Dropouts streaming from Roon to NAD C 658
Answered
I’m having a weird (and annoying) issue using Roon with my NAD C 658 streaming DAC-preamp, which is Roon Ready.
Here’s a description of my setup. The C 658 is in my main-floor living room, and the Apple Mac Mini that I use to run Roon Core is in my second-floor home office. I use Roon to play music from Qobuz and Tidal, and to play music from my own library, which is stored on a LaCie RAID system connected via Thunderbolt to the Mac Mini.
I have a four-node Google Wi-Fi mesh network. The Google Wi-Fi access point in my office is connected to my Internet router, and to the Ethernet port on the Mac Mini that runs Roon Core. Wi-Fi is turned off on the Mac Mini. I have another Google Wi-Fi access point on the equipment rack in my living room; it’s connected to the Ethernet ports on the C 658 and on the breakout box for my Samsung Frame TV.
Here’s the issue: When I stream to the C 658 from Roon, I get momentary dropouts. They’re frequent enough to be distracting. This happens with music streamed via Roon from Qobuz, as well as music sstored on a RAID system connected to the Apple Mac Mini. But it doesn’t happen with music from Qobuz that I play through the C 658 using the BluOS app. So that would seem to rule out my network as the source of the problem.
But the dropouts don’t happen with music that I stream from Roon to other Roon Ready components in the same room as the C 658, so that would seem to rule out the Mac Mini as the source of the problem.
I have tried restarting my network several times, but that doesn’t help. The Google Home app reports that the Google Wifi access point in the living room has a “great connection.” I have even tried disconnecting the network cable from the C 658 and streaming to the C 658 via Wi-Fi instead. The dropouts persist. When I do this, I check the Wi-Fi signal strength in the Diagnostics menu of the BluOS app, and it’s either good or excellent. Software on all devices is up-to-date.
I’m posting this query on both the Roon Community and BluOS support forums. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, I’d love to hear them. I’m stumped.
-
Official comment
Hi Gordon
When playing ROON, decoding is happening at your ROON Core and the ROON Server is transmitting full PCM audio as opposed to using the BluOS App where decoding occurs at each individual BluOS Player.
The full PCM audio is significantly more bandwidth.
As to why the C658 is the only ROON endpoint dropping out, it may be how the mesh network is configured and whether or not your C658 is on the 5 or 2.4 band. Please select Help, Send Support Request in the BluOS App so our Support Crew can take a closer look at the network events in your system log file.
-
Thanks Tony. I'll send a support request. I have should have noted in my original post that Roon was working just fine with the C 658 until a couple of months ago. The dropout problem is a recent development.
0 -
Gordon, I saw your post on the Roon forum regarding this issue. I have a C 658 among other Bluesound gear and found that disabling band steering from my router solved dropout issues. I have a Mac Mini as my Roon Core and multiple endpoints some wired and others wireless. My 658 is in a location where wireless strength is poor so it's connected to a powerline ethernet adapter which works well. Once band steering was turned off dropouts were virtually eliminated I suggest you give it a try.
0 -
Thanks for the tip Braino. Unfortunately, I don't see an option for band steering with my Google Wifi mesh network.
0 -
Problem solved, thanks to Lenbrook's support team. After examining the C 658's diagnostic logs, they saw that the C 658 was constantly trying to connect to a non-functioning network share that I created a few months ago, and promptly forgot about. They thought these repeated reconnection attempts and resultant authentication failures might be interrupting the Roon stream. They were right. Per their suggestion, I deleted the share, and now Roon is playing dropout free.
1
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
5 comments