Difference between WiFi and Ethernet

[Spatch]

I had the Wimm for over a week now
Yesterday I finally connected the Wiim via an Ethernet cable.
More clarity
Blind tested my partner as she also agrees more clarity. To be honest was not expecting any difference, but glad I did.

 

[Smartplug]

I had the Wimm for over a week now
Yesterday I finally connected the Wiim via an Ethernet cable.
More clarity
Blind tested my partner as she also agrees more clarity. To be honest was not expecting any difference, but glad I did.

Really? So wired produce more clarity over WiFi?

 

[Spatch]

 

[FreakyKiwi]

Regardless of any difference, which I doubt would be significant unless the wifi chip is generating noise which is reaching the audio signal, my advice is always to use a wired network connection where possible.

Wifi is convenient and required for mobile devices, but is inferior to a wired connection in terms of stability and speed.

 

[Spatch]

Cheers and good advice

 

[BowsAndArrows]

Cheers and good advice

this rabbit hole does go deeper in case you're interested... although the sane amongst us would probably advise against it. https://ethernet-sound.com/

 

[Jls]

Shanon is spinning in his grave.

 

[FreakyKiwi]

For anyone thinking of clicking the link to enter the rabbit hole, here is everything you need to know from my quick visit.

"The clarity and calmness of the representation, as well as the plasticity and naturalness of voices and instruments is on such a high level that I doubt that I have ever heard this in my setup before. "

 

[Jls]

This probably merits a non sarcastic reply.

Digital information is either correct or not correct. There is no such thing as warmth, fuzziness or loss of detail. An enormous amount of work has been done to ensure that digital transmission is perfect. Not good, not good enough, but absolutely, god’s eye view, perfect. First there’s s error detection and correction. If a packet is uncorrectable, it’s re-sent. Buffering is used to make sure there is no loss due to re-sends. If this didn’t work, you would never be able to download an app. It has to be perfect.

WiFi is not as reliable as wired. With an overworked router, you can get failures. This is pretty obvious when it happens, and not at all like a loss of quality.

 

[Jls]

I would deny the always part. I had frequent interruptions with the “free” router provided by the internet company. My daughter-in-law required a reliable service for remote working, and bought an Eero mesh router. I haven’t had a glitch in three years.

 

[jed1]

What matters is not wired vs. wireless. I care about stability and bandwidth. For audio application, bandwidth is not much of concern nowadays - we are in era of watching 4K video streaming services. Stability can be affected by many factors - ISP, router, switch, DNS server, and proximity to wifi access point (thus affecting S/N ratio) and it can be measured in multiple metrics such as jitter and ping delay. Well performing wifi is as good as well performing wired network. Performance is also a function of application - if this is for network-based multiplayer game, I need to use different criteria than audio streaming.

I use wireless connection because WiiM Pro Plus is about 6 ft away from a wifi access point and I do not want to share power/ground with the access point.

 

[Jls]

With gaming, latency is literal death. Buffered audio, not so much.

 

[FreakyKiwi]

With gaming, latency is literal death. Buffered audio, not so much.

Unless you have a VR suit with complete immersion, gaming will only result in virtual death.

 

[Spatch]

I changed to cable to stop drop outs. I was not hoping for improvements.

I do enjoy chasing rabbits and the journey that takes you own. Perhaps the next rabbit hole is FMC

 

[slartibartfast]

I changed to cable to stop drop outs. I was not hoping for improvements.

I do enjoy chasing rabbits and the journey that takes you own. Perhaps the next rabbit hole is FMC

FMC?

 

[Spatch]

Fiber media converter

 

[BowsAndArrows]

Lmao, I love how @FreakyKiwi can read and summarise months of testing, discussions, formulation of falsifiable hypotheses etc... all in the space of 13 minutes! Mighty impressive who needs chatGPT?? We should get the guy to do the same with the cancer literature. He'll have it all cured and in our rear-view mirrors by next weekend?!

And thanks to @Jls too, I appreciate that you are trying to share your opinion in a cordial manner.
Unfortunately some of us think differently about audio - in short - bits are not bits the same way it is for an app download. If you go into details about how DACs function etc then you might uncover something that will open your line of thinking to other possibilities. Things like common mode interference for example. But I respect your choice if you feel have already got enough information to form a fixed opinion...

Just to elaborate on what you said too - yes error correction and buffering exist in the digital domain (mainly in asynchronous data transmission like Ethernet and USB). But there is no error correction in S/PDIF (only single bit error detection) and no buffering both over coax or optical...

Fiber media converter

Yes a few people have gone that route. It tends to work out well for them. However I went the air-gap route with a WLAN repeater in bridge mode that the lads on Ethernet sound proposed and tested... overall the cheapest/easiest to implement

 

[Jls]

Unless you have a VR suit with complete immersion, gaming will only result in virtual death.

Lmao, I love how @FreakyKiwi can read and summarise months of testing, discussions, formulation of falsifiable hypotheses etc... all in the space of 13 minutes! Mighty impressive who needs chatGPT?? We should get the guy to do the same with the cancer literature. He'll have it all cured and in our rear-view mirrors by next weekend?!

And thanks to @Jls too, I appreciate that you are trying to share your opinion in a cordial manner.
Unfortunately some of us think differently about audio - in short - bits are not bits the same way it is for an app download. If you go into details about how DACs function etc then you might uncover something that will open your line of thinking to other possibilities. Things like common mode interference for example. But I respect your choice if you feel have already got enough information to form a fixed opinion...

Just to elaborate on what you said too - yes error correction and buffering exist in the digital domain (mainly in asynchronous data transmission like Ethernet and USB). But there is no error correction in S/PDIF (only single bit error detection) and no buffering both over coax or optical...


Yes a few people have gone that route. It tends to work out well for them. However I went the air-gap route with a WLAN repeater in bridge mode that the lads on Ethernet sound proposed and tested... overall the cheapest/easiest to implement

CDs also have only one bit error detection.

 

[Spatch]

Yes I read good things about air gapping.

 

[merifon]

Just to elaborate on what you said too - yes error correction and buffering exist in the digital domain (mainly in asynchronous data transmission like Ethernet and USB). But there is no error correction in S/PDIF (only single bit error detection) and no buffering both over coax or optical...

Error correction exist in wifi also and how spdif works it's another thing that can (or more frequently not) affects overall results, regardless wired or non wired connection to router.