News about AIR-crackling noise from Munich

[Womaz]

I have to say... 4 years ago, I was a Naim fan. I bought a SuperUniti, hooked it to a router with a Cat6e wire, set the machine and never ever ever had a problem with drop outs or white noise while streaming with it, hi rez or not. I'm an average guy that likes music, hate to have cds or lps lying in my listening room. I'm not a techi, i just play music out of a computer.... I repeat.. Never ever had a problem streaming with Naim ( wi-fi, had many drop outs on HiRez files but thats another story - i'm talking about a wired connection here ).

So when I came to Devialet, it was a very quick decision. I heard a 200 with my speakers and bought it period. My idea was streaming; the exact same set up I had with Naim. I wasnt aware of the white noise problem. The 200 was delivered to my home and 2 days after, bang, white noise.  What a downer! I cannot play AIR for more than 1 hour without getting it.

Again, this was the same set up I had with the Naim SU. Something is wrong with AIR. If you are a serious company, you dont claim to be "ze best in ze world" and let average people like me with those kind of problems. You find the problem and fix it. Period.

This said, I love everything about Devialet: the product, the sound, the upgrade, the innovation, the technology and the price. But I will never use AIR because I've invested in a Aurender X100L and perfectly satisfied as this machine works without any problem. And I dont recommend Devialet if you want to stream. I've said it to all my friends. If you buy Devialet, its not for streaming... Its for the rest.

What I dont like about Devialet and that whole issue about white noise is the lack of respect they show to all the people who bought their product with streaming in mind and cant because the product is just not working. Guys, get your things right before wanting to change the world! You're lucky that the product sounds so good; one day, another guy will come up and then it will be pay time for all that lack of respect.

So... When is it going to work for real? There's still a little bit of time left before someone comes with a better solution...

This post echos my sentiments too........I feel a bit let down with my 200 purchase as I am now primarily back to using a CD transport, as AIR is simply not reliable.
I am hoping Dialog will solve this for me, but after forking out 6k it has left me a little underwhelmed. Amazing sound though and this keeps me happy more often than not.

[Antoine]

Hmmm...I think I am going to sell trouble free music servers tuned to be used for AIR. I've set up different PC's for AIR and all worked perfectly fine.

[Hifi_swlon]

AIR is not that bad but it's not fool proof and needs careful setup.

Sorry to disagree with those who stand up for her(?), but Air is bad (IMO).

It sounds great! But who wants to constantly have to f around with their source to fix a glitch like this? I'm constantly trying to work out if the noises I'm hearing are in the music or the onset of Air crackles. It's hugely distracting. I can't even leave music playing while I'm out of the room as I know at some point I'll have to run back to stop the noises.

Not that the buffer size helped me at all, but who would want a larger buffer? The way Devialet implement it, there's a long delay before the track starts when you use a big buffer, which is horrible IMO.

I think its acceptable that things don't work all of time and companies have to fix them. But Devialet are in denial here in my opinion, and I really don't think Air needs defending as it is.

My repose from support was along the lines of - 'you shouldn't be hearing crackles - let us know your Air settings so we can fix this for you' - like it's not even a real known problem just some silly user error.

Of course there are ways around it, but they aren't the way I envisaged using the Devialet and if I'd know the D had these problems I wouldn't have bought one. Or at least not until I also had an alternate streaming solution in place.

[Antoine]

Everyone has of course the right to disagree with one another. I'm just saying it's not all issues/troubles for everyone.

Devialet initially released their D-Premier without streaming functionality so for me it was a "freebie" anyway but sure I really feel for those that do suffer from these issues and those that (feel that they) are not getting what they were promised. In the past I also wrote that Devialet should make their AIR solution as "fool proof" as possible for the broadest audience. And I'm not saying that those who suffer from issues with AIR are fools.

And yes Devialet ways of communicating need serious improvement as well especially in user support.

[Rufus McDufus]

Linn's recommendations against wireless date back some years to the days of 802.11g and 11Mbps networks & probably before. They don't put wireless interfaces in their gear and I suspect they do this and recommend against wi-fi because it removes one potential source of problems & removes a burden on their support people. There is no reason why with a properly-working wi-fi connection that music shouldn't be streamed and indeed millions of people do this to devices of all kinds.

Devialet have acknowledged there is a problem with AIR. The same problem manifests itself over wi-fi or ethernet. There are no totally effective workarounds but it can be mitigated against slightly. It's not to be confused with wi-fi connectivity issues.

[Antoine]

I feel that crackles on the Windows platform can be mitigated against in full. Also I never suffered from white noise issues on that same Windows platform so that also should be possible. This of course unless there's also an issue in the Devialet hardware AND a difference in hardware components used, why else have I not suffered from these issues? AIR has been my primary source for music for years.

Personally I can't comment on the Mac platform as I've never used it.

[Rufus McDufus]

There does appear to be a hardware element to it and I seem to recall some statements from Devialet staff recognising this (though they do seem to say all sorts of things!). In my case I have problems streaming with white noise/dropouts & recently crackling from my high-spec new-ish gaming PC but not from a 7-year old slow Asus Eee Box each running the same OS and same minimal set of programs! All over gigabit ethernet I might add.
Sorry I haven't been following the issue lately so not sure if there are some really effective workarounds... I do know Devialet are still working on it though and can reproduce it on Windows at least, hence the recent attempts at the timer fix which didn't appear to work very well.

[Confused]

Hmmm...I think I am going to sell trouble free music servers tuned to be used for AIR. I've set up different PC's for AIR and all worked perfectly fine.

How much ??

[midi]

Hmmm...I think I am going to sell trouble free music servers tuned to be used for AIR. I've set up different PC's for AIR and all worked perfectly fine.

How much ??

Perhaps you should apply at Devialet.

[Yippedidou]

When I bought the 200, no where it said I had to be an expert or even be able to perform magic over my network to be able to stream. I've been streaming for 5 years now with various gears (Naim, PSAudio, Sonos, Mini, etc) and never ever had a problem. Yes some set up challenges but nothing I could'nt solve. My friend just bought a 120, he installed it today, he's a tech, been working in computer for all his life and guess what? White noise after 2 hours...

So off AIR and on USB. No problems at all with either my mac mini or my Aurender. No careful, wizzie wisdomy set up, just music.

Cheers. Enjoy the music!