Multi-room out of sync

Support
1

Roon Core Machine
Intel NUC 8 Core i5 (Ethernet)

Networking Gear & Setup Details
Eero mesh
The core and a Cambridge Audio streamer are connected through ethernet
Three Bluesound streamers are connected through WiFi

Connected Audio Devices
Cambridge CXNv2 (Ethernet)
2x Bluesound Node 2i (both connected through WiFi)
Bluesound NODE (WiFi)

All three nodes are connected to external DACs with coaxial cables: Two are SMSL SU-9. One is Denafrips Ares II.

Number of Tracks in Library
Only about 70. Almost all tracks streamed through Qobuz and Tidal.

Description of Issue
Music doesn’t sync well across rooms. As I move from one room to the next, the music is slightly but clearly out of sync. I know that full ethernet is optimal but I don’t have that option, so I use a generally reliable Eero mesh setup.

I tried setting resync delay to 500ms and then 1000ms but that hasn’t helped. I disabled “audio clock trim” in the BluOS settings (which seems to relate to this issue) because I prefer to use Roon settings as much as possible. Should this option be enabled? The newer NODE doesn’t offer this option. Will it affect sound quality in any way? Is there anything else I can try in Roon to address this problem?

1 Like
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I group two zones to play music

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I group zones (2, 3, or 4) to play music too but the audio doesn’t sync well.

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I don’t have any other synchronisation going on. It is completely synchronous after grouping. I have a Fritz-Box 7490 and a PC is only connected via WLAN and delivers simultaneously to a very old Grundig V7000.

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Hi @support. Do you have any suggestions?

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Hello @JAM,

Thanks for letting us know of this issue - we’re sorry zones are at times out of sync :sweat:

Could you please ungroup the zones, restart Roon and then:

  • group 2 devices and stream music
  • add the 3rd device and play music
  • add the 4th and play music
  • and so on, one by one until you hear them out of sync

Could you please let us know when that is and what device were you adding?

3 Likes
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Thank you, rebeka. After my original post, I determined that my new NODE with external DAC–Denafrips Ares II–was the “out-of-sync” device. I contacted Alvin at Vinshine and he told me that Denafrips uses adaptive FIFO buffers, so latency will vary between tracks. Other than not using this DAC, is there a way for me to address this issue?

1 Like
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Hi @JAM,

You can adjust the “Zone grouping delay (ms)” for the zone in Device Setup > Show advanced.

-John

3 Likes
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Thank you, john. If I do this, is the delay constant? If DAC latency varies from track to track, will this setting work inconsistently?

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Hi @JAM,

I wouldn’t expect the latency to vary from track to track. However, it’s possible that the DAC could have different latency values depending on the sample rate of the audio.

In this case, I’d recommend enabling Sample Rate Conversion in the Roon DSP settings and resampling everything to a single rate which you could then plug in the correct zone grouping delay value for.

-John

1 Like
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Thank you very much for this suggestion, john. I was testing this out (everything set to 44.1) before heading off to work and it seems like it will work but I also noticed a clock master priority option in advanced settings and wondered if it would be helpful to assign priority “1” to the NODE + Ares II DAC zone. I tested this for 10 minutes and it seemed to fix synchronization issues. Does this seem like a potential solution? Are there any drawbacks to this?

1 Like
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Closed due to inactivity. If you are still seeing this issue, please open a new support thread.