KEF LSX , Roon vsTidal

Hi all

I have just bought a pair of KEF LSX. When I play a song through Roon using the KEF as an endpoint I get buffering. It’s really quite annoying and I assumed it was my WiFi as I have other endpoints where I have WiFi boosters and it’s fine

However when I play from Tidal to the LSX playback is perfect

So it’s Roon that is buffering the playback.

Why is this please ?

I would think that it’s probably your wifi. If you take a look at this thread you’ll see that Roon’s network demands are much higher than Tidal’s. Is there any way you can hardwire the LSX?

Thank you for your reply

I am not very technical. I agree that I probably have poor WiFi as all my other endpoints I use a WiFi booster and connect via Ethernet to those and get much better service with no drop outs

Can I plug the LSX to a WiFi booster via Ethernet ?

Yes, absolutely. Also, do you have the speakers connected to one another by ethernet? If not, I’d suggest you try this too as audio dropouts can be caused by interference.

Yes I have them connected to each other

Ok so looks like another purchase of a WiFi booster will help

Honestly internet in the UK is rubbish unless you have cable

But it’s not your internet if Tidal plays perfectly but rather your home wifi (for which you’ve had to add wi-fi boosters to improve things).

Try this (not sure if will help but it’s free and only takes a moment)
Click on the volume icon > cog icon > device setup>show advanced

  • Enable “Use Maximum Buffer Size”
  • Enable “Use Power-of-2 Buffer Sizes”
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Not always true.
As @DaveN has already said quite correctly, Roon is a lot more demanding of network bandwidth than any standalone streaming service .

It’s one of the main reasons Ethernet connection wherever remotely possible is highly recommended.

Is Roon more demanding of internet bandwidth or home internet bandwidth when streaming from Tidal?

The OP said “other endpoints where I have WiFi boosters and it’s fine” so I presume that these are other Roon endpoints to which he can stream from Tidal via Roon ok ? Hence their problem with streaming to the LSX via Roon (which don’t have a wifi booster but are fine via Tidal app ) is symptomatic of the greater demands of Roon on the home network and not that “internet in the UK is rubbish”. It was a small point but one I thought worthy of clarifying as part of the troubleshooting process.

Hi John, thanks for this however I dont see this as an option

I had significant problems setting up the Kef LSX wirelessly and you don’t have to dig for very long online to see a number of complaints about this and general awful wireless performance. I ended up having to set them up wired and move them back, but issues persisted.

Streaming from Spotify seemed much more stable than Roon (remember the LSX are Roon Tested, not Roon Ready and do wonder if the flakiness of the wireless performance is part of the reason why?).

However, I bought another Google Wi-fi router instead of a point (still using it as a mesh endpoint, but the router has an ethernet out port). This solved the problem as it just used the much more stable wireless connection to the router.

I’ve since replaced Google Wifi in the house with Ubiquiti for a full wired connection and the LSX have been faultless via Roon.

If you can, test the speakers with a wired connection to your home router to possibly rule out it being an LSX connection problem. If all works well, then make sure the WiFi booster you purchase has the ability to connect to it with an ethernet cable as quite a few don’t.