Router for Audio Streaming

Rationally speaking, routers and switches have no effect on sound quality; they just help move bits from point A to B. Think about it - Qobuz, Tidal and other streaming services aren't using special 'audiophile' routers / switches to deliver audio. As long as you're getting the data intact, you're good to go.

Have you looked into nmrpflash?

There's also an 'unbricking' guide that's related to dd-wrt, but it may give you some ideas - link.

Also wanted to add that high levels of jitter (or low clock accuracy) in the network router / switch will manifest as bit errors, so looking at receive errors / bad segments should cover that aspect as well.

There are several methods to monitor the performance of your network interfaces for bit errors.

On Windows, you can use the built-in Performance Monitor tool and add a counter for receive errors related to your network interface. Make sure to uncheck the processor utilization counter so it doesn't overlay the counter you added.

On Linux and macOS systems, you can type 'netstat -s' at a command prompt. On Linux, the line I look for is 'bad segments received' in the TCP section. On macOS, the relevant line is '... discarded for bad checksum'. (Note you will need to be root in order to view non-zero TCP stats on a Mac.) You can also use the 'ifconfig' command to see if there were any Ethernet receive errors (RX errors) as well.

Identifying bit errors by ear isn't all that tricky - if you hear ticks / pops / bursts of static, or have dropouts then the digital data is getting corrupted. You can find an example here - What does a bad USB (or other digital audio) cable sound like?

@yoramguy1 

It appears those are network stats for UDP (user datagram protocol). It's another protocol that's used in conjunction with IP, usually for applications that don't require reliable data transmission. The TCP section should be the first displayed. You can try the command 'netstat -s | less'. The vertical line before less is the pipe character (hold shift and press the backslash key). You can now scroll through the output with arrow or pgup / pgdn keys. Here's an example of output for the TCP section when I run netstat -s as root on my Mac (output truncated for length):

tcp:
        6094285 packets received
                5166105 packets (3033536317 byte) received in-sequence
                3831 completely duplicate packets (2903268 bytes)
                103 old duplicate packets
                0 received packet dropped due to low memory
                32 packets with some dup. data (11212 bytes duped)
                589 packets received after close
                47 bad resets
                0 discarded for bad checksum

Here's the columns of output of netstat -i for my wi-fi adapter showing Ethernet stats:

Ipkts       Ierrs    Opkts       Oerrs  
6697785     0        6257972     0

Ierrs shows how many errors the wi-fi adapter encountered out of the number under Ipkts received.

@yoramguy1 

All zeroes is because you're not executing the command as root. You need to log in as an Administrator first. Then at the terminal execute 'sudo su' and type in the password. Finally execute netstat. That should get you the actual stats.

No need to post any more data dumps - just look at the line for discarded for bad checksum ('netstat -s -p tcp | grep checksum') and check your Ethernet stats (netstat -i).

@yoramguy1

The good news: Contrary to the Netgear horror stories I was able to hard-reset and update my current router and all is well.

Good stuff!

From your netstat output, it looks like your network is performing normally.

Personally, I'd take a pass on the X60 if you're getting good coverage with your existing router.

We've got a mesh system in our house (ASUS XT8). The WAN port is in the basement and now that my wife works from home, she needs to have a better signal on the second floor. We also have a combiner box for our solar system on an outside wall that was sometimes dropping connection when there was only a single access point.

It looks like the X60 doesn't have a dedicated wireless backhaul. That means the mesh nodes will have to contend with devices for bandwidth back to the main access point if you don't want to run Ethernet cabling between the nodes. You might want to consider a product that has this feature, sometimes advertised as 'tri-band mesh'.

The good news is that even if your router stops being officially supported by Netgear, you have the option of installing DD-WRT, an open source Linux-based firmware. ASUS sometimes even takes features from DD-WRT to use in their official firmware releases.

@yoramguy1 

P.S., just to confirm my understanding: the tri-band mesh has a wireless backhaul which does not rob bandwidth from the devices and does not need ethernet backhaul, correct?

You got that right. What you want to look for is a dedicated wireless backhaul feature.

If most of your network devices support the latest 802.11ax (a.k.a. Wi-Fi 6) standard and you have a gigabit internet connection, there might be a reason to upgrade. If your current setup meets your needs, then I'd stand pat.

One note - it looks like all the TP Link gear mentioned so far supports the older 802.11ac (a.k.a. Wi-Fi 5) standard so you won't be future-proofing at all.