If you’re stable at 100ms, your system is working great.
I don’t think there is any guarantee that 50ms will be stable. It’s a really tight time constraint to meet.
We included the option purely so we could match Devialet’s options in the driver, but it is really not the best setting for audio playback–it’s there for people who are worried about lip-sync when playing video files, which doesn’t really apply to Roon. For music bigger buffers are almost always better, up until the point where they interrupt the user experience by creating delays.
Not sure if I was counted or not, but I’m pretty sure mine was an isolated one-off. It never occurred before or since, and as it only lasted an hour or so and I restarted the Core around this time, I wonder if something had just got sticky somewhere. Will keep an eye on it but so far so good.
To second what has been said before, I noticed, in my configuration, that:
AIR has never been stable using Airport Extreme or Airport Express. I tried both and could never reach a crackle free reproduction
switching to my internet provider router gave me better results
powering this router with a LPSU improves the reliability in my setup
in Wifi mode, adjusting the position of the router vis a vis the Devialet WiFI board so that signal/noise ratio reaches a level > -35db/-40db (visible from Devialet AIR settings) provides for a very reliable streaming, up to 24/192 without crackles.
The only crackles I have faced since Roon/AIR was released were related to a situation when a terminal (iPhone) tried to access the same WiFI router from a position where the signal was very weak and significantly perturbed the audio streaming.
My configuration of NUC 6i5 connected to D LINK DGS-1008G 8-Port Gigabit Unmanaged Desktop Switch, Synology NAS connected to same switch, and Devialet 440 Pro connected to same switch has worked flawlessly running RoonServer on the NUC under either ROCK OS or Windows 10 Pro OS that I optimized by eliminating certain processes ( including Windows updates). So all three devices are connected via ethernet. The switch in turn has an ethernet run to my ASUS RT 1900 router. There is about 25-50 feet in wall CAT5e cabling between each of these devices, with final connection via CAT6 cable.
I do not run any other applications on my NUC.
Prior to Roon supporting AIR, I ran the Devialet AIR driver with RoonServer on the Windows 10 Pro NUC, or a Mac Mini, AIR3 was fairly reliable in both instances, never any white noise, no crackles, occasionally slight/brief dropout or pause, usually because of something untoward happening on the Windows 10 Pro machine (Windows doing other stuff in background).
As I said, just a data point if it helps to narrow things down. I have spend a good amount of time optimizing the network setup in router for general usage, and do give my Devialet, NAS, and NUC fixed/static IP addresses, a practice I extend to most all of my networked devices at home.
Hello,
I did a lot of tests and after that I will try to explain what happens on my system.
First point : I am sure there is nothing on my computer (program or service) to interfere with Roon. Roon works well with Windows 10 safe mode with networking, and using this mode, I have the same results.
Second point, I first believed I had dropoutS or noiseS, in fact I have only ONE dropout (or noise) after more or less 3 minutes after the beginning of the play. After that, no more problem.
I start Roon, I wait until there is no more CPU or disk activity and I play a 192 kHz 24 bit album.
With task manager, I see memory = more or less 1200 Mb for RoonAppliance and after 1 min, it comes down to 1000 Mb.
The dropout or noise ALWAYS occurs when Roon goes from 1000 Mb to 760 Mb (after 3 or 4 minutes).
What does Roon at that moment???
If I start Roon and wait before playing the album, I can see RoonAppliance memory decrease once. If I start playing the album after that, I will always have a dropout or noise when RoonAppliance memory decreases during play (after more or less 2,5 minutes).
These tests were done with buffer = 100 ms. Sometimes (rarely) I have no noise or dropout during the second memory decrease.
With a big buffer (3000 ms for instance) I have no dropout or noise, the memory values are different.
If I don’t stop and restart Roon, no problem (I had to stop it to see the logfile!).
I hope I was clear and could help everybody,
Best regards,
Sylvain
I would like to give other détails to complete my previous message. The important decrease of memory (the second one, about 250 Mb) which results in a dropout on my system after 3 or 4 minutes of play is due to the size of the library (more than 80 000 tracks). If I reduce the size of this library to 10 000 tracks for instance, the decrease of memory is much smaller ( from 650 Mb to 600Mb, 50 Mb) and in that case, I have no dropout or noise.
Best regards,
Sylvain
I have now replaced the Apple Airport Extreme & Express with Orbi. Now, I don’t seem to get “NAK” messages anymore to the log files but still I heard crackles couple times this morning. Also I noticed that left / right channel got muted for a while (~1 second) few times. It was like one of the channels dropped out for a while. I tried different buffer sizes but those didn’t help. Right now I’m using 3s buffer.
Then I tried also connecting Devialet directly to the Orbi router with an Ethernet cable. I listening for an hour and didn’t notice any crackles. The only problem was that still one of the channels got randomly muted / dropped out for a second.
Today I noticed again that one of the channels got dropped out for a second when streaming to my Devialet 1000 Pro. I checked that this happened at 18:10.
