Roon RAAT and "An audio file is loading slowly"

[Axel]

I have tested 24/192 file playback on my system, to Roon RAAT, with these results:
I have Roon running on a Mac in my office which is on a different floor to my listening room and is connected to an Apple Extreme router in the listening room with Cat 6a cable. The router is also connected to my Virgin modem and to a Netgear GS108 gigabit switch with Supra Cat 8 Ethernet cable. Connected to the switch are my QNAP NAS and my D 440 Pro CI using a mixture of Meicord and Supra Cables. There is also an Etalon Ethernet isolator between the switch and the D.
When playing 24/192 files from my NAS, the Devialet screen confirms that the DAC is receiving a 192 kHz signal and I am having no dropouts or Roon error messages. I listened for three hours last night and, so far, two hours this morning with no problems at all.

[petrik]

Am I right in thinking there's no way to set the Nucleus to 100Mb/s?

I haven't tried but maybe it would work if I would buy some old fashioned 10/100 Mb/s switch. The Core Infinity board has a gigabit Ethernet port, so I am expecting it to work perfectly fine in a gigabit network.

I'm a bit surprised that Devialet have gone for a gigabit network port considering there's no way you will need it for audio.

This might be also a good thing because most of the new switches and routers are gigabit, so there is no need to do 1000 mbit <-> 100 mbit transitions. According to Brian from Roon Labs, some switches are notorious dropping for example UDP packages when doing the 1000mbit <-> 100mbit transitions.
https://community.roonlabs.com/t/crackle...et/28559/4

[ssfas]

If done rigorously, with patience and discipline, this approach nearly always leads to a satisfying result.

Hah!   I must be missing one of the 3 because I haven't hit that satisfying result just yet.  ;-)    Still, it's all working for me, albeit at 100mbps.  So my need for music is being well served.

Here is something else you can try. It just took me three attempts to get the correct fibre optic cable. Anyway it works perfectly, streaming 24/192 from Qobuz.

I have a £2 CAT7 from router to Cisco switch, a cheap AQ Forest cable from the Innuos to the switch, fibre optic out of the switch to a TPLink converter and AQ Cinnamon from the converter to the Devialet.

Requirements:

Cisco switch (£60 reconditioned from eBay)
SFP multimode module (goes in the switch) (£15)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01M...UTF8&psc=1
Fiber multimode cable (£7)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00N...UTF8&psc=1
TPLin k gigabit multimode converter (£44)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001...UTF8&psc=1

Total cost £126, about US $170.
Putting the fibre optic cable immediately before the Devialet should limit power supply noise.

I also put the fibre optic from the router into the switch and ethernet from the switch to Innuos and Devialet and that worked perfectly as well. 

   

[Confused]

I normally use Roon / HQPlayer rather than RAAT, but in order to advise an additional "data point" I thought I would try it this morning. I just wanted some background music, so switched to the Devialet's Roon Ready mode, selected some music, everything seemed to work perfectly. I selected some 24/192 files and then the problems started, pauses, stuttering etc. 24/96 files almost played without issues, listenable, but still suffered from occasional stuttering. Occasionally the "audio file loading slowly" message would flash up, then disappear as the music started playing. Back on 16/44.1 material, everything works with zero issues. This was with a Windows 10 PC, to a router, to a 1000BASE-T switch, to Devialet.

So having established that I too have issues with 24bit material, 1000BASE-T, and Devialet's Roon Ready mode, I thought I would try the Roon Ready mode on my SOtM sMS-200Ultra. Interestingly, this too suffered some minor but annoying stuttering playing 24/192 files. I then remembered that I had suffered this before, and the fix had been advised, go to the SOtM Roon Ready settings and select 0.2 buffer and 0.05 Resync delay. Since I last tried the Roon Ready mode on the sMS-200Ultra I have swapped to a new SD card with later firmware which had whipped my previous settings update. Anyway, returning back to the recommended 0.2 buffer and 0.05 Resync delay in the SOtM's settings and 24/192 material plays perfectly, zero issues, zero stuttering, and still with 1000BASE-T in place. I can't remember for sure now what the default settings were on the sMS-200Ultra, but I think it was 0.1 buffer and 0.20 Resync delay.

What this implies to me is that this issue is not all about 100BASE-T, it is more of a case of getting other parameters set to be suitable for use with 1000BASE-T. I guess there are differences between Devialet's RAAT implementation and that from SOtM, but the above may provide a hint as to what is going on.

[mdconnelly]

There is no Buffer setting option in Roon's Device Setup for Roon Ready with Devialet Expert Pros I did try tweaking the Resync delay but it seemed to have no effect.

[David A]

…

What this implies to me is that this issue is not all about 100BASE-T, it is more of a case of getting other parameters set to be suitable for use with 1000BASE-T.  I guess there are differences between Devialet's RAAT implementation and that from SOtM, but the above may provide a hint as to what is going on.

Actually it may imply a Roon problem. If you check the "What is RAAT" item on Roon's website  https://kb.roonlabs.com/RAAT  there's the following statement:

"Support for new streaming services, file formats, DRM schemes, etc can be supported without firmware upgrade. In fact, the only reason an upgrade should be required is to fix a low-level bug, or to access more hardware functionality. This is really important. Not all partners/hardware have easy firmware update paths that can be done at home. Our acceptance of this reality has deeply influenced RAAT's design. Just as with Google's Cast devices,the majority of the business logic is delivered to the device at run-time as a script. This means that we are capable of completely re-designing the audio streaming and buffering logic without updating device firmware.tThis is absolutely critical, since most of the bugs + evolution in a system like this relate to networking, not audio. Other than Cast, we are unaware of another system that is this flexible."

