Crackling in higher bit rate streams

[ismarketing]

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

It's does not.  Music played back on my NAD M10 is noise-free.

[ismarketing]

Did you try Roon AIR (vs Devialet AIR)?

I don't have that option with the Dev 120.  Devialet AIR is the only choice in Roon

[thumb5]

That surprises me, because Roon AIR doesn't depend on the CI board (on the Pro models) - it works with all Experts.

[David A]

Did you try Roon AIR (vs Devialet AIR)?

I don't have that option with the Dev 120.  Devialet AIR is the only choice in Roon

That surprises me, because Roon AIR doesn't depend on the CI board (on the Pro models) - it works with all Experts.

You're both talking about the sane option. We talk about "Roon AIR" here to distinguish the Roon option from the original "Devialet AIR" app for PCs and Macs. Roon, however, provides the option of "Devialet AIR" because it's their implementation of Devialet's protocol. What we call "Roon AIR" appears in the Roon menu as "Devialet AIR" and, yes, it works with all Experts.

[thumb5]

I'm not sure we are talking about the same thing.  

Just to be clear, in my Roon audio settings I see (among other things):

   
and

   

The first section labelled "This Mac" includes the zone "Devialet AIR" subtitled "CoreAudio", which uses Devialet's AIR driver installed on my Roon Core.

The last section labelled "Other Network Devices" includes the zone "Devialet Expert" subtitled "via Devialet AIR, ..." which is using Roon AIR, I believe.

(In my case neither of these are enabled because I use RAAT, but that's not relevant to the OP's situation.)

I assume that the OP should see something analogous and would suggest if not already using the zone listed under "Other Network Devices", that's the one to go for in the interest of more reliable streaming.

[David A]

@thumb5

Now that's a little odd.

What I was thinking of was what your screen dump shows for "Other Network Devices". Roon streams the Devialet Expert by Roon's implementation of Devialet AIR in that option. It definitely doesn't use the Devialet AIR app to do that. I know that because I used to stream from my Mac to my 130, pre-CI board upgrade, using that option after I deleted the Devialet AIR app from my Mac.

What intrigues me is the "Devialet AIR" option in the "This Mac" section. I think I know what's going on.

Note that "Devialet AIR" is the top line, in bold, in the "This Mac" section and below that it says "CoreAudio". The fact that "Devialet AIR" is the top line, in bold, tells us that "Devialet AIR" is the name of the zone you can stream to, and the "CoreAudio" in the lower line tells us that Roon will send the stream to that zone using the Mac's core audio functionality. If you look at the item in "Other Network Devices", the name of the zone is "Devialet Expert" and the second line tells us that Roon will stream to that zone, to the Devialet, using its own implementation of Devialet AIR.

So, the question is why is Roon using "Devialet AIR" as the name of a zone in the available zones available under "This Mac". I have no idea unless you named a streaming destination that way at some time in the past. If you were using Roon prior to Roon including Devialet AIR as a streaming option, did you find a way of telling Roon to use Devialet's app to stream to your Devialet and name that zone option "Devialet AIR" and, if you did, do you also still have the Devialet app on your Mac? That's about the only thing I can think of.

One thing is certain. That second line in the details of each zone tells you how Roon is going to stream to the zone. Look at the details for "Built-in Output"—it says "CoreAudio" just as it does for the "Devialet AIR" zone. Roon streams to both of those zones using CoreAudio, it is not using Devialet's AIR protocol for its output in either case and the words "Devialet AIR" in the zone name position definitely do not mean that Roon is using the AIR protocol to stream to that zone, it specifically says that it is streaming to that zone using CoreAudio.

[thumb5]

@David A yes, you understand me correctly; to be frank, I wasn't confused about this but posted to explain why there might be some confusion about the term "Devialet AIR", since it appears twice for zones using different implementations of AIR. Those zone names are what Roon itself chose.

[ismarketing]

thumb5@David A yes, you understand me correctly; to be frank, I wasn't confused about this but posted to explain why there might be some confusion about the term "Devialet AIR", since it appears twice for zones using different implementations of AIR.  Those zone names are what Roon itself chose.


Thanks all.  After many network resets, reseating all network cables, and redressing all cables so there is less overlap/mess behind my gear, the noise is now gone during 16/44 and most 24/96 files.  24/192 still generates the noise mentioned in my original post and is unlistenable. I have a ticket into Devialet and will report back

[flohmann]

@ismarketing I've been chasing what sounds like the exact same problem on my 1000 Pro CI. I also use the Roon AIR implementation ("Devialet Expert via Devialet AIR") and get intermittent crackling on 24/192 content, most often during the first 30 seconds of a track.

Have you tried a 24/192 file stored locally on your Roon Core? On mine, I get the same crackling, although a bit less frequently. I also tried replacing ethernet cables (no change) and switching to RAAT (fixed the crackling, but introduced different problems, see all the "slowly loading" threads about the gigabit ethernet bug). I haven't tried switching to Wifi yet.

The thing that seems to have made the biggest improvement for me so far is changing my router settings to enable IGMP proxying. You might try that on your Orbi to see if it helps. After making the change on my Netgear router, the problem occurs far less frequently and is less severe (not really a crackling any more, but just a tiny digital "skip").

Also, you'll see that Roon has a setting that allows you to cap the sample rate for Qobuz to 24/96, which might also "solve" it for you, assuming you don't get crackling at sample rates below 24/192. I haven't noticed it on mine on lower sample rates.

[David A]

The mention of IGMP proxying jogged my memory.

Roon have a page on best networking practices which mentions a number of general things plus a number of things related to specific devices. There may be something there which can help:

https://kb.roonlabs.com/Networking_Best_Practices