I live in the middle of nowhere in the North West Highlands and currently have my NDX 2 connected via a nighthawk switch s8000 with audioquest cinnamon. This is connected to a BT smarthub. Unfortunately the internet isn’t particularly reliable and fluctuates a lot. I do however have an option to connect it wirelessly to a 4g router with more stable internet but not directly so would have to be via WiFi.
Would love to know comments or other means of connecting for more stable listening.
Anything I may not know would also be great to hear.
Current generation Naim streamers work very well with Wi-Fi. I have my ND5 XS2 on a Wi-Fi connection, it is very stable and sounds great. So good in fact I’d be surprised if hardwiring it had any noticeable affect on the sound.
Every now and then, I need to reboot my router when WiFi becomes unresponsive. This became more regular since lockdown. However with my hard wired ND5 XS2, the connection doesnt becomes unresponsive during these incidents.
Well as you have both options ready to go I’d say try it out and see for yourself. You should find out fast enough which one is better.
As for a real opinionated answer, I prefer hard wiring BUT every situation is different. Different networking devices, different WiFi routers. In my situation I have definitely found that wired gives me a superior result. But for you it may differ.
I’d hazard a guess that spotty internet will have a far greater effect on your experience than whether it is hard wired or not. So go and try it out.
I used to have my ND555 hard wired and had even bought some of designer cables, both 5e and 6a to compare for the connections my side of the router, selecting the 5e as preferable. I then moved to a place without floorboards to lift and don’t have an easy way of installing the cabling so I’m now running wireless with the Core the only item hard wired to the router. As it’s a different room and it took a while to get the system finalised in it I can’t compare directly but I’m enjoying the 555 in its new home. I do seem to play more vinyl than streaming but that was ever the case anyway so not that indicative.
Yes absolutely can be fine with wifi… your NAS/UPnP server will also need to be by wifi… so needs to a good wifi access point system if you will be having other users.
Are you planning on using the BT Broadband 4G Home Hub? If so that should work well… as it’s the 4G equivalent of a superfast broadband hub, and will let you 4G enable 32 devices with a 30 Mbps option which is fine for hidef Qobuz plus other users at the same time.
There is an alternative by creating a wifi bridge using a second access point connected to an Ethernet switch. This switch can connect to your streamer and NAS… this is a bit more involved… but might be preferable if you are not using cloud streaming services like Tidal, Qobuz, or Spotify much.