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50 ft ethernet vs. wireless

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Posted on September 1, 2014 at 16:41:04
Charlie8521
Audiophile

Posts: 914
Location: South East Michigan
Joined: October 2, 2004
 So I have an AT&T router in my home office. I have in my living room a MacMini that I wirelessly send a signal to for streaming internet radio songs from, iTunes, etc... Am I going to get a better quality of sound if I run a 50 ft. ethernet cable over the wireless approach to my living room MacMini? The hard cable will be ugly and awkward, but if it is a better approach I can live with it. Thank you in advance.

 

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RE: 50 ft ethernet vs. wireless, posted on September 1, 2014 at 17:45:53
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
 You can get a 50 foot Ethernet cable quite cheaply. I suggest you try it and compare with wireless. While you are doing the testing, just take care not to trip over it.

One thing you can do if you are worried about wires is to use a wireless bridge. You can put this some feet away from your audio stack and run wired Ethernet to your audio stack. This might work better than using a local wireless adapter on your MacMini. Not only would the wireless signals be further away, the processing associated with them (which can be significant) will be separate from the computer that is doing audio.



Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

RE: 50 ft ethernet vs. wireless, posted on September 1, 2014 at 19:04:05
Jaundiced Ear
 Are you experiencing any dropouts or noise through your wireless connection? If not I wouldn't expect any great changes moving to Ethernet. Ethernet will be noticeably faster at moving data but whether it provides a noticeable improvement to sound is a different story.

If you do want to experiment with Ethernet, they company I've linked to below will provide a quality product at a reasonable price, with an individual certification showing that the cable you bought meets its stated classification.

JE

 

I solved the problem with a AC Power Line adaptor set..., posted on September 1, 2014 at 19:34:14
Ivan303
Audiophile

Posts: 48887
Location: Cadiere d'azur FRANCE - Santa Fe, NM
Joined: February 26, 2001

Not so sure an audiophile should be putting lots of high frequency crap on top of their home's AC power lines, BUT...

As my Network Audio Player only works with Ethernet, not WiFi, it was that or trying to run a Cat 6 drop through the heating ducts.

Link below:


First they came for the dumb-asses
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a dumb-ass

 

RE: 50 ft ethernet vs. wireless, posted on September 1, 2014 at 19:54:22
AbeCollins
Audiophile

Posts: 46302
Location: USA
Joined: June 22, 2001
Contributor
  Since: February 2, 2002
Only way to tell for sure is to try it for yourself and see. Run a standard 50-foot Ethernet cable and string it out temporary. Unless you're having some wireless issues my bet is that you will not hear a significant improvement streaming low bit-rate over hardwired Ethernet.

But I have a question for you. Are you using the Mac Mini mainly as a streaming 'receiver'? Have you tried the tiny $99 AppleTV box instead? I can stream pretty much anything to it from my computer in the office. My AppleTV is on hardwired Ethernet in the family room.... but it also supports wifi.






 

RE: 50 ft ethernet vs. wireless, posted on September 1, 2014 at 21:34:02
Bob_C
Audiophile

Posts: 2667
Location: NY
Joined: July 31, 2000
 So are you saying that the $35 Blue Jeans cable is better than the $10 cable from Monoprice?

 

Yes it works, posted on September 1, 2014 at 22:07:01
Goober58
 I use it with an AppleTV in the kitchen. My wife is also on the ethernet via the power line as is our common printer. My son and I have wired internet connections. We have wireless capability but it gets used mostly by guests and some of our portable computers.

Haven't had any problems with this messing up my audio like ceiling fans and the fridge have done in the past.

Lucky for us we've got an attic and incorporated the wired network in when we updated our electrical system.

 

What do you mean by "better?", posted on September 1, 2014 at 22:17:57
Jaundiced Ear
 The blue jeans cable will have been individually tested, the monoprice cable not. Some folks may find value in that individual testing. That's certainly more than you get with another recently discussed Ethernet cable. For a lot less money too.

Do I think they will sound different? No. But then I don't think either will sound different than WiFi, unless the WiFi connection is poor, resulting in signal drop outs.

That's not to say that the OP may not have "new toy" syndrome and listen more intently to his stereo after he hooks up the new cable, in which case he will suddenly "hear" things that were there all along and be dazzled by the new "sound" of his stereo. After a week or so though, since there was no fundamental change in the actual sound of the system, it will go back to sounding like it always did. Only now he'll have an ugly cable in his home.

I think I know whereof I speak. Before I became Jaundiced I used to try out all sorts of tweaks and other nonsense such as making my own cables. I was always thrilled when I first plugged in the new goody (it almost always "improved" the sound), but I always noticed that "new sound" effect didn't last more than a few days. Indeed, often after a few days I was glad to pull the tweak out of the system and go back to the way it was. Which ironically also "improved" the sound.

We're all human. We all have very frail and fallible sensory apparatuses. Having been around the block I'm perfectly willing to admit that I can be fooled "some of the time." Whether I can be fooled "all of the time" is a different matter.

