Mesh network versus a simple Wi-Fi extender

I use Ethernet Over Powerline boxes so I avoid wireless altogether without needing to run cables. One wireless box is downstairs next to my router and the other is upstairs in my bedroom. It's the best of both worlds and more boxes can be added throughout the house at key places. 

Netgear Orbi WiFi 6 devices are extremely stable. We use a four satellite mesh network in a 5,000 sq ft 1867 brick home that serves as our local historical society HQ and that mesh system was a game changer. Device allocation can be monitored from the phones of our staff, including a hifi Bluetooth streamer in the ball room, where most of our events and zoom meetings are held. Best $2,200 we’ve spent in recent years.

@soix I assume that the problem you have is that your streamer is near your router but still has dropouts using Wi-Fi.  Unless your streamer has substandard built in Wi-Fi streaming capabilities, you may just need a new modem and router with greater speed and capabilities than your current set up. As with many things electronic, the capabilities of these have increased dramatically,

A Wi-Fi extender will cut your speed in half. A mesh system satellite has a separate backhaul channel so it runs at full speed. I use the Netgear Orbi which gives me 4 ethernet plugs at each router . It has worked out flawlessly for me and sped things up greatly when accessing my NAS and streaming services. It's a pricey unit but it is fast and reliable.

@jetter I’m not experiencing dropouts. In a perfect world I’d like to run an Ethernet cable from my router to my streamer, but that’s just not doable so I’ve heard people say running an Ethernet cable from an extender sounds much better than just using Wi-Fi. I was just curious if, assuming both have a sufficiently strong signal, a Mesh system has sonic advantages over an extender. Thus far it seems more of a signal strength/distance thing more than sonic differences, but…

A Wi-Fi extender will cut your speed in half. A mesh system satellite has a separate backhaul channel so it runs at full speed.

@grover30 This is the first I’ve heard about an extender possibly cutting speed in half. If I’ve got 1-gig service it seems I’d still have plenty of speed left to successfully stream music (assuming other family members aren’t simultaneously streaming movies I guess). Or does the slower speed affect performance regardless? Thanks for your interesting thoughts.

Ethernet cabling within sane distances is simple, cheap, reliable, and doesn’t suffer performance (speed) degradation. If you can physically do it.

With WIFI reliability and speed can be tricky, and it’s not as cheap (although not nearly as expensive as most of our hifi gear).

If you have 1Gig service to your home, you only need a very small fraction of that to stream audio. As a point of fact, I also have a 1Gig connection to my home, and use a wireless access point and an extender to my detached garage, where I have a very reliable connection and can stream hi-res audio, and 4k video simultaneously, as well as serving 3 desktop computers with ample speed.

Whether extenders or a mesh, the trick is to get a reliable strong wifi connection (this can be admittedly tricky). Given a sufficiently performant and reliable WIFI connection, I can see no disadvantage sonically.

Some would even argue that WIFI isolates you from electronic noise that might transit into your system via a wired connection. I’m not convinced that this is a real concern, or is just audiophile OCD.

When I upgraded my system after moving.  I ditched the mesh network only and installed an Amplifi HD system (also mesh) fed by an Arris SB8200 high speed modem.  But, I ran 50' of quality ethernet cable from my Amplifi HD box to another of the same caliber in my Audio closet.  I hardwire my three ethernet capable boxes, and use the Amplifi nodes for extending the network to my shop, and outside.  Also enabling Wi-Fi with my streamer and receivers, this all works a treat.  Critical streaming hard wired, guests and background wireless.  You could grow into this kind of system incrementally.  I do think the hardwire provides a narrow margin of improvement over the Wi-Fi.  As usual YMMV

@soix 

As I had to resort to using a Powerline extender for the purpose of having a network connection direct to my server I did ran a Speedtest just after reading your last post. Please bear in mind that I don’t have the best service in the area I live in- I believe it’s advertised at 250 Mbps.

When sitting 25 feet from the router- no walls to go through the test rang out at 92 Mbps up and 25 down.

Sitting in the same place but changing to the Powerline extenders Wi-Fi (1 floor down- 6 walls to go through) reads 30 Mbps up and 5 down.

If I go to the room where the extender is installed I get 30 Mbps up and 9 down.

That’s more than enough to stream music/video with and gives me a direct connection between extender/server. I’m sure almost anyone has better internet service than I do! Up until 2 years ago our service was advertised at 7Mbps!

Sorry- the last numbers were reversed for the room with the extender. Should read 30 Mbps download and 9 up. Router is Amplifi Alien with Netgear Powerline.

@designsfx Thanks for the good info, and Ouchee on your internet speed! That’s awful, and frankly I’m surprised you can even stream hi-res music without dropouts but glad it works for you. Where are you BTW — northern Alaska???

