Skipping and Powerline Adapters

I’ve had problems for some time, and want to see if anyone has a solution.

Setup: Roon runs on a Windows (first 8.1, now 10) laptop located with my audio equipment, and connected by a Powerline adapter to my network.
The music resides on a QNAP NAS in another room.
The system router is connected to a Powerline adapter.
An iPad running Roon Remote connects by wireless.

Problem: Intermittent skips and stops. The system occasionally skips to the beginning of the next track and stops there. After some clicking around, the system can resume playing.

Troubleshooting: Based on an internet report of a user complaining that his Powerline adapter would NOT go into sleep mode when connected via a switch, I inserted an ethernet switch between the computer and the Poweline adapter. That seemed to reduce, but not eliminate the problem. I also tried swapping my Trendnet TPL-406 adapters for more modern Netgear PL1200 adapters. Again, there seemed to be an improvement, but not a cure.

Weird observation: With the switch in place, I haven’t seen any skips when Roon Remote is active on the iPad.

Best guess: Powerline adapters go to sleep after some period of inactivity to save power. I think the Roon Remote creates sufficient network activity to prevent the sleep mode from triggering. Neither of my adapters have a utility that permits turning off sleep mode.

I am tired of working at this, and will probably run an ethernet cable from my office to my audio system. But before I do, I would love to hear if anyone has found an easier solution (wireless signal strength is very low in the corner where my audio system is).

Thanks,
SK

I have a similar configuration. I am using Linksys PLEK 500 power over ethernet modules, and a Linksys gigabit switch to drive several components (including streamers Sonore microRendu and Bryston BDP-1) with Roon remote on my iPad. Roon Core is in my office on an iMAC, and connected to an ASUS router. I do not have issues with dropouts or the system going to sleep on me. I am only running PCM files, normally not higher than 24/96, but do 24/192 OK as well. I have one PLEK on the router side, and two PLEK 500s on the media room side using different outlets. One runs my music system, and the other a Sony PC. The PLEK 500s are pretty beefy for POE…They might work a touch better than the ones you are working with.

If you can run a ethernet line that would work best. Other wifi solutions such as EERO are available for whole house wifi which might be helpful. A wifi bridge might help to.

personally I have never recommended power line ethernet for anything other than at best mediocre support for basic internet use…certainly not streaming audio or video. some devices might hold up better than others but the general consensus would be don’t bother I think. Fixed cable is always the best.

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100 % concur.

Hello Paul, I certainly agree that direct ethernet cabling is best. Where no ethernet cable is present, POE is a good alternative to areas with poor wi-fi reception, and the type modules I listed work exceptionally well. A drop out in my system is rare. Do you (or anyone on the thread) have experience with Ethernet over coaxial cable? (MoCA). I am studying up on that for a possible use in another room. I’d be interested in any experiences on the use of coaxial cable to transmit ethernet signals.

I have recently added a BT power line adapter to my network for bedroom listening.
I have a switch upstairs where I connect the power line adaptor to my network so it is on the same ring main in the house wireing.
I have not had any drop outs or problems and consider it £35 well spent in my local shop.
It’s important to use the adaptors on the main socket and not the back of extension leads.
Just my experiance, Chris

I also use powerline adaptors in my flat with good results.

One test you could try would be to temporarily use one of the ethernet ports on your router directly for the laptop with the roon core (it sounds like the QNAP is already connected in this way). Of course, I’m assuming you can still retain connectivity to your hifi in this scenario. Apologies if this idea is of no use.

Hope you find a solution

What wireless are you running? N? AC? My audio system is in the back corner of my house and my wireless router is upstairs in the front corner. I had some issues with signal strength and my music stuttering, especially with high res. I ended up getting an AC wireless router upstairs then an AC wireless bridge downstairs. The bridge comes with 4 ethernet ports so I can connect my network audio adapter and other devices to my network. I can now stream high and DSD reliably without an issues ever. This route by be easier than running that ethernet cable.

Robert,

You have Roon Core communicating by Powerline to your streamers, and I have Roon communicating by Powerline to my NAS (and to Roon Remote). I don’t know if the difference is important to Powerline’s sleep mode.

Your setup is similar to what I plan for the future, and this is one reason I’m spending time and money troubleshooting. Otherwise, I could move the file storage to the laptop and not worry about a funky network connection. I don’t use Tidal, so internet connectivity for Roon wouldn’t be very demanding.

I think there may be a way for application developers like Roon to plan their network communications to prevent the sleep mode problems. In my communications with Roon support, they agreed that my diagnosis of the problems made sense, though none of us are certain it’s correct.

-SK

I’ve streamed Netflix and Youtube to my video system via Powerline without problems, so it wasn’t a crazy idea that it would work for Roon.

My wireless is AC/N dual mode. But range is more limited on AC, so reception at the audio system is limited to N. I’ve experimented with the wireless, and don’t want to do much more with it.

  • SK

I’m using an Asus AC/N router as well. I have approximately 25-30 gadgets operating in the network via wifi, direct ethernet connection, or POE. It all seems to work pretty well. I am investigating Ethernet over cable TV coax cable (MoCA) as another transmission method. Apparently MoCA version 2.0 is supposed to be a lower noise type of device (than POE) that can run at speeds up to 1gb. More than I need speedwise, but promising.

I have successfully used Powerline adapters across several buildings using Roon. I have experienced the skipping and stopping before. The adapters are sensitive to noise and sometimes the audio components need to be isolated from the Powerline adapter.

By isolation in my previous post I mean using a filter on the audio components. Do not put the Powerline adapter through a filter as you will likely loss the Ethernet signal entirely.

Chad,

Do you mean a filtering power strip for the audio components? Did this fix he skipping and stopping? If not, what did?

Thanks,
SK

Yes, I put the audio components on a Furutech filter/distributor and the Powerline adapter went in a non-filtered, power bar (cheap). I used the non-filtered power bar for the Powerline adapter because I needed to put both units on a single, duplex outlet that would not accommodate the Powerline adapter directly plugged into the outlet (exterior box with a door. This immediately stopped the playback problems and I now use this setup when I move this portable system around. I tried putting the Powerline adapter into the Furutech filter/distributor but I immediately lost the Ethernet signal - it needs to be non-filtered.

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If you have a large house and or condo you might find that the power is divided by different phases and if your devices are plugged into different phases they will NOT work.

This might be less typical in USA homes but in places like Australia and Singapore it is quite common to have things on different phases in the same property to spread the load when the home is large or a complex like a condo .

Chad,

I don’t have anything better than a basic surge protector. So I tried to isolate the computer from noise coming over the power cord by running the laptop on battery power. The skipping persisted.

  • SK

Are the lights on your power line adapters tell you anything? My BT ones show yellow when connected and Hi transfer speed with orange for medium transfer speed etc.
Thoughts,Chris

The following needs to be assessed:

  1. The Powerline adapter is the only thing plugged into this outlet (or maybe try another outlet as well).
  2. You have a network connection on your laptop connected to the adapter with an Ethernet cable.
  3. You can surf the web in a browser with the above setup.
  4. Finally, you listen to Roon on the laptop via headphones on the above setup (important at this point that you do NOT have any other gear attached, like an external DAC or amp).
  5. You connect other audio equipment to the above setup one at a time to assess (DAC and then pre-/amp - that is, if you can assess the DAC with headphones without the pre-/amp).

Where does your system fail in the above?

Chris,

I don’t see anything different after the system stops. But, because the skips are intermittent, I’m not always listening while I’m testing. So there’s usually been an interval between the time the system stops and the time I find out. The Powerline may have restored the connection before I returned to the system.

-SK