An honest conversation about giving up on my Bluesound ecosystem.
Answered
I have invested a lot in BlueSound over the years having a first generation Pulse P300, an original Vault, a second generation Pulse Mini and two Flex 2is. When these things work there is nothing to compare for quality of sound relative to features they provide and the purpose they serve. I use the system as my whole house audio with the added bonus of using the Vault as a really nice DAC feeding in to one of my traditional amp/speaker setups.
My listening includes direct play from the Vault, streaming from Qobuz, Tidal and Spotify as well as a "whole house Roon end point". On the Pulse Mini I even have a turntable set up as a source for the kick of the vinyl experience with every room listening.
Problem is since the day I bought the original P300 and Vault I have had nothing but trouble. The types of trouble I have and continue to experience are:
- I have given up on the notion that these work as WiFi devices. Every one of my systems is now just plugged in via Ethernet. Having invested in several different solid wifi solutions (Asus, Nighthawks, extenders, repeaters, mesh systems) I have settled on needing six Google Wifi points in my home so that I can plug each BlueSound device directly in. The wifi challenges manifest themselves as:
- Every time an update to the software is sent there is a huge risk when running over wifi that the update will fail and leave one or more of the speakers in a bad state. And even when they go well I still at a minimum have to go back in and reconfigure the device name and wifi settings. Switching to direct ethernet minimizes this as the devices seem to be much better at finding their updates when hard wired but it's still a gamble. I dread getting the pop-up on my BlueOs saying there is a new update for a system.
- High resolution audio streaming including Tidal and Qobuz is extremely needy of perfect wifi when using Bluesound. It frequently just drops out (when the system has no issue with TuneIn or low res Spoitfy). I have spent way too much time intimately mapping every nook and cranny of my home to guarantee the right wifi signal strength. Using analysis tools like NetSpot and WiFi Explorer I'm confident that my WiFi quality is well above what should be a minimum bar for a product that describes itself as being wireless and supporting these services. I have no problems in the exact same location as the BlueSound speaker getting Qobuz or Tidal to stream directly to my phone, iPad or laptop. Nor in these areas do I have any issues with Roku and Amazon video devices.
- The P300 bricks often and requires a USB stick firmware upgrade. Sometimes this doesn't work and I just give up and come back to the project weeks later and a combination of restarts, the USB stick and plugging n to the network magically work. I have no reliable solution for when this happens.
- My Vault no longer rips CD's. Sometimes the current inventory shows up. Sometimes it doesn't. I've followed all the trouble shooting tips on this. I'm pretty certain I've sent tech support data but I've also sent so much to tech support over the years maybe I'm just cynically forgetting.
Despite all these challenges I obviously am rooting for the system to work as I continue to invest in it. So perhaps this is just a long rant. I can only dedicate so much time to tech support and the tech support team really is helpful, thoughtful and good at what they do. It's just that the frequency and often combination of issues is too much, especially given the asynchronous nature of not being able to just call and get direct real time help.
Am I alone here? If the Community tells me I'm crazy then I will keep trying things. I will probably keep trying things even you tell me I'm not crazy. I really just want this all to work. :-) So maybe I should boil it down to the question of how many of you are using the multiple devices, have them well synched up and are satisfied with your experience. I think if I just had one speaker it would be a differet story. Am I just asking too much of the system.
Thanks for listening!
Steve
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Official comment
Thanks, Gordon
https://support1.bluesound.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360050785794/comments/360013258614
I couldn't have said it better myself with the exception that we made a significant update in 2015's Gen2 release and again with Gen2i regarding the Wi-Fi chipset.
We also released BluOS 3.10.x in late August which included a driver update to ALL Bluesound Players (regardless of generation) to improve this.
