Initial I was using several products from NAD. Main system was an NAD T777v3 and several multi room speakers spread all over my house. Grouping and synchronization was never an issue.
As the NAD T777 did not meet my requirements anymore I replaced it with a trinnov altitude 32.
I still want to be able to group and sync the same way as I was used to. Therefore I got a roon license.
Technically I am able to group but the sync drives me crazy. It does not matter which group I try to build up or which delay I try to set up. It’s running out of sync instantly all the time.
Not sure I understand your setup. You mentioned getting a Roon License. What platform are you running the Roon Server on? What multi-room speakers are you using? Are the speakers wired or wireless?
In order to cope with your problem the best thing to try other than setting resync delay to higher values would be playing around with the “Clock master Priority”. Please try to set different Devices to master clock device and see whether there is going to be a difference.
The other thing worth mentioning is that it is possible to merge only devices sharing the same audio protocol (RAAT in your case we might assume).
That being said can you please let us know which devices are you grouping or trying to group ? Are all of them connected using RAAT ?
Also, can you please confirm whether all of those devices have wired connection to the router ? If not - it’s worth wiring them.
Let us know please whether abovesaid advices were helpful.
First of all, thank you very much for your quick response.
My setup is as follows:
I have a Trinnov Altitude 32 preamplifier in my living room. I also use various Bluesound devices from NAD. There is a Pulse Mini 2i in the kitchen, a Pulse Flex 2 in the bathroom and another one in the hallway. I also have a Pulse M in the bedroom.
I group them as needed, depending on where I am moving between rooms. The Bluesound devices run perfectly synchronised with each other. However, any combination with the Trinnov immediately drifts apart. However, all combinations behave differently.
Unfortunately, I have to connect all Bluesound devices via Wi-Fi. However, this was not a problem in the same ecosystem before. In this respect, I would like to rule out latency.
I have taken out a free monthly subscription. I run the whole thing on a local headless Linux server.
I mean, the devices use different protocols. However, I think it is understandable that Trinnov has to be my leading system. The rest is already sufficiently distributed throughout the house that I would prefer not to change the ecosystem.
Where can I find “Clock Master Priority”? I only found one setting where I could delay the signals. I tried that for hours. I tried every grouping. Unfortunately, each one behaves differently and it still runs out of sync.
Cheers
mjw
(Here I am with a brain the size of a planet and they ask me to pick up a piece of paper. Call that job satisfaction? I don't.)
5
Select the Trinnov audio device in the Roon app, then click on the Speaker icon (bottom right of the display.) Now, click the Gear icon, and Device Setup in the pop-up (another Gear icon.)
Rsync Delay is shown on this pop-up. Experiment by increasing the delay in small increments.
Clock Master Priority is found under Advanced settings. To view these, scroll down in the pop-up, and click on Show advanced. Continue to scroll until you see Clock master priority. Again, experiment with the values.
I have experimented with both settings. Clock Master Priority seems to exacerbate the problem. However, it is possible that I have not fully understood how to adjust it correctly.
Rsync Delay, on the other hand, significantly improves the situation, at least temporarily. However, it also behaves strangely here. At times, the groups run quite synchronously. There is then a slight offset of about 2 ms. But you can still ignore that. What is strange, however, is that it sometimes runs side by side for a quarter of an hour and then starts to drift apart again. Sometimes it is enough to simply skip to the next track or back again, but other times it remains completely out of sync. Then I have to reset Rsync Delay until it runs again for a while. Sometimes, after a while, I have to revert to the temporary fix from before. I can’t seem to identify a reproducible pattern.
The Bluesound speakers don’t have this problem with each other under Roon either. It’s always just the combination of Trinnov and any Bluesound device.
Thank you for the detailed update. To better understand the behavior, could you please clarify which device is currently acting as the Clock Master in your setup? This is important because the Clock Master dictates the timing for all other devices in the group.
Just to recap:
Rsync Delay: This setting adds a small period of silence at the start of playback whenever the format changes (e.g., sample rate or bit depth). Its purpose is to give the audio hardware a chance to synchronize to the new format before playback begins. It is not meant for ongoing drift correction between devices in a group — that is handled by Roon’s internal group synchronization and the Clock Master assignment.
Would you kindly play a bit with the clock master priority settings and set a different device as a master, and check how it goes.
I’ve tried this now. If I set the Trinnov lower then the Bluesound devices it gets worse. If I set the trinnov devices above the Bluesound ones it’s asynchronous but looks like it keeps at this position. Probably no more drifting in addition. But not 100 % sure.
