Could Wireless Be Better or Worse Than Wired Ethernet?

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I haven't seen any measurements but I do know that one way to test would be to capture output into an ADC and airplane mode on/off during capture. Post the capture for download and let people evaluation and report their findings.

 

I did this years ago and posted a video here with Airplane mode on and music still playing (all over 802.11g).  AP's are often far enough away and equipment shielded that I've never seen it impact. As I type this I'm listening to Rachmaninoff in HD Naxos Stream over my $79 Pi3 B+ wireless to My DC-1 over JBL 308P MKII and matching JBL 310S subs.

 

Sounds phenomenal given the entire setup represents $1400 in spend. These JBL's are just killer. Shocking what they were able to achieve. Their only Achilles heal is breaking up when playing loud. But I have other speakers for that. 

 

Wireless are three $56 TP-Link Omada AC1350's with the Omada Controller for roaming and preventing client stick. Routinely get 300Mbps.  More than enough for any 24/192, 32/384, DSD 512.

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23 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Yeah, bandwidth isn't an issue at all. 

 

I'm thinking that if people use an access point behind their audio systems, where all the cables are, this could be an issue. I know this is also a popular place to put the AP based on my experience with other people's systems. People don't have wired Ethernet to their audio rack, so they use an AP behind it and it extends to the main AP. This is kind of a worst case scenario, but it would be very interesting to see if it matters. 

 

I think we just had the 75 percenters talk about this privately :-) My AP's are tucked away in closets out of site and are PoE. I run them at -63dB to the supplicant location.  For VHD (Very High Density) designs it's an AP every 1500 sq foot. For low density office we spec at 3000 and 5000 sq foot. For low density warehouse it's 10,000. We service limit to 150 active connections per AP (this 1/2 the service rate of the AP's we deploy commercially).  Our average is something like 30 concurrent clients. This includes Wifi calling with E911 and emergency paging services.

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5 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

the amps would place the wifi card and antennas internally into blast mode to search for networks. This was easily audible to even the most unlearned listener. 

 

Yikes. Amir blew one up in power sine testing if that's any indication. What people need to know is there are best practices when it comes to WiFi design.

 

If anyone wants they can request a demo of Ekahau and import a diagram of their house and play around with WiFi AP placement, power settings, radiation patterns, channel planning etc.

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1 minute ago, R1200CL said:

may not fit audiophile requirements. Not that those requirements is written down as a standard.

 

That's an interesting perspective. RF design best practices should apply rather handily to audio given that it's not real-time and delay insensitive. Just need to meet the required throughput.

 

In general for WiFi calling I need to hit -63 to -68 but this is supplicant dependent. For Web traffic -72dB.  I try not to run more than 18 watts on an AP so if I have a failure self healing can take place and other AP's have headroom to up their power to fill the hole.

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15 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

How many of us do you think understand this, or even are able to control their AP’s power settings

It would be the same people that understand -/+ 3dB when it comes to their amplifier is a halving/doubling of power.

 

@jabbr has an entire thread based on optics and it's a learn/teach sort of thing. Every AP I've installed has a GUI. Doesn't matter if it's a $56 TP-Link or $1200 Cisco.

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37 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

And this may be the key, how immune is your other equipment to various interference. 

 

Look for the FCC, CE, or other laboratory marks.

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1 minute ago, Rexp said:

Which software and power supply does your Pi have? Thanks! 

RopieeXL and a Samsung 3AMP cell phone charger.

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Has anyone noticed that Netflix 4K looks better wired vs wireless?

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45 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

The adaptive lossy codec makes this test impossible. 

 

Ok, how about 4K flat file? So we aren't dealing with any adaptive bit rate?

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6 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Not sure where the content would come from. In addition, it’s a little different because we put the audio signal through an amplifier, which by design amplifies the input. Any anomaly will be amplified. 
 

I don’t know enough about how video works and the internal parts of mass produced televisions, to know what we’d be testing. 

 

https://www.demolandia.net/4k-video-test.html

 

I think we would be eyeball testing, right? See which looks better. We would want two same, calibrated, TV's.

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4 hours ago, lmitche said:

Thanks the reference to the TP-Link RE580D. This looks very much like the Linksys RE9000 in use here.  Both seem to have 3 independent radios. Can the 2.4ghz bands be disabled or suppressed?

 

Most, if not all, current AP's will allow you to disable the 2.4G radio.