Help with my actual setup

Dear community,
apologize for any inaccurate term, being English not my first language
I’m experiencing some music interruption with my actual system configuration; while listening Roon, music stops few seconds to re-start automatically with the next song; in the meantime I could see the warning “Roon is experiencing load problems”.
My actual set up is:

  • Roon Core on my iMac (i7 processor)
  • wifi N at 5Ghz, managed through Apple router
  • MacBook Pro (late 2009 - Intel Core 2 Duo) with Roon Bridge and Dirac Live, connected through USB to my HiFi DAC
    Where, in your opinion, should I start looking at the bottleneck? Sounds quite obvious to me the MacBook Pro is surely not the most modern one but all KPIs while running (e.g. CPU usage) seem under good limits. Interesting, I’ve never experienced music interruptions if I play it through MacBookPro own loudspeakers and not through the USB connection.
    Can be WiFi be the issue here, too?
    Initially I considered to move to a NUC with ROCK installed but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be allowed to use Dirac Live anymore. Am I right?

Thanks a lot for any recommendation from your side
Kind regards
Andrea

The wifi and Apple router are the places to start. Wifi can be an issue, can you try Ethernet connections?

There have also been a lot of issues report with Apple network routers so that would be the next thing to investigate.

Since this is in the software category I’ll flag @support to be sure they see this.

Thanks a lot for your feedback, philr
I’m actually unable to organise a direct Ethernet connection. Would be Powerline a good try, anyway?

Ethernet over power is compatible. I had success with Linksys PLEK500 modules until I ran a CAT 6 across the house.

Hi @moos ----- Thank you for the report and sharing your feedback with us, apologies for the troubles here.

Moving forward, may I very ask you to clarify a few things for me based on this comment that you’ve made in your initial report:

I’ve never experienced music interruptions if I play it through MacBookPro own loudspeakers and not through the USB connection."

  • My assumption is that you are currently experiencing these dropouts to this audio zone: “MacBook Pro (late 2009 - Intel Core 2 Duo) with Roon Bridge and Dirac Live, connected through USB to my HiFi DAC”. Please Confirm.

  • If you playback through the internal speakers on the Macbook Pro via Roon, what is the experience like? Is it still uninterrupted (as mentioned), or are you having dropouts still?


Lastly, would you kindly please provide the following information:

  1. Please confirm where your musical collection is currently being stored/accessed from.

  2. Please verify the make and model of the DAC you are implementing in your setup.

  3. If you are playing through the internal speakers on the iMac are you hearing dropouts?

  4. Have you tried swapping out the USB cable between your MacBook Pro and the DAC?

  5. During your troubleshooting have you tried connecting your “HiFi DAC” directly to the iMac?

-Eric

Dear @Eric,
thanks a lot for your nice feedback. Let me try to answer your questions:

- My assumption is that you are currently experiencing these dropouts to this audio zone: “MacBook Pro (late 2009 - Intel Core 2 Duo) with Roon Bridge and Dirac Live, connected through USB to my HiFi DAC”. Please Confirm.Yes, you are right

  • If you playback through the internal speakers on the Macbook Pro via Roon, what is the experience like? Is it still uninterrupted (as mentioned), or are you having dropouts still? I’ve a limited experience here. I tried few times, just as test, without dropouts but the time spent is much, much less than with the regular configuration

Lastly, would you kindly please provide the following information:

1) Please confirm where your musical collection is currently being stored/accessed from. My music is stored on my iMac, where the Roon Core is also installed

2) Please verify the make and model of the DAC you are implementing in your setup.I’m using an Yggdrasil from Schiit as DAC

3) If you are playing through the internal speakers on the iMac are you hearing dropouts? Not at all. I’ve Roon connected to other devices, like AirPlay speakers and the iDAC2 from IFI (the latest directly connected to the iMac) without dropouts at all

4) Have you tried swapping out the USB cable between your MacBook Pro and the DAC? No, never tried

5) During your troubleshooting have you tried connecting your “HiFi DAC” directly to the iMac? I’ve another DAC connected to the iMac (iDAC 2 from IFI) and it is all going well

Tonight I tried to assign a fixed DHCP address to the MacBook Pro and I listened for a couple of hours without problems. I’m more and more convinced MacBook Pro is a bottleneck both for its WiFi performances and its processor (who needs to use Dirac Live). What is your experience here?

Thanks a lot for your interest.
Kind regards
Andrea

Hi @moos ---- Thank you for touching base with me and providing the requested feedback. Both are very appreciated and my apologies for the wait.

From your most recent post

“Tonight I tried to assign a fixed DHCP address to the MacBook Pro and I listened for a couple of hours without problems. I’m more and more convinced MacBook Pro is a bottleneck both for its WiFi performances and its processor (who needs to use Dirac Live). What is your experience here?”

In my home use, I actually use the similar model of MacBook pro on occasion as an end point, but the only difference between our setups is that I am using a hardwired connection (via ethernet) from my router to the unit. In my most humble opinion these are the variables that I would consider looking into:

Start here:
1a) What is the experience like if you mount the iFi iDAC2 to the MacBook Pro instead of the Yggdrasil DAC?

1b) Try swapping out the USB cable between your MacBook Pro and the DAC.

  • You’ve mentioned a few times that playback via the internal speakers on the Macbook Pro had no issues, which would indicate to me that your music is making it to the device successfully. However as soon as it is passed down the line to your DAC, that’s when you receive the dropouts. So the first two suggestions (“1a & 1b”) is where I would start.

Troubleshooting continued:
2) When you are noticing these dropouts, are there other active applications running on the Macbook pro? If there are, what happens if you quit all other process and just let RoonBridge run?

  1. Try reinstalling RoonBridge on the MacBook pro if you have not done so already.

  2. The most conclusive test would be to try with a hardwired connection between your Apple router and the Macbook Pro, but being as you mentioned that the location of your devices would not allow you to do so, I would consider also testing with a different (non-apple) router if possible. As mentioned by @philr we have indeed seen a few issues with these devices.

-Eric

Additional Information: Our CTO wrote up a very informative post on how to get the most out of your network topology + WiFi.

That was a great post by Brian on wi-fi. Especially on mesh wi-fi. Works great.

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Thanks a lot @Eric really appreciate your support.
I’ll be able to go through your reccomendations during the weekend (I’m usually working far from home). I’ll keep you informed about the outcomes
Thanks again
Andrea

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Dear @Eric, just a quick update after several tests.
I could basically narrow down the problem to two main causes:

  • the Apple Extreme router. At the moment I’m listening through a different Router (Netgear), without using Dirac Live, and I’m not experiencing any dropout (great!!)
  • my MacBookPro when listening through Dirac Live. Even with the new router, my MBP has difficulties to process all datas through Dirac. With this configuration I can still experience dropouts when moving from different music formats (e.g. from 16bit to 24bit) as the Mac is running behind with its Core Due processor. Would you agree?
    I would later consider to replace my MBP with a newer model (any recommendation?). I would consider to use ROCK on a NUC but I still need Dirac Live for best sound performances
    Thanks a lot for your great support
    Kind regards
    Andrea

Hi @moos ---- Thank you for your patience, my apologies for taking a bit to circle back around here.

It certainly seems like you’ve narrowed down the issue(s), well done :clap: :thumbsup:

Moving forward, in terms of any recommendation I can make for a new computer to host your Roon core, it really depends on what your needs are really. Truthfully, the best advice I can give is to follow our recommendations for the minimum requirements to run roon and you should be all set.

-Eric