds etched and strident on the higher frequencies. Ethernet cable i use is 20ft cat6 utp.. might be that the cable is picking up emi noise. I’ll try a shielded ethernet cable
My experience is quite the opposite. In my setup with Rpi4, Ethernet with a good shielded CAT6E and above categories of cables (marketed as CAT7 & CAT8) sound very refined compared to WiFi, which sounds bright, etched out, strident and shouty. I use a Topping D50s DAC with a Burson Audio V6 Vivid Opamp.
Placebo effect, it's just data being sent from location "A" to location "B", whether its wifi or ethernet won't matter in the scheme of things, just different mediums.
What can happen though is wifi can be subjected to interference from neighbouring wifi networks this can manifest as audio dropouts due to missing or corrupted data packets. Wired ethernet is the most reliable transport method. If tcp/ip is used by the application then any data packets that don't arrive can be resent, albeit within the limits of the jitter buffer. Shielded ethernet cable is unnecessary in a home network environment.
I have experienced this issue on the audio streaming services which automatically regulate the audio bitrate depending on your internet connection (Discord YouTube audio, YouTube on phone etc). Wireless connection is less reliable then the Ethernet since it might get lag spikes or disconnects with much higher probability and that can effect the audio transmission (if you get a quick disconnect or a lag spike those services I mentioned above will recognize that your internet speed dropped and will decrease the audio quality).
Тhank you for raising a very interesting question. Of course, without knowing all the details of your setup, it is quite impossible to come up with any sensible speculation. Or even after knowing those. Too many variables. So I don't believe it is reasonable to draw general conclusions.
Quality of the ethernet cables, routers, nics, OS drivers may all be involved.
This has certainly nothing to do with data integrity, speed or retransmission errors but rather a with a preference for one out of two noisy interfaces.
Thanks for your inputs everyone. I will ask a friend whose knowledgeable about networking to try to investigate whats causing this.
The only thing I could think of, is that connecting ethernet cable causes some noise from elsewhere to be transferred into your analog circuitry (ground loops or electrical potential level change).
Sound cannot be altered to be "less cleaner" during digital transmission. That would require some advanced digital sound filters or PC software. If you alter or introduce noise to a digital signal, you will get loud pops and static noise that cannot be interpreted correctly at the receiving end. Digital signals are completely different from analog signals. Analog signals can be affected by electromagnetic fields.
Imagine this experiment (or try it). First use the same ethernet cable in your setup. Now plug the same cable into a wifi access point (data will travel both over ethernet cable and wirelessly). Transmitted data will be the same (if wifi has good connection).
Note that ethernet is galvanically isolated, so using a cable without shield should even be safer (with regards to ground loops and electrical potential issues). Standard says that shield should anyway be connected only in one end to avoid ground loops (but who is watching this?).
Sound cannot be altered to be "less cleaner" during digital transmission. That would require some advanced digital sound filters or PC software. If you alter or introduce noise to a digital signal, you will get loud pops and static noise that cannot be interpreted correctly at the receiving end. Digital signals are completely different from analog signals. Analog signals can be affected by electromagnetic fields.
Imagine this experiment (or try it). First use the same ethernet cable in your setup. Now plug the same cable into a wifi access point (data will travel both over ethernet cable and wirelessly). Transmitted data will be the same (if wifi has good connection).
Note that ethernet is galvanically isolated, so using a cable without shield should even be safer (with regards to ground loops and electrical potential issues). Standard says that shield should anyway be connected only in one end to avoid ground loops (but who is watching this?).
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Hi
I was able to figure out what the cause was. It was actually not in my network connections but within my roon audio settings. My nephew who was listening to my system played with the audio setting. Reverted back to my settings and all is well now. Ethernet now sounds great as well as wifi.
Greatly appreciate everyone’s input.
I was able to figure out what the cause was. It was actually not in my network connections but within my roon audio settings. My nephew who was listening to my system played with the audio setting. Reverted back to my settings and all is well now. Ethernet now sounds great as well as wifi.
Greatly appreciate everyone’s input.
The only issue I had with wireless was one streaming site particularly sporadically popped through out the entire visit. It was very annoying.