Hello Phil,
Interesting to hear from you. I constantly have on my mind that Meridian use or at least used to use, a hard wired dedicated connection between various nodes in any Sooloos streaming system, Another fact you might be interested to know is that Sage accounts explicitly advise against using Wi-Fi connections between PC and server. Finally we are a particular case in as much as this building has 3-4 foot thick walls that rf does not like. I know I can use Wi-Fi extenders but basically I am after perfection in Hi-Fi and am committed to copper wire for now because our internet trading business accounts and hence livelihood depend upon, not good but perfect communications.
My particular case goes much further than this because after approximately 6 lightning strikes my personal obsession is to replace everything with fibre which is lightning immune. I know this will not much interest others but the last hit cost two weeks work and £5K.
I will not do anything without evidence to support a way forward. Hence I am hoping to hear from Tech Support regarding network analyser software.
At least you have made good progress so congratulations. If any more evidence comes to hand I shall be interested to hear.
Many thanks for the rapid reply. My setup has not changed from my first post. The present time is relatively early days for Roon and I see this as an investigation and development phase. If I can get things working OK I shall be buying a more elaborate server and probably use Roon to drive Meridian speakers via or controlled some sort of tablet. This is why I am making a big effort.
My setup has not changed at all. My music is stored on a Synology NAS drive and I am using the media server section within it. I have set up the NAS, I hope, appropriately. Thereafter the path is a 1Gb/s LAN and a Dell M3800 laptop. On the output of the latter there is a Meridian Explorer DAC connected to an analogue input amplifier.
I am surprised that Roon tells me I have a rubbish connection in my dining room and a good connection in my office. I need to be able to test why this is so. Because in the future I plan to extend Roon over the entire property I really want to get things working OK now.
If all of the foregoing fails I shall just grit my teeth and convert to Sooloos.
If you want professional level help, and are willing to throw 5-6K at the problem then either Fluke Networks ClearSight software or the OptiView XG Network Analyzer Tablet. ClearSight has a trial that might work.
@Geoff mentioned distance. There is a limit on distance with Ethernet cables and the max distance length can be affected by the cable itself. I’ve had long distance runs ( 80 meters) of Cat 5e and 6 just act flaky even though they were in the proscribed distance. But, I noticed that you mention Cat 5 not 5e? The main difference between them were the extra crosstalk protection built into the Cat 5e spec. Which would be more apparent in longer cable runs.
Hello Daniel,
Thanks for the reply which is interesting. My cable is Cat 5e over most of the network. Some runs are Cat 6.The maximum run length to the problem area is approx. 12m of Cat 5e.
There is a network hub at the end of the 12 m run and there are other hubs in other runs. No run has more than one hub. In this latter area Roon describes the signal chain as poor. In a location nearer to the router and NAS it is described as High Quality and there is no hub in this run.
Thanks for the information on analysers. I shall look at these and report back. I may also be getting some thoughts from the tech guys.
Are you referring to a change in the audio chain here Geoff ? Could you post screenshots of the two ? The arrow in the edit menu will upload a jpg.
Edit: As I understand the issue, you are running Roon on your laptop and moving it from room to room using Ethernet connections in each room to connect to the NAS. In your office everything now works fine, but in your diner Roon stops playing after a few minutes. Is that correct ?
Hi andybob,
Yes I am referring to a change in the audio chain. Roon has a small light toward the bottom of the window. The light changes from amber to blue. If I hover over it I get text telling me signal chain quality.
Your understanding is entirely correct. Whilst changes are planned what you say is spot on --------except that Roon has probably always played fine in my office but I do not know. Where I want it to be fine it isn’t.
Thanks Geoff. It’s unusual for the signal chain to change as a result of network connectivity. Can you post screenshots of it in your office and diner ?
Hi Daniel,
Sorry, I should have said a Netgear Gigabit switch. Whilst the Cat 5e is exactly that, it is home installed rather than bought in, pre-terminated cables with RJ45’s each end. This could be upgraded but I would like to measure things rather than taking a leap in the dark.
If you have a very low SNR then the signal approaches being indistinguishable from the background noise. I would expect this to be a function of line attenuation, cable construction and lots besides such as EMC. There were recently reported incidents of home network adapters interfering with FM radio.
I know little about signal quality over WiFi and ethernet cabling but you can bet there are sources of interference. WiFi will attenuate through damp walls just as radio does. When I measure the WiFi signal using the Intel PROset Wirelss tools on my laptop the WiFi performance is hugely inferior to copper ethernet cable.
In your reply to Daniel you refer to a Netgear Gigabit switch, which I understand is the “hub” on the 12m Ethernet run to the diner where the problem arises. I’d suggest swapping another switch in or connecting without the switch and seeing if that makes a difference.
Hey @Geoff – so you’re seeing the signal path change based on where you’re connecting to your network? Is anything else changing from location to location? What audio output are you using in each location? What content are you playing?
While an issue with a bad network cable or switch (or some other network connectivity issue) could cause playback issues or dropouts, I would be really surprised if it affected the Signal Path. Let’s get some more details and look into this.
As @andybob mentioned, a screenshot of the signal path popup in both locations would be great, along with some more details about your audio outputs. It would be great to have a screenshot of the audio configuration in both rooms as well, like the one shown near the end of this post.
Hello,
I am NOT sure the signal path is changing depending upon what is connected. I do know I have seen the signal indicator telling me the signal path is low quality. I have noticed that sometimes the setup changes without intervention from me other than turning things off and on.
I tested the diner installation this morning with a view to responding to your requests. In the middle of track 2 everything shut down.
I suspect I have misunderstood what signal path means. I was interpreting this as from music library to PC i.e. over my LAN. This seems not to be the case and it is the path from Roon to audio system.
Never the less Roon stopped playing and the path indicator registered good/lossless quality.
I tried and failed to save screen shots within a Word document but will send a jpeg asap.
The Signal Chain diagram sets out the audio characteristics of the signal over both legs. It starts with the file resolution, shows any dsp within Roon and ends with the output from Roon with the endpoint at the foot.
Usually the indicator colour changes only if the file format changes or some new dsp is occurring. That is why we were all interested in your comment that the quality indicator seemed to be changing with location in the network.
Have you ha a chance to swap out the switch or connect without it ? I’d definitely suggest checking the switch by swapping it out before spending money on network analysis.
Edit: I’ve also experienced Roon stopping playing with a power transient from nearby dual gang light/fan switches. Is there anything that might be causing similar transients to your laptop ? If you have the same issue on battery power then that might exclude dirty power as an explanation.
Hello,
I have disconnected the switch and established that this is definitely not the problem. However, and I still have to confirm this, disabling other audio drivers/channels on the PC seemed cure the problem. I just need to test this for a longer period and then I will confirm.
Sorry to hear this may not be resolved. If your tests indicate the issue is continuing please post again and we will notify a dev to investigate further.
Hello andybob,
I now have two or three successful sessions behind me with pretty perfect performance. My main interest up to this stage was to verify that Roon offered a reliable and high quality way forward as an alternative to Meridian Sooloos. It’s looking like this is the case so thank you for your help and advice.
Based on my now improved confidence I have just posted a question relating more to extending my network and either replacing the PC with a notebook or adding a “traditional” server.