Mesh network versus a simple Wi-Fi extender

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.