The one thing we are not apologetic for with Bluesound Players and our BluOS firmware is we do not downsample. If you are playing lossless or lossless uncompressed files, we will not change the resolution to ensure music is being played. Something you see in Video quite often with Netflix and other video streaming software - it says you can stream up to 4K but you don't always get 4K. If BluOS says the file is 24bit and 192Hz that is what comes out of your speakers. If the audio stops or is choppy, you need to up your signal strength. See www.bluesound.com/network101 for more tips. -
This reply will focus on the WiFi issue rather than on the specifics of Bluesound equipment. As context, I manage a Wireless ISP and over 50% of our support calls arise from WiFi problems. Unfortunately, most consumer grade WiFi equipment cannot cope with the current expectations of households with many phones, laptops, etc. Adding multiroom speakers, etc merely worsens the problem. In the UK where we operate, Sky Q boxes are notorious for killing residential WiFi systems because they are so greedy about spectrum and usually so poorly configured.
The problem for the typical ISP is that we cannot afford to offer WiFi routers that cost more than about $50 per unit. They can provide a basic service but usually cannot handle more than 5-10 connections. Commercial grade equipment with MIMO antennas, etc cost a minimum of 3-4 times that amount and will provide a much better service. Many extenders, repeaters and even mesh systems aren't capable of handling more than consumer grade WiFi routers. From personal experience the Google Home units are pretty good but they are expensive and they rely on operating as a closed system which is no good in many circumstances. We use Ubiquiti UniFi commercial access points for buildings with large numbers of connections - these are among the best available.
However, the truth is that Bluesound (and many similar designers) seem to use relatively low grade WiFi OEM chip sets which will never perform well in systems with a lot of connections. In my (limited) experience, the only supplier that is better than that is Sonos. Still the basic lesson is don't use WiFi - a wired system is the only way to get reliable performance. Of course, you need a decent router and switches but those are relatively inexpensive. If you are going to stick with WiFi, then use multiple UniFi APs with a proper UniFi controller - this doesn't come cheap as even a fairly simple system will cost $500 or even $1000 upwards. The UniFi APs must be connected to the controller by Ethernet cable as mesh systems usually can't handle a lot of traffic.
Of course, most customers aren't happy at being told that their WiFi may not be able to handle the demand that they are putting on it. We should remember that the basic standards are more than 20 years old and never envisaged current patterns of use. Nothing beats a fully wired network. Everything that we do with WiFi is a compromise to cope with the limitations of the standards and of the amount of wireless spectrum that is available.
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Steve, I am on my 2nd Node2i after my first got completely bricked by an update after just a couple of months of owning it. Luckily, I was able to get it replaced for free. After that experience, I will no longer invest in this ecosystem. Too bad because like you said, when it works, the sound quality is just so good. I have mine hard wired to my router due to so many negative posts about wifi but that didn't prevent my first Node2i from getting bricked during an update. I am so afraid to update my new one that I just keep ignoring the update notification. Hopefully I don't get to click it by accident. Currently, it works and sounds great so I don't really want any update. Bluesound should make the update process something the user can disable.
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Hi,
In my house I am using 6 PowerNode2i (LAN), one Vault2i (LAN), 2 Pulse Flex2i (WLAN), one Pulse 2i mini (WLAN) and one Pulse 2i (WLAN). And for me it's working now absolutely stable and with no issues at the moment.
I struggled with some issues too at the beginning:
- update for all players after reindexing the library was not working to all players, sometimes but mostly not
- grouping of some players, even pretty close on one networkswitch and by LAN showed me moving sound left/right
My network hardware is Cisco SG350x switches and RUCKUS Unleashed AP system. So not the normal consumer hardware. At the end it's hard to say what really did the trick. I would say the following settings:
1. ports on the networkswitch with Bluesound devices connected, "Flow Control" is enabled
2. all devices (switches and APs) the multicast settings are correctly setup
3. I setup a Blusound WLAN SSID, on which only my Bluesound WLAN players are, this ony routes in the same VLAN where my mobile and other private network devices are but it's 2.4 GHz only.
4. there were some not absolutely correct VLAN settings, not shure if these made trouble, but now the settings should be all correct. I had some traffic going through more than one VLAN even this shouldn't happen but it did.
5. I am pretty shure firmwareupdates did do something too, not shure much but I believe it's a combination of all these settings and firmware.
6. After firmwareupdte to 3.10.x switch to LAN delete the WLAN connection info. Disconnect LAN and resetup the WLAN settings. By changing the drivers for WLAN mostly this is needed to really get the new drivers working with the more stable features.
