Kijanki 4-20-2019
In either case, wireless or Ethernet, you’re sending just data (no real D/A timing involved). Both can produce electrical noise, radiated or coupled, that might affect the sound but it’s hard to tell which one will sound better ....
+1. Well said.
Both wired and wireless are potentially capable of providing excellent results, and both are potentially susceptible to problems. Personally, my preference is to keep computers, computer-like devices such as routers, and especially "wallwart" switching power supplies, as far away as possible from my audio system, and not have them powered from the same AC line(s) that power my audio system, and not have any physical connection between them and the audio system. Ethernet connected devices can couple digital noise into an audio system via the wired connection itself, via the power wiring, and via the air. And the noise produced by digital circuits, being much lower in frequency than the 2.4 gHz or 5 gHz frequencies that are used by wifi, as well as potentially coupling at much greater amplitudes, stands a greater chance of affecting the sonics of the audio system than wifi signals.
That said, ***if*** your present wireless connection functions reliably, meaning that it rarely if ever has any dropouts, I’m going to make a radical suggestion. I suggest that you do nothing :-) Just continue to use the same wireless path to the Yamaha receiver that you have been using, and focus your efforts to improve the system elsewhere.
And in that regard, I see in another thread that your Yamaha receiver is a model R-N803, which provides the functionality of a preamp, a power amp, a phono stage, a DAC, an ethernet interface, a wifi interface, an AM and FM over-the-air receiver, and an "acoustic optimizer"/equalizer, all in one $700 component. While I am certainly one who believes that in audio the correlation between price and performance is far from perfect, that suggests to me that the most meaningful upgrade path you could take would be to upgrade some or all of that functionality by purchasing other components, whenever you prefer to do so.
And finally, keep in mind that when and if you do that the results of a wired vs. wireless comparison could very well be completely different than they would be now.
Good luck. Regards,
-- Al
