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.
I actually use both in the sense that I use a TP powerline for the ethernet connection to my DAC(main floor) but use comcast mesh for roon to connect to my core (computer in upstairs room). Router is in basement. It drops occasionally (connection to roon core) but sounds great. Big house so had to deal with distance issues. Wi fi for my setup for the DAC seemed to not work as well. If you are willing to make the effort you could buy both and do an AB to see which sounds better, then return the device you didn't want to use. |
@soix Yes to all you ask. My recommendation is in my post, either will work, you just need to clean it up afterwards using a buffer switch and passive Ethernet Filter. Disclaimer. I make the ENO Ethernet Filter. |
As background.... I'm using a Netgear range extender to feed my Streamer (and 2Tb HDD) unit and that has worked well for years. There's not much else working off the range extender so it has plenty of bandwidth for the streamer. As far as audio quality.....I recently read that it is important to use a well shielded Ethernet cable from the extender to the streamer to reduce noise from the nearby electronics. That led me to upgrade the Ethernet cable to a nicely shielded DH Labs Silver Sonic - Reunion Cat8. Before I put in the new ethernet cable both streaming and locally stored music (all .wav) both sounded nice and about the same, but now the Reunion has made the streaming a more lively experience - especially on the higher bitrate streams (192k+) streams. Good luck with however you solve this!
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I used to have my ROON Core behind a Powerline network. I also had my living room system’s DAC streamed via this same PowerLine. I even have this PowerLine in my garage with a bunch of heavy-duty computer servers. When the new George Harrision remaster of ALL THINGS MUST PASS in high res came out, I was getting some distortion at a particular part of a track, when George was whistling. I could ALWAYS reproduce the problem at the exact time in the music. So, this was very helpful for me to figure out the cause. It turned out to be my ROON Core being on the PowerLine network side of my home network. I guess the Powerline’s bandwidth could not keep up to speed with the whistling bits. So, I moved the ROON Core machine to my non-Powerline part of my network and the problem was solved. I now forgot if my living room system has this issue still, since it is on the PowerLine as a ROON-READY endpoint. I do not think so, which is interesting. I confirm this with another post. PowerLine works for me when the ROON Core is in the non-PowerLine part of my network.
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