We had internet via cable provider until 2 years ago- 7 Mbps was the max up to my place. Finally a cable modem carrier brought lines up to my area so we went with a 250 Mbps service- which is hit and miss. Even with the old service we could stream to two televisions at once but it was always dropping out. Things are much more consistent now.

Believe it or not this is not Alaska but 15 minutes outside of downtown Los Angeles! I live in the foothills about a mile outside of Angeles National Forest.

@designsfx Get out!!! 15 min outside the second-largest city in the US and you can’t get 1-Gig speed??? That’s just astounding. I’m 20 min outside NYC and have several providers for 1-Gig service. What up with that? Somebody’s seriously failing you guys.  Maybe consider moving to northern Alaska?  Weather’s a little cooler, and yeah you lose the sun for several months, but you can probably get better internet service, cut your living expenses in half, and completely avoid traffic forever other than the occasional moose blocking the road.  Jeez.

@soix There are 2 different speeds when dealing with wireless routers.  There is the internet speed that you pay for from your ISP and then there is the wireless speed in which your computer, streamer, wi-fi extender, etc. connects to your main router.  For example, an Orbi AX4200 has a 5ghz max connection speed of 1200Mbps, but a real world speed of maybe 8 or 900Mbps depending on how close you are to your router and if the connecting device (computer, streamer, etc.) even supports that speed to begin with.  So then if you connect a wi-fi extender, it's only going to have a max connection speed of 4-450mbps.  Even if you only got a few hundred Mbps speed, that still is more than enough to stream music.  It's nice to have a fast in-home network connection for copying files between different computers, accessing files on a NAS and so that you are getting the full internet speed that you pay for. It can become very confusion and I hope I made it easier to understand instead of harder.

“I live in the foothills about a mile outside of Angeles National Forest.”

The price you pay for living in wilderness. I knew a friend who lives away from city and the only way he can get internet is through a satellite provider.

Streamers only need a trickle of bandwidth. My streamers are on extenders and while I can’t get my page to refresh on my iPad in unusual times of bad performance from my provider my streamers work flawlessly. I haven’t looked but I am sure they work fine on a couple mbs or so. While my wifi provides up to 500 mbs ocationally and 250 most of the time. It goes down to 20 - 35 a surprising amount of the time. 

In my opinion having ethernet cables connecting WiFi access points is the gold standard.  The exact same data stream that your modem feeds your main router will be the exact same quality, speed that the router feeds your other bridged WiFi transmitters when tethered together via cat 5e or cat 6 ethernet cabling. If your router is getting 900 mbps, so will the next device in the ethernet chain. If your AppleTV is hooked via ethernet to that remote access point, it will be getting 900 mbps.  No degradation or slowing of data rates found in typical Wifi "boosters" or Wifi repeaters people place in different areas of their home.  That being said it may be near impossible in many cases to string that much cat 6 ethernet cabling unless you're willing to pay hefty amounts for someone to run it thru walls, attics, basements, etc.  Often needing drywall repair etc. Thankfully mesh wifi systems offer a good compromise in all but the most demanding situations. WiFi 6 (and later 7 and 8) will continually improve signal transfer quality and reliability.

@fuzztone  If the network is rock solid, the SQ probably will be fine. If not that is the first thing to improve.

 "probably" will be fine? So it is not all about the network then, or is it? Care to expand?
 

High quality streamers cashe and isolate, making up for deficiencies in bandwidth, latency and such. While admittedly I have been in IT most of my life, this comes from observation of my own streamers producing simply stunning, uninterrupted sound quality from cheap repeaters. Observation to me trumps theory. I recently took a EtherRegen out of my system that performed no useful function and with two high end Ethernet cables on it degraded the sound.

With very inexpensive streamers I believe the network reliability is important. But with contemporary high quality streamers, typically it is not that important.

Overall Wi-Fi extenders are terrible. A lot of them take a weak Wi-Fi signal and try to extend that signal further which further degrades the signal. The best Wi-Fi extenders use a wired connection but they are still use older technology.

mesh networks are so much better especially using the newer Wi-Fi 6e connection. I used to use 4 routers in my house in a wired/non-wired bridge mode setup with good coverage, plus getting decent speeds. I moved to a newer 6e mesh network and coverage is better using less equipment, and internal network speed (Wi-Fi and wired from each mesh router) has almost doubled in speed. I use switches attached to each mesh router so all the devices in each room think they are attached to a wired network instead of Wi-Fi. 

@rbstehno 

I use switches attached to each mesh router so all the devices in each room think they are attached to a wired network instead of Wi-Fi. 

So, in rooms where you have a mesh satellite, and where you have multiple devices, you run the hardwired output from the mesh satellite into a switch and then hard wire each device with Ethernet from the switch?  I assume if you only had one device you could run the hardwired output directly from the satellite into that one device for the same result?  I do this for my outdoor/garage system, which sits near a mesh satellite and have had reliable performance. The 6e systems are still pricy so I might wait for a while before trying that level, but after moving from a single router to a mesh system I have never had trouble with internet signal throughout three levels and several outdoor areas.

