Dropouts when playing tidal tracks in library

Support
1

Only seem to have them on (a) Tidal and (b) higher than 16/44.1

windows 10 (i7 server)>android remote app or remote on a win 7 laptop>CCA>optic out>DAC>Amp

all components (except for the android) are wired on a 300mbps. android is on wifi

very rarely see dropouts on local or tidal CD quality tracks.

have logs available

2

11/21 15:16:19 Trace: [push] restarting connection (Unable to read data from the transport connection: A blocking operation was interrupted by a call to WSACancelBlockingCall.)
11/21 15:16:19 Trace: [push] retrying connection in 39935ms

3

i unchecked “enable core MQA encoder” under device setup and have been hammering it pretty good with no dropouts. (and processing speed has doubled)

4

Hello @Derek_Wyman,

How is your CCA connected in this setup? Are you using WiFi or an Ethernet adapter to stream to it? Sometimes content that requires more bandwidth does not fare too well over WiFi (especially on the 2.4Ghz band) but if you want to stream higher-res content then you might want to try an Ethernet Adapter for the CCA. Either way, glad to hear that the dropouts have subsided since disabling MQA.

Thanks,
Noris

6

Using an Ethernet adapter.

Not sure how disabling the core MQA encoder effects the signal path technically.

the MQA tracks are still being authenticated, but then what DOESN’T happen?

Thanks for your help!

7

Hello @Derek_Wyman,

MQA Core decoding is Roon doing the first unfold of MQA content and this requires some processing power. If you disable this feature, MQA content can still reach the Endpoint but Roon will not do any unfolding and pass the MQA-encoded audio stream directly to the DAC to unfold. Hope this explanation helps.

Thanks,
Noris

8

Thank you @norris, and I apologize for my MQA-ignorance lol. I had never dealt with MQA until Roon.

A couple of questions:

(1) why is the “enable core MQA encoder" setting available on the CCA but not on my laptop>raat>wasapi>…does the raat handle the unfolding in that setup? again sorry if I am totally missing the way MQA works.

(2) what is the end difference in stream fed to my DACfrom the cca with the core MQA encoder on or off? I’d prefer to fix the deop out issue vs a workaround that is a compromise if possible

9

Hello @Derek_Wyman,

No worries, happy to help. As to answer your questions:

  1. The DAC has to support hi-res content for the MQA Core Decoder option to appear. If the device does not support hi-res, then the option will not be listed in Device Setup.

  2. MQA Core decoder enables unfolds of the MQA content to 29/96 (hi-res quality).
    If you disable Core decoder, then the output it is only transmitted at 24/48 (CD quality) unless the Endpoint is a Full MQA Decoder & Render.

As for the dropouts occurring, what exactly is your processing speed with MQA Core Decoding turned on? What is your Router model/manufacturer? Please let me know when possible.

Thanks,
Noris

10

40-50 with it on. 80-100 with it off.

Asus rt66. I am switching to Google WiFi over the weekend.

11

Hello @Derek_Wyman,

A 40x-50x processing speed is good, so I don’t think that this issue is related to the processing speed of your Core, but possibly network bandwidth limitations. Please let me know how it goes after you switch to Google WiFi this weekend.

Thanks,
Noris

12

@noris is it an issue if my bandwidth gets annihilated by roon? lol

I get dl speeds of 175-200 (on my server) when roon isn’t playing but drops to 30-50 when I am playing.

This may be the intended usage, but just looking for the root of these drop outs.

13

Hello @Derek_Wyman,

Apologies about the slight delay in getting back to you here, as to answer your question, no, Roon should not be using that much bandwidth just by simply streaming TIDAL tracks. I have just tried streaming a 192kHz file over TIDAL and only noticed a drop of 1-5Mb/s so I am not sure why your speed is dropping so much.

Have you had a chance to test the system with the new Google WiFi setup in place? Is everything more stable with it? Also, you haven’t mentioned which DAC you are using in your setup here, can you please let me know the model/manufacturer?

I have also gone ahead and enabled diagnostics mode for your account and what this action will do is next time your Core is active, a set of logs will automatically be generated and uploaded to our servers for analysis. I kindly ask for you to reproduce this issue once more and let me know the exact local time in your country (ex. 12:10PM) that you notice the dropout so that we can cross-reference the diagnostics for any issues that occur around that time.

Thanks,
Noris