Difference between WiFi and Ethernet

[FreakyKiwi]

Are any of the music streaming services or protocols actually real time or need to be aside from realtime voice communication and AV sync?
I would have expected, with the relatively low bitrate of audio files, that a substantial buffer would exist in the player with the song track playing from memory and resilient to most network issues providing that the average network speed is sufficient

Anyway, surely the real debate here is whether any unwanted electrical noise is present in the network medium (cable/switch/AP/wifi module) and can make it through to the audio output?

 

[Jls]

Are any of the music streaming services or protocols actually real time or need to be aside from realtime voice communication and AV sync?
I would have expected, with the relatively low bitrate of audio files, that a substantial buffer would exist in the player with the song track playing from memory and resilient to most network issues providing that the average network speed is sufficient

Anyway, surely the real debate here is whether any unwanted electrical noise is present in the network medium (cable/switch/AP/wifi module) and can make it through to the audio output?

Noise is one of those things that can be measured.

 

[FreakyKiwi]

Noise is one of those things that can be measured.

Although amateur blind testing would produce different results.

This is more a debate for the evidence based ASR forum.

I'm personally quite happy with my $1/m ethernet cables and bundled power supplies.

 

[bherren]

Since there appears to be no limit to the number of times this concept is mangled, there should be no limit to the number of times it’s corrected.

The only way for noise and errors to occur in playing a digital file is for it to be introduced after the DAC. For this to happen, the device would have to be badly designed, because even inexpensive power supplies are designed to suppress power line noise. Things like ferrite rings, and such. It’s not difficult to test. Just turn the volume up with nothing playing, and listen.

I tend to err on that side too. That said, I was corrected a while ago about one aspect which is clocks.

The samples coming in from the internet have an implicit 'time stamp' simply from their position in the stream. SPDIF encodes a bit clock, the i2s interface (or whatever WiiM uses between the SoC and the DAC) has it's own clock, which may or may not be derived from the DAC chip own clock.

All clocks drift... rule #1 of digital electronics

Do at some point the DAC will have to reconcile its notion of time with what's coming via the input signal and that might mean interpolating samples etc...

I haven't checked who has the i2s master clock, if it's the DAC at least it's theorically possible for the WiiM to feed it samples at the right pace by pulling packets of the network as needed, and do jitter free. But that's a big if. If the i2s clock is generated by the SoC the it will drift. With SPDIF to a DAC it will drift. I think that's why some people prefer USB where the DAC effectively 'pulls' and thus again controls the rate of transfer.

So yes bits are bits but jitter is messy. That said I don't know if it can *really* create audible artefacts or not, after all it's only stretching sample durations by a tiny fraction, but in theory I suppose it *could*

 

[BowsAndArrows]

Noise is one of those things that can be measured.

that's what the guys at ethernet-sound.net are trying to do. their main focus is on common mode interference, but they are also interested in other types of noise.

and i agree with what @bherren said. the key is what happens at the DAC at the time of conversion from bitstream to analogue sound signal. even noise in the power that the DAC chip is receiving.

 

[Jls]

that's what the guys at ethernet-sound.net are trying to do. their main focus is on common mode interference, but they are also interested in other types of noise.

and i agree with what @bherren said. the key is what happens at the DAC at the time of conversion from bitstream to analogue sound signal. even noise in the power that the DAC chip is receiving.

I assume it will show up in s/n ratio.

 

[rccarguy]

Really? So wired produce more clarity over WiFi?

And when I sent money over Paypal, the receiver received different amounts depending when I used wifi, or cable. There was a difference of 1p.

Guess Wifi is less data accurate.

Very strange.

 

[SoFluffy]

Real-time audio (like VOIP) uses UDP, which will cause breaks in audio if packets are dropped. All* audio streaming services use TCP and buffering. TCP will retransmit if a packet is lost, ensuring a bit perfect delivery, even with packets received out of order. So as long as your connection’s bandwidth is higher than the bandwidth needed to stream the music, you will never “hear” any of those lost packets. That flac file from Tidal, or the ogg file from Spotify will be bit perfect, wifi or Ethernet.