I've bolded the relevant part. If the buffer is involved then the fix may be that Roon update the run time script they use for Devialet and I suspect that gets done with an update to their Roon Ready database which is what they did to fix the unidentified Roon Ready device problem so it may be possible for Roon to fix the problem, if it is their problem, without the need for a firmware update to Roon or to the Devialet.

[Norty]

I would appreciate some help on this Loading Slowly / 1000mbit to 100mbit issue.  I do not understand all this technical side of it. 

 My set up is as follows:

·       Sagemcom Home Hub 1000 is my router / modem
·       I have a TP Link AC2600 Range Extender (also called a RE650)
·       This is WiFi to my Windows 10 computer which houses my ROON and all music
·       My Devialet 220 is connected via Ethernet to a Airport Express unit which likely get’s its signal from the Range extender.
   o  This is required to correct an issue I had that the Devialet would not recognize the WiFi signal every morning after shutting down the WiFi over night.             It could only be fixed by rebooting.
·       My WiFi signal is only about 3.4 Mbps’s but did not have this issue prior to the ROON Air.  I did have issues with streaming MQA files but figured it as an issue with the low WiFi Speed.
I did try Devialet help although usually good they couldn’t work me through this one.  What do I need to adjust / buy and where does it get placed in the system?

[ssfas]

There is no Buffer setting option in Roon's Device Setup for Roon Ready with Devialet Expert Pros   I did try tweaking the Resync delay but it seemed to have no effect.

I unplugged my Devialet to change the mains cable and when switching on I went back to ethernet being a total fail - Air and Roon Ready would not go from orange (inactive) to white (active).

Found a fix by trial and error.

Signal path is modem CAT > Asus router/access point CAT > switch - fibre optic - > converter CAT > Innuos CAT > Devialet 

Devialet config has ethernet and wifi active.

Powered down the Devialet. Innuos Roon server was on. 

REMOVED THE ETHERNET CABLE FROM THE DEVIALET

Powered on the Devialet.

Devialet showed Air and Roon Ready in white (i.e. both active) with the wifi indicator active. 

Selected Roon Ready audio path in Roon and played fine.

PLUGGED IN ETHERNET CABLE WHILE DEVIALET PLAYING

This causes the wifi signal to disappear, but Air and Roon Ready stay white. 

Now playing fine via Roon Ready and ethernet. 

Tried switching to Devialet by usb and back again to Roon Ready, and to a Reactor and back again to Roon Ready. Both worked perfectly.

All done streaming at 24/192 from Qobuz.

p.s. The cable switch was to a Shunyata Delta EF on loan from KJ WestOne. Absolutely stunning clarity and dynamics. See Alan Sircom's review in HiFi+. He's not wrong.

[mdconnelly]

I would appreciate some help on this Loading Slowly / 1000mbit to 100mbit issue.  I do not understand all this technical side of it. 

 My set up is as follows:

·       Sagemcom Home Hub 1000 is my router / modem
·       I have a TP Link AC2600 Range Extender (also called a RE650)
·       This is WiFi to my Windows 10 computer which houses my ROON and all music
·       My Devialet 220 is connected via Ethernet to a Airport Express unit which likely get’s its signal from the Range extender.
   o  This is required to correct an issue I had that the Devialet would not recognize the WiFi signal every morning after shutting down the WiFi over night.             It could only be fixed by rebooting.
·       My WiFi signal is only about 3.4 Mbps’s but did not have this issue prior to the ROON Air.  I did have issues with streaming MQA files but figured it as an issue with the low WiFi Speed.
I did try Devialet help although usually good they couldn’t work me through this one.  What do I need to adjust / buy and where does it get placed in the system?

That's a lot of wifi, particularly since you're going wifi from your Win10 PC running Roon.    I also think that the Airport Express is just a 100mbps product anyway so the "fix" of throttling down network speed from 1000mbps (gigabit) to 100mbps likely won't make a difference.

You say you "did not have this issue prior to Roon AIR"...  Does this mean you do have issues now with Roon AIR?    Can you stream hi-res music (e.g. 96kHz, 24Bit) via AIR?

From what you describe, it doesn't sound like your Win 10 PC nor your Devialet are close to the router.   I suspect the best way to troubleshoot this will be to move your Win 10 PC (or Devialet) close enough to the router that you can run ethernet.   Even if just temporarily, it will help determine if wifi is the issue.

[K4680]

Hello, since I also wanted to test Roon, I installed Roon on a Mac Mini.  Two days of testing and playing, looks good.  Suddenly, Qobuz's files are no longer loaded, before the song title a little blue stroke, that's all.  After 50 minutes, the title started to play.  Frustration!! At first suspected Qobuz, because the Qobuz player was also installed on the Mac I tried to play songs, no problem is going great.  Back to Roon, the same problems! Roon uninstalled, all database entries deleted and Roon reinstalled!  All the best, but only one day!  Slow download of Qobuz, titles from Melco played flawlessly!  Roon deleted again and reinstalled, the same after a short time again.  Since I still had an Intel NUC7i7 from another project, I installed Roon-Rock on it, and since a week the NUC runs without any problems!   The NUC is connected via Ethernet, the next test is the connection to the Devialet via USB.  
Features NUC: i7, RAM 16GB, SSD.M2/128GB

My internet connection: Vodafone Cable 500/50 Mbit/s, FritzBox 6590.