I checked the Roon Server log files and noticed that are LOTS of things happening at 18:10. Obviously the client got disconnected first and then there are about 1100 rows showing only following warn & debug rows exactly at 18:10:25.
08/09 18:10:25 Info: [brokerserver] Client disconnected: 192.168.1.8:53233
08/09 18:10:25 Debug: [remoting] firing request callback with null because of dispose
08/09 18:10:25 Trace: [push] restarting connection (Unable to read data from the transport connection: A blocking operation was interrupted by a call to WSACancelBlockingCall.)
08/09 18:10:25 Trace: [push] retrying connection in 95819ms
08/09 18:10:25 Warn: posting to shutdown SynchronizationContextThread
08/09 18:10:25 Debug: [remoting] firing request callback with null because of dispose
08/09 18:10:25 Warn: posting to shutdown SynchronizationContextThread
08/09 18:10:25 Debug: [remoting] firing request callback with null because of dispose
08/09 18:10:25 Warn: posting to shutdown SynchronizationContextThread
08/09 18:10:25 Debug: [remoting] firing request callback with null because of dispose
08/09 18:10:25 Warn: posting to shutdown SynchronizationContextThread
08/09 18:10:25 Debug: [remoting] firing request callback with null because of dispose
08/09 18:10:25 Warn: posting to shutdown SynchronizationContextThread
08/09 18:10:25 Debug: [remoting] firing request callback with null because of dispose
08/09 18:10:25 Warn: posting to shutdown SynchronizationContextThread
Finally I checked my Devialet and now the master device was showing the error “Last Fault A 4098 Over Voltage”. Unfortunately there is no datetime information available when exactly this Over Voltage happened.
So is this dropout problem caused by the Over Voltage issue? @support any ideas?
I don’t think this is going to be related to Roon – have you spoken with Devialet support yet?
That’s probably the best place to start for this error, but let us know if your stuck or if you have reason to believe this is related to Roon and we can take a look.
Yes, I have an open ticket there too. They replied 10 days ago that they are working on this but they couldn’t yet confirm whether the dropouts are caused by the over voltage.
So there has been two kinds of symptoms:
Dropouts
Crackles
I suppose the dropouts can be caused by the over voltage but how about the crackles, is it possible that those are also caused by the over voltage? I got at least three dropouts yesterday but I haven’t got crackles for a while after adjusting few things on the computer (like for example disabling all power saving features on the network adapter).
Crackles are not gone. They come randomly every now and then. Moreover, the dropouts happen once per hour.
I must say that I’m slightly disappointed but good news is that at least Devialet support has replied that they need Roon’s help on this matter since it’s not clear that all these problems are caused by the over voltage. I hope you guys @support are having active conversation with Devialet support.
Hey @Petri – we are discussing this with Devialet, and we will let you know if we think there’s something we can do on our end to resolve this.
Obviously if these crackles end up being related to AIR or to the hardware, a fix would have to come from them, but we are discussing and hoping to make some progress on this.
Please let us know as well if you hear anything new in your conversation with Devialet Support. Thanks for your patience here!
@mike - I got a reply from Devialet support today but I have to say that I’m not too pleased about it.
They will release a new firmware at some point in the future that might fix the dropout issue. Unfortunately there will be no solution to the crackle issue. Actually they suggested using Airplay instead of RoonAIR in the future with the new upcoming Core board to avoid the crackle issue… I can’t believe this. Airplay, seriously?
Hello, I solved my problem of crackles (in fact I had only ONE crackle after a few minutes of play) setting the buffer size to 5000 ms (audio settings, device setup, advanced settings). On my system, I noticed the crackle always occured when memory used by Roonappliance decreased suddenly for instance from 950 Mb to 850 Mb. It ony appears with a very large music library. I tried with a small one and could use 50 ms without problem. As you have a Roon Nucleus+ and not a PC, I don’t know if my experience can help. Maybe you could make a try with a small music library to see if your problem is connected with the size of the library.
Best regards,Sylvain
Thank you @Sylvain_RENARD. I changed the buffer size from “Default” to 5000 ms today. It seems to work much better now. I haven’t noticed any crackles after doing this change! Also the number of “NAK” messages on the Roon Server log file decreased significantly after doing this change. Earlier with the “Default” buffer size, I got crackles in every 30 seconds or so and there were big number of “NAK” messages on the logs. It looks like that the “Default” buffer size isn’t a proper default value when streaming to Devialet over Ethernet.
Hello,
it’s only written “Buffer Size” (from 50 ms to 5000 ms).
I have only one Device (Networked) : Devialet 800 ethernet. All other devices are disabled.
Audio Settings - Device setup - show advanced : here is the “Buffer Size” setting
Best regards,
Sylvain
Also the number of “NAK” messages on the Roon Server log file decreased significantly after doing this change. Earlier with the “Default” buffer size, I got crackles in every 30 seconds or so and there were big number of “NAK” messages on the logs. It looks like that the “Default” buffer size isn’t a proper default value when streaming to Devialet over Ethernet.