Crackling in higher bit rate streams

[ismarketing]

I have a Devialet 120 hard wired to a Netgear Orbi router, both running the latest firmware.  My internet connection is 350 mbps down.

For the past few weeks, when ever I try to play anything above 16/44 via the latest version of Roon, I hear persistent "crackling" distortion every few seconds.  Playing 24/96 files from Tidal or Qobuzz is challenging, and anything higher than that is unlistenable.  Rarely, I hear the same distortion when playing back lo-rez internet radio streams and 16/44 files (locally or from the cloud).

To troubleshoot, I have tried:

Reseating and re-routing all ethernet cables (Wireworld).
Cycling the router and modem.
Cycling the Devialet.
Lengthening the buffer time in Roon.
Rebooting the Roon server (running on a 2011 Mac Mini hardwired to an Orbi satellite).
Switching the Devialet to Wifi.
Adding a 10/100 switch between the router and the Devialet.

None of the above has helped.  To be clear, I hear the distortion when files are played at their native rate.  Nothing is be upsampled by Roon.  I have an NAD M10 in the next room connected by wifi, and all files at any supported resolution play perfectly.

I'm beginning to think there is something wrong with the network connection/board in my 120.  If anyone has other theories or suggested fixes, I'd sure appreciate hearing from you.

Thanks.

[thumb5]

No immediate suggestions, but a few questions occur to me:

Was there a time (before a few weeks ago) when this set-up worked without problems? (And if so, what's changed since - new release of Roon, for one thing, I suppose)?

Are you using Devialet's AIR driver on the Mac, or Roon's built-in driver?

Have you run Activity Monitor on the Mac to take a look at the CPU loading?

Is there anything in the Roon log that might suggest what's going on (maybe in conjunction with Roon tech support)?

[ismarketing]

Thanks Thumb. I am using AIR. I don’t have a choice with the 120. What would I look for in the Activity Monitor?

[thumb5]

If you're using Devialet's AIR driver (the Devialet logo in the Mac's menu bar) I'd recommend trying to use Roon's built-in driver instead. It's a while since I've done that, so bear with me if I don't get this quite right...

First, disable Devialet AIR and quit from the menu bar. Then open Roon's Settings->Audio; towards the bottom of the right-hand pane you should see under "Other Network Devices" a zone called "Devialet Expert via Devialet AIR". If you enable that you should then be able to play to that zone which will then be using Roon's built-in AIR driver.

On Activity Monitor, I'd be looking at the CPU load graph to get an idea of the overall CPU load and whether there are any correlations between peaks in the load and the crackles you hear.

[ghosttipper]

A factory reset could solve the problem st least

[Jean-Marie]

Also, which buffer size are you using?

Increasing it can help in your situation.

Jean-Marie

[ismarketing]

Also, which buffer size are you using?

Increasing it can help in your situation.

Jean-Marie

Thanks - I played with buffer sizes and there was no difference with the noise.  I seem to have made some progress re-routing cable TV lines away from audio cables.  I'll keep experimenting and report back.

I did check activity monitor, and initial playback of any file format swamps the cpu of the mac, using 100% and more of the CPU.  That would be interesting if I only heard noise at the start of playback, but it's intermitant and perisistent throughout the listening session.

More soon and thanks for the ideas.

[ismarketing]

A factory reset could solve the problem st least

Interesting idea - how do you do that?  Thanks.

[flohmann]

Does the same thing happen when streaming to other (non-Devialet) Roon endpoints?

[thumb5]

Did you try Roon AIR (vs Devialet AIR)?