YMMV

JE

 

Apple TV, posted on September 2, 2014 at 06:20:16
Charlie8521
Audiophile

Posts: 914
Location: South East Michigan
Joined: October 2, 2004
 I considered the Apple TV, but thought I would get better Audio and Video from a Mac Mini through the wireless connection. May have been a $500 mistake, but that's what I did.

 

RE: 50 ft ethernet vs. wireless, posted on September 2, 2014 at 06:26:20
Charlie8521
Audiophile

Posts: 914
Location: South East Michigan
Joined: October 2, 2004
 No, I'm not experiencing drop out of signal via wireless. I'm questioning if I'm loosing some sound quality by using the Wireless approach. Thanks for the link to BJC.

 

You asked the same exact question I was going to - except that ..., posted on September 2, 2014 at 06:35:53
carcass93
Audiophile

Posts: 7181
Location: NJ
Joined: September 20, 2006
 ... most likely, I wouldn't get any response from dear friend :-).

So know, we have the pleasure of watching that bizarre, twisted, comical weaseling out - exactly as I was hoping for.

 

I just thought someone would know, posted on September 2, 2014 at 06:37:22
Charlie8521
Audiophile

Posts: 914
Location: South East Michigan
Joined: October 2, 2004
 I just thought someone out there would know from a technical point of view if when you utilize the Wireless of a Router and Mac Mini Wireless receiver in this case degrades the audio signal. Where as maybe a hard cable doesn't have those limitations. I really don't want a 50 ft cable running through doors ways etc..., unless I can really gain an improvement in sound.

 

Sound Quality is an inoperative concept with most Internet streams, posted on September 2, 2014 at 07:28:55
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
 " I'm questioning if I'm loosing some sound quality by using the Wireless approach."

If you are using lossy compressed streams that come over the Internet or any music downloaded from the iTunes store the original encoding of the music is already poor. Unless you are getting obvious dropouts or glitches due to poor wireless reception there is no point in worrying about sound quality. With MP3, AAC, etc., the concept of sound quality is simply inoperative.

If you are streaming high quality material from a server on your local network then there might be an issue, depending on your equipment and its set up, particularly the location of all the wireless devices with respect to your audio components. Just having a wireless base station near audio equipment even if it's being used by other family members to surf the web may possibly degrade sound. (And if it is close to your body some suggest it may degrade your health.) The worst potential for sonic degradation comes when an audio component itself is running with wireless enabled. From looking at Linux process statistics, It's obvious that the wireless software can place a high load (more than what is required to play audio) on the processor. Cheap wireless adapters have very little actual hardware, delegating most functions to software on their host device.



Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

RE: Yes it works, posted on September 2, 2014 at 07:33:26
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
 Yeah the fridge can mess up the audio. It really messes things up when the wife whacks you on the ears for forgetting to turn the fridge back on after a listening session. :-)

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

RE: Apple TV, posted on September 2, 2014 at 07:40:53
AbeCollins
Audiophile

Posts: 46302
Location: USA
Joined: June 22, 2001
Contributor
  Since: February 2, 2002
 It depends.

If you stream 'better than CD quality' content like 'hi-rez' music files downloaded from HDtracks and others, the Mac Mini can sound significantly better than the AppleTV.

The AppleTV supports up to 'CD quality', and since most all streaming music services are less than 'CD quality', the AppleTV is a good choice. The AppleTV includes a handful of Apps including iTunes Radio. Additionally, if you have another computer in the house with music on it, you can 'stream' that music from the computer to the AppleTV.

Of course you can do so much more with the Mac Mini so I wouldn't sweat it.


 

RE: I just thought someone would know, posted on September 2, 2014 at 07:47:49
AbeCollins
Audiophile

Posts: 46302
Location: USA
Joined: June 22, 2001
Contributor
  Since: February 2, 2002
What we know:

- You have good wifi signal with no dropout issues.

- You are streaming relatively low bit-rate content from streaming music services.

IMHO, just stick with wifi. You don't need and will likely not benefit from a hardwired Ethernet connection.





 

Laugh! Speaking of the wife., posted on September 2, 2014 at 09:57:53
Goober58
 We just celebrated our 34th wedding anniversary and still going strong!

 

RE: Laugh! Speaking of the wife., posted on September 2, 2014 at 10:24:49
AbeCollins
Audiophile

Posts: 46302
Location: USA
Joined: June 22, 2001
Contributor
  Since: February 2, 2002
There was a study that debunks the saying, 'happy wife, happy life'. According to the study, it's the other way around. Wish I could link to it. I saw it one evening on NightLine or another current affairs / news programs.

Congrats on your 34th!




 

RE: Laugh! Speaking of the wife., posted on September 2, 2014 at 10:30:22
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
 In my case, my ears were not boxed. (With apologies to Tom Edison.) I was told in no uncertain tones that if I ever forgot to turn the refrigerator back on I would be killed.

I had 43 happy years of marriage, ended when complications of chemo led to my wife's fatal stroke.

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

AbeCollins knows a lot about Macs, posted on September 2, 2014 at 13:33:04
Jaundiced Ear
 I think what he says makes good sense. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
Enjoy your music!

JE

 

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