Is the Trinnov connected via Ethernet or over WiFi? Can you let us know the exact local time + date + track when the devices are not playing in sync? We can enable diagnostics for your account, perhaps logs will reveal a clue.
The Trinnov is connected via DLan. But that shouldn’t be a problem. My NAD T777 was connected to the other Bluesound speakers via the same connection. Everything ran perfectly synchronised there.
Sure I can give you an example. But beeing honest it happens with all tracks. Only to varying degrees. What should I do about debugging?
However, I will not be able to do this until Thursday or Friday at the earliest. I am away on business.
Thank you for the detailed information and for testing the Clock Master and Rsync Delay settings.
To eliminate potential network-related issues, we strongly recommend avoiding powerline adapters for testing purposes. The best approach would be to connect all devices directly to the same unmanaged switch. This ensures a clean and consistent network environment and helps rule out any latency or synchronization problems caused by the network.
Once all devices are on the same switch, please try grouping them again and let us know if the sync behavior improves.
Additionally, we are still awaiting the information requested by @noris regarding the exact local time, date, and track when the devices are not playing in sync. This data will help us further investigate the issue.
I can rule out the network connection as the cause of the error. As mentioned at the beginning, I previously used a NAD AVR and have now replaced it with the Trinnov. Both devices were connected via the same channel. All other devices in the network remained unchanged both before and after the replacement. Synchronisation always worked perfectly with the NAD.
As also mentioned, in principle, no song is perfectly synchronised anymore. You always hear at least a slight offset. However, there are significantly stronger instances.
See 14:28, Basstrologe – Somebody to love from the start. The entire song is affected. The beat is completely offset between the Trinnov and the other devices. Only the Bluesound devices are synchronised with each other.
The raison d’être of Trinnov hardware is heavy duty digital room correction, and that can introduce significant latency. Are you sure that is not the issue here?
When you contructed this grouped Zone in Roon, which Zones did you add first? Try adding all of the Bluesounds and then adding the Trinnov to the group last. RAAT clock master priority is influenced by the order in which you assign devices.
If you notice the drift worsens, try the opposite - start building the grouped Zone by adding other Zones to the Trinnov, allowing the Trinnov to function as the lead clock.
Taking a look at RoonServer logs, the Trinnov is reporting clock drift an order of magnitude higher than expected for synced playback, and clock drift varies significantly compared to the Bluesound endpoints:
This represents about 0.37 seconds per hour of clock drift during playback. The variation is more significant than the magnitude - clock drift is going up and down relative to the other Zones in the group, and Roon is struggling to keep the Trinnov in sync. Usually, this happens when endpoint firmware is introducing variable processing delay or resampling due to room correction. This leads to the question @WiWavelength has asked above.
Do you have Optimizer or other room correction enabled in the Trinnov firmware?
Hey guys. Thanks for trying to help me. Much appreciated.
I use Trinnov’s correction. That was one of the reasons for purchasing the device, as it is capable of correcting all interference in the room. I don’t use any other correction systems on top. There is no MiniDSP or similar device connected anywhere. The situation was the same with my previous NAD system. There, I used Dirac Live for room correction. As already mentioned, all devices were always perfectly synchronised via BlueOS.
For the test, I have now grouped only one Bluesound speaker with the Trinnov. Which device I add first or second seems to have no influence. Even changing the master clock priority does not seem to change anything. Only different songs seem to be affected to varying degrees. With some songs, it is more like a very slight echo. Others, on the other hand, are completely out of sync.
Please excuse my late response. I was away on business and only got back to it yesterday. As my system was still being set up, I also had my Trinnov dealer in the house. He has also been using Roon for many years.
Together, we tried all the system settings mentioned here in the chat. That is, different sequences of the master clock, delays for the individual devices and also group delays. We were unable to solve the problem.
However, I can confirm that different bit rates have different effects on the offset.
We also deactivated the Trinnov correction once. However, this had no effect.
I have now obtained a long LAN cable to test a direct connection to the router via LAN rather than DLAN. However, I will only be able to test this on Wednesday evening, as I am travelling again.
I have now checked with a direct LAN connection. Same result. I can’t force a bit rate based on my understanding. The trinnov has the external clock activated. When bit rate changes I can see trinnov does the same. When I try to set up a fixed rate when roon is connected it’s not possible as roon forces the bit rate into the trinnov. Trinnov version is 4.3.3
