Hi Noris,
I connected the PC via Ethernet and still same issue, a little better — the music playing over the KEF speakers just go in and out. There is no particular sequence.
KEF Streaming is not operating.
FYI, since I am just testing Roon to see if it is worth it to buy the appropriate hardware and also sign up for membership (which I think is worth it), I am just running Roon core on my PC which is not dedicated to just running Roon. It is just a standard PC, Windows 10, Intel i7-8550U, with 16GB RAM but I am using it as a working PC too. So is it the requirement that the Roon Core must only be installed and running on a dedicated hardware, without any other software operating. Roon Core is that intensive and need dedicated hardware?
My music library is only 300 albums and I am playing music from Tidal.
You can Roon core on any computer that meets the minimum spec, it does not need to be dedicated but it often helps as other software and os stuff can get in the way of things. It’s more important to have it wired to the network rather than wireless.
Do you get the same issue playing your own files via Roon to the speakers?
Can you possibly post a screenshot of the signal path when playing and having issues. You can do this by clicking on the now playing and then clicking on the blue or purple dot on the right. This may help see if something else is afoot in the signal to the speakers.
Thanks for letting me know about the improvement via Ethernet. You PC specs look ok, you don’t need a dedicated one although it may help if you have a large collection, I wouldn’t consider 300 albums as large for the moment. As @CrystalGipsy mentioned, if you can provide a screenshot of the Signal Path that will be helpful here and connecting the speakers themselves to the router over Ethernet (even temporarily) will help determine if this is a bandwidth issue. Please let me know your findings when possible.
For whatever reason, this afternoon, now, I am not able to see my KEF speakers as a source (endpoint?). I have turn off and on the KEF speakers. Also, power off/on the PC that runs Roon Core. But I am able to see the KEF speakers on KEF Control and KEF Stream. Also, Spotify Connect able to find the KEF speakers.
This morning, I was still able to see KEF speakers on Roon but not this afternoon.
the KEF speakers just show up? Not sure why. But it took 15 to 25 mins for it to show up. Just sent you an email of the signal path. It is weak! Anything I could do to improve it?
Looks like the signal path is low quality. How do I improve on this? From my wifi network, I see that the speakers are connected to my wifi router on 2.4Ghz. I did not select 2.4 or 5.0, I think KEF auto select.
is a picture of the speakers position. And my wifi router (Eero Mesh network) is close by to the speakers. And the roon core on the PC is connected to the router.
Roon relies quite heavily on multicast protocols for discovery so is different to the others. Not sure if there is any options in the router that are related to igmp. Can you see if there is an option in your eero settings called igmp snooping or have igmp in the name and say what its called and it’s current state.
Its low quality because your streaming a compressed aac file as opposed to lossless flac it wav. You cant improve on a compressed file. All compressed files are considered low quality as they throw away audio information as opposed to cd quality flac it wav files which keep everything at cd or higher quality.
Okay, I thought low quality means low quality wifi signal from Roon player to KEF speakers, so my understanding was incorrect. Sorry.
Eero, there is no such igmp snooping settings.
The music I am playing keeping stopping. Now it is different from yesterday – yesterday the music stop and then in a few seconds (sometimes 10 to 20 secs) it comes back playing. And it keeps doing it, often.
But now, this afternoon the music plays and then just stop! And I need to play again, but it start the song from the beginning. Not when it stops.
Roon Core PC is connected to the ethernet by hardwire.
Are you able to find out the IP address of the Kef speaker and your Roon pc? This is the network address which will be a series of numbers eg. 192.168.1.10
Also I would look to use 5ghz for wireless to the kefs. 2.4ghz is very susceptible to interference from other peoples wifi and can reduce bandwidth so if you can get the kefs on that.
I have 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. After receiving the logs, I will open a case with our QA team.
I agree with @CrystalGipsy here though that this looks like a network throughput issue, and it would help us get this resolved for you if we can confirm that. The easiest way would be to connect the speakers over Ethernet, even temporarily as a test. If that works, we know conclusively that this is related to bandwidth.
You can also try changing the speakers to the 5Ghz network if possible. If you press the “Connection Details” tab, are you able to select your 5Ghz network from there? If you are not able to do so, then using the steps listed on the KEF FAQ (Section B4/B5/B6) will be needed to switch the network over.
Please let me know if this helps and I will get a case started with QA in the meantime.
Have you updated the firmware on your kef speakers? I know there’s been a few Wireless updates so you might want to make sure you have the latest installed.
Hope you can see the logs this morning. It is still going in/out. Not as often but still happening.
With regards to your other question, yes, firmware in KEF has been updated. It is the latest.
Connecting to 5Ghz network, I do not think there is any option on KEF setup that allows you to do that. I think the KEF automatically select the wifi network. My Eero wifi router, has both bands, 2.4 and 5.0. I look at KEF FAQ (Section B4/B5/B6) not able to find where one can select 5Ghz network.
This weekend, maybe later this Saturday afternoon or tomorrow, I will try to reset the speakers and connect again to see if this will help. And will also try connecting speaker over Ethernet temporarily as a test. I will let you know results.
Thanks again for spending time to help to resolve this issue.
I am holding back in buying a NUC to install ROCK for Roon
Does the erro system you have have ethernet on the satellites? Mine is erro pro and has them… might tty hooking ethernet to the kef.
Another thing to try is shutting down all other wireless devices except what you need to send music to the kef and see if it is a wireless saturation issue. Although with the erro it shouldn’t be…
Only have this problem with the Roon player. I have used KEF streaming and also Spotify Connect, no drop off issue. So I am quite confident it’s not a wireless saturation issue.
Also on the Eero app, I showed the KEF speakers wireless signal to be Strong.
