Advice for Streaming Newbies - Best Bang for Our Bucks

I turned off the WiFi on my Pro-ject Stream Box S2 Ultra streamer. That was a BIG improvement in sound quality. Not too big of a surprise.

Switching from an AmazonBasics Cat 6 Ethernet cable to a $64 Supra Cat 8 Ethernet cable yielded an additional improvement that was about 60% of the improvement heard from turning off WiFi on my streamer. The amount of improvement was quite surprising to me. 

The Supra Cat 8 cables are available via eBay here with an 30-day return policy so you could plug it in and see if you hear any difference. I heard an immediate improvement to my streaming sound quality.

One option for not having a long run of Ethernet cable is to create an Ethernet access point with a WiFi extender. I think this sounds better to me than using the WiFi receiver built into my streamer since the source of RFI/EMI is removed from the physical proximity of the streamer.

@kraftwerkturbo-tt225 Before listening, I would have agreed with you on the relative theoretical opportunity to improve digital vs analog signal paths.

My ear, however, tells me that things like interconnects and power cords can yield quite significant improvements in digital music while the magnitude of improvement of trying the same range of power cord on analog components can yield changes that are either much smaller in magnitude or not even perceptible.

The reason is that for digital audio, the bits remain the same, but the theory is that RFI / EMI can affect whether bits are being delivered with the right timing. But, I will admit that the true test is hearing a difference which is also a positive difference With digital tweaks, I often hear a difference, but that difference may not be a positive difference even when going from less to more expensive components.

@larry5729 Check out soundiiz.com for transferring playlists between streaming services.