Wi-Fi or PLC?

[tsmithpam]

That is interesting and explains it. Hope you can get things all stable Steve.

Poor form from Devialet to not make this situation clear.


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[steve_denney]

Thanks

I seem to be falling foul of all the potential issues here.

I have BT internet and use the MESH disks around the house to get an even Wi-Fi connection.
One disk is in the same room as the Phantoms and they do sometimes join that disk and I get excellent signal strength. But for some reason the Phantoms will then jump off the disk IP and connect themselves to the main router in another room. The signal strength then is poor and I guess that’s when things become unstable.
Not sure why a static item changes its connection. It’s not like they are moving around the house. Though I am sure I read somewhere that Devialet doesn’t work well with MESH systems so maybe they just default to the router IP over time.


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[eric871052]

Hi Steve,

I'll recommend all of our client who's using Mesh connect their Phantom with Ethernet cable, it will avoid a lot of troubles.

[ogs]

This is a common problem unfortunately. Wifi clients associate with remote access points even when there is a local one with much stronger signal and some times also less congestion. I used to work in an IT department. We had thousands of wifi clients (class rooms in schools for example) and had clients connecting somewhere else in a campus all the time. We never actually figured out how to prevent this from happening and concluded that the selection algorithm, which was embedded and hidden, had weaknesses. The only real remedy to this was to skip wifi and use point-to-point ethernet wiring instead.

[struts]

The only real remedy to this was to skip wifi and use point-to-point ethernet wiring instead.

I devised my own workaround which might be helpful for some.  It requires a reasonably configurable access point and a little bit of network knowledge but unfortunately those seem to be prerequisites for getting Devialet products working wirelessly in many cases anyway!

I have two access points in my apartment, one in the same room as the Phantoms (2m from L, 5m from R with clear line-of-sight) and one that is three rooms and three 12" thick load-bearing walls away (turn of the (last) century apartment block!)  As @ogs describes, on one occasion when the Phantoms started misbehaving I found one of the speakers had connected to the distant AP with considerably lower signal strength much more congestion and a different wired network path back to the Roon core.  Obviously I didn't know if this was the cause of the issue but it probably wasn't helping.

So I defined a (hidden) virtual wireless network just for the Phantoms.  It only broadcasts on the closest AP and only on the 5GHz band which is much less congested in my building.  That way I force them to connect to the same AP.

Even with less configurable network solutions it should be possible to implement this with Guest Network functionality (which most APs, even low end consumer ones, support).

[steve_denney]

Maybe an interesting observation but too early to say if this is correct.
Before fiddling with removing the Phantoms from the Tree stands and trying to fit Ethernet cables I decided to remove the BT MESH disk from the room the Phantoms are in. I put the disk in a different room to see if it might have been causing interference.
So far I have noticed things are more stable when playing music that is not Hi Res. Hi Res still cuts out as others have stated above and maybe even if I use Ethernet cables I might still find this happening (though it didn’t with the old Phantoms and Dialog.

For now I will continue with Wi-Fi and just CD quality playback to see if my initial thoughts hold up. Certainly interesting if the Wi-Fi disk caused interference when in the same room as Phantoms but the Wi-Fi connection is not to the disk but to the router in a different room.

I suspect I will end up with Ethernet wired connections though. So much messing about I haven’t sat down to enjoy my “upgrade” yet.


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[tsmithpam]

I feel your pain.
I have mine finally to a point of stability. I had hoped the upgrade would give me a stress free set up.

The high res file playback issue remains a constant frustration for me. Anything over 48khz more often than not causes the phantoms to go out of sync or echo. Only an unplug and reset gets this sorted until the next time. As a result I can’t fully enjoy my library or the roulette of a streaming service that may throw up a high res file over 48khz.
I had put the issue down to my bandwidth limitations but I’m starting to suspect it will remain even if I get a better service internet.


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[steve_denney]

That’s interesting. Have you connected via Ethernet or just using Wi-Fi/PLC?

Maybe we can get others involved and work out how many can rely on just Wi-Fi or whether most go to Ethernet for stability.

If the latter then it seems that the Dialog route was not as bad as originally thought. I was just keen to remove that piece because of how hot it got and whether I would get a replacement if it failed.


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[tsmithpam]

That’s interesting. Have you connected via Ethernet or just using Wi-Fi/PLC?

Maybe we can get others involved and work out how many can rely on just Wi-Fi or whether most go to Ethernet for stability.

If the latter then it seems that the Dialog route was not as bad as originally thought. I was just keen to remove that piece because of how hot it got and whether I would get a replacement if it failed.


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I have both linked to the network via Ethernet to router.
I stream from innuos server zen mini via toslink.
Other than the high res file issue - it works. Just need to solve the high res file issue. I have tried all the types of connection, including WiFi and Upnp - same issue.


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[steve_denney]

Oh dear that is a worry. I was hoping you would say you are on Wi-Fi and then if I went to Ethernet to router I would at least be able to process hi res files even though Devialet downsample them when processing.

From your experience then it seems that I won’t be able to and the new Phantom’s are worse than DOS 1 and Dialog. I was able to play any hi res file with my old setup and I was using Innuos and Qobuz in UPnP streaming.

Wish I had seen this thread before I elevated I probably would have just stuck with my setup.


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