Now while there could be some jitter or clock issues between the digital output and the DAC, the main concern is after the DAC once the signal is in analog. This is where shielding and balanced interconnects come into play.

Want to hear a joke about UDP? Nevermind, you probably wouldn’t get it.

*I say all streaming services, but there may be one that for some reason uses UDP. I would be surprised (and curious) if anyone knows of one that does though. (This can be tested by using an http proxy, which inherently doesn’t support the UDP protocol.)

 

[pieterv1]

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.

Late to the party, but the only difference in these connections is that you can trip over one and the other is slowly cooking your brain.

The data/information being sent is exactly the same, gets buffered and has built-in redundancy. If there's any audible difference, you should buy a new Wi-Fi router.

 

[Jls]

Late to the party, but the only difference in these connections is that you can trip over one and the other is slowly cooking your brain.

The data/information being sent is exactly the same, gets buffered and has built-in redundancy. If there's any audible difference, you should buy a new Wi-Fi router.

Absolutely. Routers are not made for audiophiles. With routers, you tend to get what you pay for.

 

[slartibartfast]

Absolutely. Routers are not made for audiophiles. With routers, you tend to get what you pay for.

Mine cost around £40-£50 and works fine. Maybe it shouldn't

 

[Jls]

Mine cost around £40-£50 and works fine. Maybe it shouldn't

What you get for more money is the ability to handle more devices.

 

[bherren]

What you get for more money is the ability to handle more devices.

Or you get a cheap one & put OpenWRT on it which will also fix buffer bloat

 

[BowsAndArrows]

Absolutely. Routers are not made for audiophiles. With routers, you tend to get what you pay for.

have you seen the prices of the WiFi 7 routers? 700GBP for the asus ROG one. absolutely ridiculous. like what's in that thing? solid gold heatsink? wtaf?

tp-link as well is selling their WiFi 7 routers (tri-band) for insanely inflated prices compared to the models in china (admittedly dual-band since 6GHz is not available for public use there atm)...

 

[Jls]

have you seen the prices of the WiFi 7 routers? 700GBP for the asus ROG one. absolutely ridiculous. like what's in that thing? solid gold heatsink? wtaf?

tp-link as well is selling their WiFi 7 routers (tri-band) for insanely inflated prices compared to the models in china (admittedly dual-band since 6GHz is not available for public use there atm)...

I have an eero with two range extenders. Haven’t had a dropout in three years. I have weekend guests that do home schooling with Zoom, home office with Citrix, streaming video. Currently about $350 at Amazon.

The rental from the internet provider crapped out with more than half a dozen users.

I don’t know how much you need to spend. It depends on the size and shape of your home, and how many devices you have.

 

[BowsAndArrows]

I have an eero with two range extenders. Haven’t had a dropout in three years. I have weekend guests that do home schooling with Zoom, home office with Citrix, streaming video. Currently about $350 at Amazon.

The rental from the internet provider crapped out with more than half a dozen users.

I don’t know how much you need to spend. It depends on the size and shape of your home, and how many devices you have.

yeh, true... my setup on wifi 5 (AC) is working fine but I was just thinking about a router upgrade and hoping to leapfrog Wi-Fi 6/6E entirely and go straight to tri-band Wi-Fi 7 (+ 2.5 GbE) cos a lot of the phones and laptops going forward will support 7.

tri-band (combined with multi-link operation/MLO) is the main draw - just because of so much congestion on 2.4 and 5 GHz bands these days... But I think we're going to have to wait a while for manufacturers (come on AVM!! ) to release new models + the prices to come down...

As for using eero or any other garbage crapware that Amazon puts out. No thanks... especially not my bloody router - i'd rather take any internet provider's proprietary router tbh. but imo the best option is a router with solid firmware options - fritz or open source

 

[Jls]

My eero is open source compliment.

https://amazon-source-code-downloads.s3.amazonaws.com/eero/eero-embedded/eero-oss-attribution-latest.txt

 

[BowsAndArrows]

My eero is open source compliment.

https://amazon-source-code-downloads.s3.amazonaws.com/eero/eero-embedded/eero-oss-attribution-latest.txt

that's just a list of open source software that they used to build their closed-source software which they publish as part of their own internal "open source compliance" policies.... the devices themselves are completely locked down.

many people don't understand that their iPhones and stuff wouldn't be possible without open source software. and that the original creators of most of the technological innovations in software rarely get paid for their pioneering work.

it's the biggest deception of silicon valley. just repackage work that others did for free - put your company's name on it - and hey presto! your company's blitzscaling to its first million users and it's valued in the billions

 

[Vangelo]

Spatch....need to thank you for starting this thread.

