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Severe static/distortion when playing to a Ropiee zone -- just started happening 6 weeks ago after years of perfect results
Internal Network - Roon Server 1GB wired to TP-Link TLSG-2424 switch --> 1 GB -> Asus RT-AX58U <--> 5G WLAN <--> Another Asus RT-AX58U --> 1GB wired Raspberry PI4 Ropiee --> USB --> RME ADI-2 DAC
Further background –
Approximately 6 weeks ago now out of nowhere I started experiencing distortion/static so bad on playback that I can no longer use Roon. This setup has been in place for years without issue and then bam it literally popped up overnight.
I initially was running roon on a Slackware Linux dedicated machine and have been forever. Large library, over 191,000 tracks, stored locally on a dedicated 8TB Toshiba 7200rpm drive. OS runs on a solid state drive, 16 GB of RAM. CPU usage always extremely low during playback, etc. This device is connected via ethernet to a TP-Link TL-SG 2424 switch.
Roon endpoint is a RasPI 4 / 8 GB, running the latest stable version of Ropieee.
Ropieee endpoint is connected via ethernet to a Asus RT-AX58U running latest version of Merlin software. That Asus RT-AX58U has a 5G P2P connection to another RT-AX58U 1 floor above. Connection rate is approximately 3.6GB. Flood pings, of any size, sourced from Linux server to either the remote RT-AX58U or Ropieee endpoint show no data loss, latency, etc. I have also experimented with a USB WiFi adapter plugged into the Ropieee endpoint connected back to the 2nd floor WiFi AP … the issue remained.
I also changed the RasPi endpoint out for a different RasPi 4 / 4gb I had laying around. No change.
After this issue started I moved the Roon Server to a Windows 10 host with 32GB RAM, Fast Ryzen processor, etc. The same library is local to this host as well. Both host have a copy replicated nightly for backup / local use. This host is connected to the same TP-Link TL-SG2424 switch as the Linux host. The issue remained.
During extensive troubleshooting I’ve changed every ethernet cable, usb cable from Ropieee endpoint to DAC, etc.
I also purchased a Spotify premium membership so I could test using the Ropieee Endpoint for Spotify connect. I not had a single issue with Spotify using the same infrastructure.
This is not a sporadic issue. It happens immediately upon starting a stream to the Ropieee endpoint, and the strange thing is that literally popped up over night.
I have checked WiFi channels for overlap with neighbors, etc. Nothing. I have updated code where possible on every device. Prior to this starting there were NO physical layer changes. Only soft changes to the Roon and Ropieee software. I started a thread in the Ropieee forum a few weeks back there as well.
I should also add that I have never nor am I now using any kind of DSP. I have made the general modifications to the zone such as limiting Max bits to 24, Max Sample Rate to 192, default buffer size, etc. This same behavior happens with everything from MP3 128, FLAC 24/192, DSD, etc. I have tried every format I have access to LOCALLY with the same result.
Hi @kentucky_slim,
Thank you for the report. Can you please provide an approximate timestamp and the name of the track file that generated audible distortion on last test? We’ll use that to pinpoint the particular event in diagnostics.
Can you confirm the specific name of this Ropieee Zone in your Roon/RAAT setup? We see the hardware in question reached via a RoonExtension under the name [loki], but I want to confirm.
This is likely unrelated to any digital distortion, but we did notice some background network dropouts accumulating. Logging shows insufficient network bandwidth allocation to RoonServer for playback of 44/16 FLAC files to the System Output, independent of the Ropieee. The prebuffer falls behind the audio stream during download and causes playback stoppage.
Is this managed switch performing any sort of throttling or priority bandwidth allocation? Try disabling that temporarily or hardwiring the RoonServer machine directly to the upstream router for testing.
We’ll follow up once we have a closer look at the timestamp. Thank you!
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