LANdings. WiFi isn't just inaudible ultrasonic noise. My wife and I get headaches from it to live in a hardwired rural household with minimal exposure. Call us mad tin-foil hatters like TV character Saul Goodman's reclusive brother. Our lay of the LAN is a hardwired spur from the router to a broadband fibre module on the outdoor utility post facing my office. From there a 30m CAT8 spur connects to Ivette's office behind my listening room; a 20m spur to my music iMac; and a 2m spur to my office workstation.

To isolate the music iMac from ungrounded Ethernet, a cascaded duet of LHY network switches sit between it and router spur. That's for cloud files. Local files live on a 4TB SSD drive. That connects to the iMac via USB. Regardless of source, incoming music files hit Audirvana Studio set to extreme mode. This shuts down all computing threads not needed for playback. Audirvana then upsamples to 24/176.4 or 24/192 before spitting USB out to a Singxer SU-6 bridge/reclocker via Furutech NCF cable. The bridge powers by ultra capacitors for virtual batteries. Still in the digital domain but now converted to AES/EBU, the signal finally hits a Cen.Grand DSDAC 1.0 Deluxe which converts it to analogue.

To recap, I apply special pre and post luv to either side of the iMac. Post luv by USB bridge isolates it from the DAC. Pre luv by cascaded switches brings cloud files on par with local files. Without them, local files sound better. Networked sound needs more help. A Denafrips CD transport with built-in upsampler is my standby reminder for disc-based sound. Finally, the big 27" Retina 5 display exceeds any tablet remote on size and resolution. I'm thus not inconvenienced at all without WiFi. Rather, I'm living much bigger. If like the vast majority you're not bothered by WiFi radiation, you can obviously bypass all wire-rigged rigmarole. Will the sound be as good? That's on you to determine. I only know old-skool hardwired streaming. Kool kids look to darko.audio on mastering WiFi.

Cascaded network switches on shelf beneath iMac.

"What's this antiquated notion of ownership and local files in the first place?" I imagine the kool kids asking next. As a conservatory-trained musician whose two siblings make a living in German opera houses, I'm acutely aware that their work and long training have worth. Making music to entertain others can't be free. It's one reason why I prefer to own my favourite music. Buying it kicks back more to artists who aren't top-100 names. Two, our hardwired mandate and renting our home means we have no upstairs Internet. I won't run 50m cable spurs down a long hallway, neatly up the stairs then down the floorboards of another long corridor to reach the rooms at its ends. To have music upstairs mandates local files. Three, should our internet connection crap out or a particular artist withdraw their titles from Qobuz to whose premier tier I subscribe, all or some of my music temporarily or for good disappears. If I own it and copy it to various SSD and SD cards, it remains. As an old-skool duffer, I'd only need one good reason for a personal library. Instead I've got three. Yet I still stream off the cloud to sample what I might like to add to my SSD and sundry cards; or to listen casually on my desktop. Back on today's prime attraction of new LAN-8 cable. Its €145 ask for my 0.6m stretch between network switch and dedicated music iMac is a relative pittance in high-end audio. Haters could stretch a €15 Electric Avenue CAT5 trip wire and call anyone spending more crazy. Once we lay hands on Furutech's €266/ea. noise plugs, haters will be utterly lost for words. I can live with that. Such silence is golden after all.

… to be continued…