Curious wireless repeater question?

I'm just wondering if anyone can explain what is happening with my LAN speed. I have two wireless routers. One is a dsl modem/router which is the one with the WAN, and the other is a asus rt-n12 and its a repeater used to connect my wired computers. Today I tried connecting my laptop through a wired connection to my repeater router so I could transfer a 700mb file that was on a pc connected to the same repeater router. Needless to say the file had an approx. time of 1 hour. Later, I took the same laptop and connected it to my dsl router also wired and it was approx. half the time!! So basically the file transfer was faster between the wireless routers then it was between the two computers hooked up to the repeater router. Why? I'm guessing that instead of the transfer happening directly between the two wired computers hooked up to the repeater the pc is transferring to the repeater then the dsl router and then back to the laptop causing it to multiply the time it would normally take. I hope that makes sense.