@mitch2 

I assume if you only had one device you could run the hardwired output directly from the satellite into that one device for the same result?

Thats what I do.  Main rig has a SGC Sonic Transport hard wired to a satalite node. Works great.  The base node in my office has about a 20 foot run to a switch with various devices attached. 

The new Asus ZenWifi comes with 3 ethernet ports but not sure if that is on each node or just the base.  

There is a lot of incorrect information in this talk. Let me see if I can clear a few of these things up because most people think all you have to do is buy a router, turn it on, use the default ssid’s and you are good to go, which is far from actual experience. I have setup enterprise networks starting back in the late 80’s.

Somebody commented about wifi speeds (internal network) and then internet speeds, 2 different networks. Either 1 can be a bottleneck. You can buy a 1G internet network speed but only see 100Mb throughput because your internal network sucks, or you can have a 1Gb internal network (or faster) but your network speed tests show 100Mb because you only have a 100Mb internet. I have a 1.2Gb internet and have a 1Gb wired internal network with a 800-900Mb wifi network anywhere in the house except for the garage and the outside patio. Some people think 100Mb internal network speed is ok, but it’s far too slow for my house. The whole house is automated (from refrigerator, stove, to doorbell, all locks, garage doors, grill, lights/switches, thermostat, and more), along with streaming music, streaming HD tv to multiple TV’s plus now using Roon ARC in the cars. 

Some discussion about using wifi instead of wired from a router, even if the router is using wifi to connect to the mesh network. Most of the devices using wifi use the 2.4ghz network so if you use a switch connected to a router, these devices now will use the 1Gb Ethernet network, so then it helps to create a quality internal wifi network, and that’s where the newer wifi 6e mesh equipment comes into play.

Not all mesh networks are the same and the backhaul and fronthaul configurations can make a big difference. Look up the differences between a wifi 6 mesh network capability’s vs the wifi 6e mesh network capability’s. 
 

If you are 15 ft from the router using wifi, you should be getting 800Mb wifi speeds when using the current computers/iPhones/tablets. If not, you got issues. Every time you go thru a walk, a floor, any obstruction, wifi speeds will degrade, that’s why you want to use a wired connection to each router and if you must use wifi, then get a 6e mesh network so you can get a private backhaul between the routers.

Sorry, the statement above “Every time you go thru a walk,” should say “Every time you go thru a wall”. 

Having been in the IT infrastructure industry for far too many decades, I'll drop a nugget of data. WiFi is wonderful and solves many problems. However, be it commercial or residential, WiFi has limitations. Mesh vs Extenders have pros and cons, but will have similar limitations. The more wifi devices connected to your network the greater the challenge. So if you have wifi devices like lights, speakers, TVs, appliances, etc. connected, they are all competing for bandwidth. Add to the mix laptops, phones, etc, which can have multiple connections, your bandwidth can quickly degrade to say 3 Mb per device. This all flows into your ISP gateway router which in most places will be sufficient. There will always be a bottleneck there but not a huge factor for WiFi. The more wifi devices the greater collisions of packets and reduced bandwidth. You will see drops, latency, interruptions of data. I run copper connections to the devices I demand the highest quality of. If you opt for Mesh, as long as you have copper connecting it to the gateway, you will see less issues. Similar to an access point connected to an AP controller and then the core network devices in a commercial space.

In short, if you want to avoid music drops completely, and you have lots of WiFi devices in your home, go with a copper connection. If you don't want or can not pull cable, Go with Mesh. If you have a small number of WiFi devices, say less than 25 devices, that are not big uses of bandwidth (say gaming consoles, TVs, etc.) Mesh or extenders are going to provide adequate bandwidth.  

Lots of interesting discussions on speed. But music streaming uses very little bandwidth and good streamers buffer or cache the files… so all you need is a trickle. My streamers work flawlessly when I am have had trouble loading a web page to my iPad.

I use a wired Ethernet cable to an wifi extender. I recently switched to mesh. No difference in sound quality. On my system I get vinyl quality sound from my main streamer.

I use the Netgear Orbi 960 Series Quad-Band WiFi 6E Mesh System, 10.8Gbps, 10 Gig Port, 2-pack and it works great. Excellent coverage over multiple level home. Both the main router and satellite are hardwired to the Internet. Their setup App was easy to use.

Please see Netgear ORBI link below:

my case I get a 10-20 meter LAN cable for modem to Wi-Fi router and place the router to a center spot for every one can get the best Wi-Fi signal, lastly I upgrade iFi iPower-X power supply on the router for the audio quality and better Wi-Fi range.