I no longer post on here because of the abuse I get from the non-believers, but still lurk to keep updated with what Wiim is doing.
Your thread caught my eye because of the posting regarding the 'throttle-cable' reference someone mentioned as a joke. I recall the posting cherry-picked part of the blog to fit in with the ASR agenda. This piqued my interest and made me investigate the thread by a German dude, Eric, who has an electronics background and has done a series of tests on Ethernet connections. The poster scoffed at Eric's quote regarding the sonic change the effect of this throttle cable had on his listening experience, but left out the bit that the 'quote' was translated to English from German. Also, they did not point out that visible oscilloscope measurements that were taken by Eric showing the effectiveness of the throttle cable at reducing noise and jitter. Eric arrived at the final design of this throttle cable after a series of 4/5 experiments he tried.....and measured.... that were ineffective.

So, this type of mod was right up my alley....cheap and easy to try. My take on Eric's design:

I wont go into the description of the sonic effect this has had on my sound system as that would be a total waste on this forum. Suffice it to say this has totally satisfied my cognitive bias and that of a half-dozen of my hi-fi buddies that have tried it!

Thanks again Spatch!

 

[BowsAndArrows]

Spatch....need to thank you for starting this thread.

I no longer post on here because of the abuse I get from the non-believers, but still lurk to keep updated with what Wiim is doing.
Your thread caught my eye because of the posting regarding the 'throttle-cable' reference someone mentioned as a joke. I recall the posting cherry-picked part of the blog to fit in with the ASR agenda. This piqued my interest and made me investigate the thread by a German dude, Eric, who has an electronics background and has done a series of tests on Ethernet connections. The poster scoffed at Eric's quote regarding the sonic change the effect of this throttle cable had on his listening experience, but left out the bit that the 'quote' was translated to English from German. Also, they did not point out that visible oscilloscope measurements that were taken by Eric showing the effectiveness of the throttle cable at reducing noise and jitter. Eric arrived at the final design of this throttle cable after a series of 4/5 experiments he tried.....and measured.... that were ineffective.

So, this type of mod was right up my alley....cheap and easy to try. My take on Eric's design:
View attachment 8905
I wont go into the description of the sonic effect this has had on my sound system as that would be a total waste on this forum. Suffice it to say this has totally satisfied my cognitive bias and that of a half-dozen of my hi-fi buddies that have tried it!

Thanks again Spatch!

very nice! you actually went to the ethernet-sound forums and went through to building your own throttle cable?? + you even shared it with your mates IRL. that really warms the heart... eric + the lads over there are really open-minded and their motivation to get to an objective level of proof is impressive. i did try to see past the jokes from @FreakyKiwi ( ROFLMAO thanks for the entertainment) and point the discussion towards the objective evidence and the fact that there is nobody really making any money off these ideas/practical implementations - but it's cool... some just automatically label everything they don't understand as premium snake oil

don't worry about the naysayers/haters man (i'm joking ofc - you're free to disagree), i actually want to hear the worst criticisms of our ideas - as long as it's respectful and pertains to the topic at hand without descending into name-calling etc. it helps us figure out the limitations of our own opinions and take stock of how strongly we hold our opinions on such matters.

+ please don't lump our hallowed WiiM forums with other dogmatic corners of the internet. you should not actively hold back from posting imo. here we celebrate differences in opinion - as that is what gives colour to life and discussions, no? (at least that's how it is most of the time - until @Brantome is forced to do another midnight drive-by and secretly censor speech etc )

besides, it's up to us more experimental idiots to take the criticism. we have to take the it on the chin!