I often use my two Flex2i, the Pulse 2i mini, Pulse 2i (all WLAN) and one PowerNode2i (LAN) in one area grouped together with different sources and they are absolutely sync and play responsive and without any issues.
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Dear Tony W.
> We also released BluOS 3.10.x in late August which included a driver update to ALL Bluesound Players (regardless of generation) to improve this.
Have you noticed after that the increased number of complaints about WiFi connectivity? I see lots of them here.
I have a connection issue with my N150, it became just unusable some time ago. I've submitted a support request but nobody told me that you have updated the WiFi drivers and that issue could be introduced by your "improvements". I've got no real support, my issue isn't resolved. It's unacceptable, you don't respect your customers.
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Hi Igor,
did you do the resetup of your WiFi within the players?
WiFi needs to be setup from scratch to get the improvements working. I can‘t find the thread telling this. But if you didn‘t resetup WiFi there is a big chance you are not seeing the improvements.
For me WiFi got much better since these updates...
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Hi Stefan,
> did you do the resetup of your WiFi within the players?
The support representative have asked me to do a factory reset. I've performed it a few times with the WiFi setup from scratch - it haven't resolved my issue.
The green LED is blinking on the player right now - two short flashes, then pause and repeat. The player neither in the hot-spot mode, it's not visible in a WiFi network list, nor connected to my WiFi network.0 -
I wanted to provide an update to this thread as a thank you to those who responded with helpful ideas including Bluesound support and as sort of a historical note for anyone coming across it.
After white glove support from Bluesound I doubled down with newer components and made a few adjustments to my network (and expectations) and have been happy for the past several months. Bluesound support really is solid. My experience remains that they stand by their stuff and aren’t satisfied until I am.
All the newer generation devices are functioning reliably over wi-fi meaning that I no longer have any disappearing, or synching issues and each time a system update the devices have handled it much more elegantly than in the past. I haven’t needed to do any sort of manual rescuing at all. I’m now running in the same group a Vault 2, two Flex 2i, a Pulse 2, a second gen Pulse Mini and an original Pulse. So five speakers of mixed generation and a vault. The original Pulse I have conceded needs to be hardwired to make it through updates and stay stable but it does not require any intervention. It’s a little slow to come back online after losing power, meaning it stays in the red light state for a while, but it eventually sorts itself after twenty minutes. Relegating this oldest system to just being an end point in a room and not the center of everything helped with my expectation setting.
All the other systems are working flawlessly for general use. I adjusted my Google mesh system by actually removing units. I found them to work better with fewer units and it was absolutely essential that the main unit was as central in the house as possible. I don’t know if other mesh systems work this way but I had been mistaken in my approach of the more the better and thinking of them as repeaters for each other. Really it’s more about how few units can you get away with not getting too far from the central one. So more like a hub and spoke system then a chain.
I use the Pulse 2 as the primary device in the group and I have found that having direct ethernet to that device is essential for streaming high resolution from Qobuz. I’d be curious to know from Bluesound engineering what the tricks are that make this possible but my naïve way of looking at this is that if I can get the Qobuz high res stream successfully to the main Bluesound device (the Pulse 2) it handles making sure all the other devices, even ones on wifi, get the stream.
Anything that I have on the Vault 2 ripped natively can be streamed over wifi and is pretty bullet proof no matter what is going on with internet to the house quality or internal network noise and traffic. I find on days that I’m having “bad internet” the system does struggle with streaming the high res stuff but I can always rely on playing things off the Vault. Even albums that I have manually put on the Vault that are higher resolution than the standard Flac rip. So this is where expectation management comes in. For all the stars to align to enjoy very high resolution streaming off the internet (194k/24bit) is a really challenging thing with a lot working against you (see Gordon’s comment!) and as Tony said the system isn’t going to try and give a degraded version, it’s just going to not play it. So there are just some days that I remind myself that this all about listening to great music and not chasing perfect numbers and consider myself pretty lucky that I have 44k/16bit quality coming from many devices all synched up throughout my whole home!
Thanks again everyone for listening and helping out.
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