High Powered Wireless Network for Audio

You should go to the Linksys website for a complete tutorial. I had difficulty getting a wireless signal from one side of my house to the other, so what I did was get 2 routers, one for each side connected by a wire with the routing function disabled on the second router, turning it into a switch with wireless access point. I gave both routers the same SSID so my computer(s) could choose the one with the best signal depending on location. I tried a range expander but that made things worse, I think by creating reflections that were difficult to discern. Be mindful that any and all wireless devices share 1 port, whereas each wired device gets the port it's plugged into. So if you had 4 computers plugged in to ports 1-4 and a 4 computers wireless , each wired port gets 20% (1/5th) of the "signal" and each wireless computers gets 1/4 of the remaining 20% allotted to the wireless access. With my setup, I have 2 access points, so not as much competition for "air time".

I'd like to offer a few recommendations. My employer makes one of the high end routers for home use. I manage the Engineering dept. and have tested WiFi performance in various configurations.

My house is about 3,300 sq-ft and I use my router to stream audio to 3 Squeezebox devices wirelessly with good results. The entire house has good reception with only 1 router.

Let me clarify some myth first. Your Squeezebox Touch is a 11B/G device. No 11N router with the same output power and setup can improve the performance.

These WiFi routers are FCC certified with certain antenna design. Getting a higher gain antenna may improve the performance. But it may exceed the allowed emission limits.

Even though my router is located at one corner of the house, it is desirable to put the router in the center of the house. The WiFi performance degrades as the distance increases and/or more walls to penetrate.

Now come to the most important part of tuning the WiFi performance. You need to figure out which of the 11 channels would give you the best performance. Some of the higher end routers can automatically select the best channel. However, most of them do not select the best channel for a number of reasons.

There are two types of interferences: WiFi interference (e.g., other routers) and Non-WiFi interference (e.g., cordless phone, microwave, etc.) If you can do an air scan, you can see what other WiFi routers are around and the channels they use. Pick one from 1, 6, or 11 that has the least amount of routers/APs. It is harder to detect non-WiFi interference. So you may have to trial and error.

If you don't want to do the above, try channel 11. Let me know how it works for you.

I have ATT DSL and run nine different wireless devices without issue. I have a Linksys "N" router located in one corner of my 2800 sq ft house, but I am fortunate not to have any immediate neighbors (I can detect two other networks, but they are very weak). I can listen to my squeezeboxes and/or watch netflix movies through a PS3 and surf the net at the same time, etc. I honestly can't remember the last time I had "drop out" while listening to my Squeezebox. As Vett93 point out. the key to good wireless service seems to start with a relatively "clean" environment, followed by proper configuration of your router, firewalls, etc. If you're getting a lot of external interference, you probably need to look at a wired solution.

Your router may be just getting tired. I had an access point that seemed to put out less signal as it aged. I went with 2 access points because I have a lot of foil faced insulation in my house as well as duct work which I think created shields. The line of sight from my den to my patio is completely blocked by my house causing occasional dropouts. Placing the router in the center of the house was also not a great option for me.
Whatever router you choose, I would recommend the gigabit ethernet variety (10/100/1000) as opposed to an N router that only does 10/100. Linksys makes 2 types of dual band models, one where you choose either high or low band and use only one band at a time, and another that puts out 2 bands at the same time. BTW-the bands have nothing to with channels. You would still choose the channel for each band with the less interference.

I'd like to clarify one more issue. Among the 11 WiFi channels, there are only 3 non-overlapping channels. They are CH 1, 6, and 11. In other words, if you see WiFi routers on CH 2, 3, 4, and/or 5, CH 1 and 6 will get interferences. Additionally, if you see WiFi routers on CH 7, 8, 9, and/or 10, CH 6 and 11 will get interferences too.

Each of these 11 channels is 5MHz wide. Also, the signal transmission is 20MHz wide. So it will impact two adjacent channels on each side of the spectrum. For example, if you set the WiFi router on CH6, you can see its signal in CH 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

This shows that it can be tricky to select the best channel for WiFi use.