To extend Ethernet to remote location, are Powerline extenders or Mesh systems better?


I am trying to get Ethernet into a listening room that is not prewired, and it is not practical to run the hard cable through the old house into that room. I am planning to use a new music streamer that requires Ethernet connection (no wifi).

For hifi purposes, for passing the music signal, not just for computer equipment, are ethernet over powerline units better, or are wifi mesh router systems (which bring an ethernet port into a room using wireless transfer between the mesh devices) better?

For Ethernet over powerlines, I am worried about contaminating the power lines feeding the stereo preamplifier/amplifier, I don’t know if hifi power conditioners will filter out that super high frequency noise well enough.

For wifi mesh, it seems that the wireless handling of the music signal to feed the remote Ethernet port might somehow degrade the sound and introduce other problems that a connected wireline would avoid.

I am not a person that understands these technologies deeply, so I would value perspectives from others here who are users and who may be technically more qualified to understand this stuff.

troidelover1499

Showing 1 response by ddafoe

Assuming your have Coax wired through your house you could also consider using a MoCA network.   I switched from Powerline to a MoCA 2.0 network and the frequent Roon hangs and random streaming skips went away.

I have Verizon Fios and TiVo and they both rely on MoCA and I noticed my TiVo streaming worked much better when I had it MoCA enabled vs its Ethernet setting (using Powerline).   So I purchased a couple of MoCA 2.0 adapters (e.g. https://www.actiontec.com//products/ecb6200/) and have been very happy with their performance for music streaming including many hi-rez files stored on my NAS two stories away from my dedicated listening room.

Cheers