Hi,
Just want to share some observation with you guys in regard to the continues audio dropout events in Roon (continues for the last 3 years). I was mad of these dropouts and so have bought some new hardware to bypass completely Roon.
I started to make tests using Roon as usual and additionally to stream the same music directly via Tidal Connect. In every session there were Roon audio dropouts, but NO audio dropout in Tidal (via Tidal Connect).
So, my guess is: Tidal might not serve Roon customers as an equal priority and when the bandwidth limitations are reached Roon customers are put in a “queue” but Tidal customers does not see any service disruption.
What do you think?
NB: Network, Cables, ROCK, Networkplayer, DAC etc. are not the issue here… in case someone would tend to repeat such root-cause assumptions.
All 3rd party users of Tidal access the same api streams there is no Roon specific ones. However each isp and region relies on local CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) to provide these streams and not all regions or isps seem to connect users to the most local one and some can be under heavy load. Often changing DNS settings on routers from the default ISP ones to use better 3rd party DNS servers such as Google, Cloudflare or Quad 9 can sometimes help with this. The native applications use a different URL to connect to streams and are dedicated for their usage only but they can also have the same issues if your being routed to a CDN that’s over subscribed.
It maybe something else more related to your setup but no I don’t believe Roon is treated any differently to any other 3rd party or the services own streams. There is just a lot of peices to the puzzle of how it gets to you and some isps seem better at than others.
Just saying that each one of the few dropouts I personally did experience turned out to be caused by a temporary LAN issue, so I never rule that out myself. There may well be temporary upstream issues as well like the CDN complications that @CrystalGipsy mentioned but there’s really not much evidence for your assertion either.
Hi CrystalGipsy,
As mentioned, I do not see the network is the problem (my local setup is tested and monitored).
I made the tests utilizing my 2 internet providers (100 Mbit and 1Gbit). Also, different DNS setups were part of the tests. FYI: my internet providers (both) are directly connected to DE-CIX Frankfurt (so the bandwidth is not the issue ).
The only conclusion left from my point of view is Tidal limitation for Roon as the Tidal direct link via Tidal Connect for the same music works without any interruptions.
Not necessarily. There is another option that is possible based on what I know. I’m not offering it as a solution, only as another option to consider.
The Roon server expands all incoming streams to uncompressed PCM at the appropriate bit depth and sampling frequency for the endpoint. It then streams that uncompressed, possibly high-resolution PCM bitstream using RAAT to the endpoint.
IF
Tidal streams use a compression algorithm that Tidal Connect decompresses just before using the final USB or HDMI port; AND
Your network is fully capable of sending the compressed bitstream from Tidal to Tidal Connect, but not the uncompressed PCM bitstream from Roon Server to your endpoint
THEN it could show the symptoms you describe. Again, I have no knowledge of your setup, but putting on my retired software engineer/debugger hat, it is a possibility that at least needs to be eliminated.
Edit/Add: One way to eliminate the option I’ve described is to connect your DAC directly to your Roon Server computer using USB. If the problem remains, then you have eliminated my hypothesis.
This hypothesis does not sound very convincing to me. If this is the case, i.e. the dropouts are originating from Tidal, roon would show the ´there is an issue with a file loading slowly´ error regularly which is usually resulting in the stream being paused, not being subject to dropouts.
From my understanding playing a stream from Tidal via roon does a lot of buffering which is making the possibility of dropouts caused from Tidal even smaller.
Having dropouts with roon and no dropouts with Tidal connect does not really tell you much as the way these protocols are handling streams to the endpoint are pretty different.
Are you sure the very same streams in the same resolution from Tidal or Qobuz or local files are handled differently by roon, meaning causing dropouts with Tidal but not with Qobuz/local?
Yes, “…file loading slowly…” error is sometimes visible in the Roon windows app. This error causes the current song being skipped completely.
The dropouts are up to 2 seconds and the song continues after the break.
RAAT buffering is …. Well, a 1Gbit network is capable to send more than 100 MByte data in one second. A typical song is about 60 MByte… so sorry but buffering is definitely not the strength of RAAT when a 2 second dropout can occur.
Also, the interface definition for RAAT seem to be out-of-date (from my point of view)… I would expect to have a 10MByte Buffer (at least) in order to avoid dropouts, so maybe it’s time for RAAT 2.0.
Regarding Tidal vs. Roon song quality: the streams seem to be the same (observed on the display of the Lumin U2 Mini).
There is one big difference between the two one is using one less network hop. This is where
I would focus my attention on being the issue. Either the server in/out has a bottleneck or at the other end. Latency is what generally causes dropouts not bandwidth.
That’s the thing. RAAT relies on a rather lean endpoint to open the protocol to a lot of streamers and DACs without much of buffering capability there. Buffering is mainly left to the server. If 2 secs of dropouts occur, I know where I´d have to search for the cause.
Meaning you play one and the same song in one and the same resolution via Tidal > Roon or from a local file > roon and the dropout situation is different?
You could just use system output to play out of if your server is on Mac or windows rather than move the. This will have the same result. If it plays fine then the issue is downstream of the server. If it persists then check the pc isn’t blocking something, av software, firewall, vpn and check replace network cables. If it’s still problematic then I would get support to check out your logs.
Mine is too, and I have no issues with Qobuz. But perhaps there’s a configuration setting in your network that reduces the throughput and/or increases the latency. For example, things like allowing or not allowing jumbo frames can have side effects in audio streaming. Sometimes these kinds of parameters need tweaking.
I fear nobody is gonna win this discussion. There areway too many differences in equipment,network gear, streaming ways to get consensus.
So arguing doesn’t make sense. Just listen and have fun and if you don’t have fun choose you own way in the streamingworld and don’t make assumptions.
It is not about arguing or blaming Tidal but about discussing most likely causes of the problem so everyone can improve his or her system without fearing dropouts.
I think when the vast majority of users are having no problem it is very unlikely to be a Roon problem. I frequently stream up to 6 tidal streams simultaneously in highrez from tidal with no dropouts at all.
Hi Andrew,
I already mentioned this: inductive reasoning does not match this case.
Anyhow, I run ROCK on a NUC (i7, 32GByte RAM, 128 GByte M.2 SSD system partition for ROCK, 1TByte SSD for music data) placed in a dedicated VLAN (no jumbo frames). All switches I use are managed. On the switch where ROCK is attached to no error log entries for the port.
Copy of 700 GByte music files out of ROCK to another server is possible without any degradation of the max 1Gbit LAN speed (I did it few times to check if something pops up). Wireshark does not show any unexpected traffic in my network. Tracert to ROCK server from e.g. my PC response time <1ms. No ping losses.
Internet downloads are possible with a near to max 1Gbit speed. No connection breaks for a second or so… simply a continues stream of data without issues (tested regularly for both internet providers I use).
I have setup a new ROCK today and attached it to another switch using a new LAN cable. Still dropouts and “… loading slowly “ errors skipping the songs one by one for few seconds (USA just started to use Tidal … dinner time ?).
).