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The Orbi Home Wi-Fi challenge - so far is not going to win for me ....
I bought the Orbi RBK20's based on the Orbi Home Wi-Fi challenge - so I had nothing to lose if things did not work out. My main gripe is not being able to split the wireless streams into 2x SSIDs...
It's easy to get puzzled over this - I do too.
The Auralic does have an Ethernet port so I could use that option instead, you are right - it would effectivley give the Auralic a better antenna to work with as a bonus (and any other device that sits on the Hi-Fi rack requiring an Internet connection too - i.e. my Marantz NA7004 and many other streamers I am messing about with).
Anyway let me explain the Auralic and how it works ....
... the sensitive area with the Auralic Mini is the Apple Control app (called Lightning DS) when sending commands to the Mini such as, changing the volume control (sliding the volume up and down on the app) - changing from Internet Radio to Tidal etc - those sort of software controls / instructions. Why sensitive - because those controls required UDP packets which are not checked over IP when delivered. If UDP packets get dropped then the software control loses touch.
When the music actually streams it uses TCP packets - TCP packets get buffered and checked for delivery over IP, so are far more reliable (streaming music does not drop).
In my experience a good 5GHz wireless signal ensures better control of the Auralic Mini.
audiostreamer wrote:It's easy to get puzzled over this - I do too.
The Auralic does have an Ethernet port so I could use that option instead, you are right - it would effectivley give the Auralic a better antenna to work with as a bonus (and any other device that sits on the Hi-Fi rack requiring an Internet connection too - i.e. my Marantz NA7004 and many other streamers I am messing about with).
.....
those controls required UDP packets which are not checked over IP when delivered. If UDP packets get dropped then the software control loses touch.
Ethernet sounds like a "win-win" to me, even better than 5G WiFi on the Auralic side. The control app can connect to the Orbi and from there it will be 5G backhaul and ethernet.
However, sometimes it is better to stop "beating a dead horse" and get on with life. Wish I could recommend a different product, but I only know the Nighthawk R7000, which was replaced by the Orbi because it didn't cover the house well enough, and the Orbi.
Good Luck!
OK after much 'beating the dead horse' I've made a final decision - and I think it's a good one....
Primarily I'm going to simply keep one single high performance router to serve the whole house - and it does this very well in my tests without the need to introduce a Mesh.
The whole configuration is thus:
The ISP router will do all the 2.4G leg work - while the spanking new Asus RT-AC86U will just serve 5G (this means disabling 5G on the ISP router and disabling 2.4G on the Asus router).
The TT ISP router is very good (for an ISP router) so it's happy to do far reaching 2.4 networks.
But the Asus is better - that's doing the 5G donkey work. Oh the Asus is configured as an AP (Access Point) not a router - the ISP router is staying as the router for now, but of course that could change.
More interesting still - is that Asus, with its later firmware and existing newer supported routers - have their own Mesh system called AiMesh. In my case the Asus RT-AC86U is good enough for the whole house, but I could (if I wanted to) add another Asus RT-AC86U (or similar supported) router downstairs to make an AiMesh. The Asus AiMesh also connects via a dedicated backhaul like Orbi does - so well done AiMesh. But of course I get the advantage of all the features Asus give you on this router as a bonus (the Orbi was too dumbed down for me).
