Hi all,
I've been lurking on the forums for some time and figured that I would contribute to a recent relative success story given the ongoing problems with AIR that many people seem to be experiencing.
I started off with a desire to avoid any laptop/desktop in my music listening area. I already owned a QNAP Ts-453 PRO and figured that this might serve as a decent music server by utilizing ROON software. The more recent and powerful QNAP NAS servers have built in virtualization capabilities although performance in my NAS remains modest given the Intel Celeron processor. I imagine those with fancier Intel i5 or i7 based NAS servers will have no problems at all with performance. I did enhance the performance of Windows 10 running as a virtual machine by dedicating all 4 processor cores and by upgrading the NAS RAM from 4 GB to 16GB, of which I assigned a full 10GB to the virtual Windows 10 instance. Music is stored on the NAS server as part of a Linux RAID10 array (this is automatically accessible to the virtual machine which is pretty sweet).
I then installed ROON server (headless) on the Windows 10 virtual machine and made sure to disable auto updates to the OS. I also disabled Windows defender. Lastly, I installed Devialet AIR onto the virtual Windows 10 machine (2.1.4beta4).
Using a tablet or my laptop as a ROON remote, I am able to interface with the ROON server which, in all honesty, runs very smoothly. There are occasionally 0.5-1 second delays in the UI if I'm flipping through music rapidly but, otherwise, it's a fairly seamless experience.
The NAS is attached through Ethernet to an ASUS RT-56 router, to which I have also attached the Devialet D200 via ethernet. The ROON server is set to limit sample rate to 96kHz -- more about this later. The laptop running ROON remote interfaces to the same router through Wi-fi (5 Ghz).
Using this setup, I can play every format recorded at a sample rate equal or less to 96kHz over Devialet AIR Ethernet (keep in mind both the ROON server and Devialet AIR are running on the windows 10 virtual machine). This includes high resolution FLAC and DSD files (streamed as PCM from ROON). I have similar results with Devialet AIR Wi-fi although there are occasionally drop outs. As soon as I up the sample rate to 192 Khz or beyond, the music abruptly stops within about 5 seconds of playback. When this occurs, I can see that AIR has auto-disabled and I have to manually re-enable it. Occasionally, before crapping out, the music will become choppy for a few seconds and then stop. I have only had white noise on one occasion with a high res 192 kHz file. This lasted for a few seconds and, again, AIR "auto" disconnected.
I would, ideally, like to be able to extend my high res listening beyond 96 kHz and I would like to stream DSD music natively to the Devialet without downsampling to 96 kHz. As a test scenario, I installed Devialet AIR directly on to my laptop and connected the laptop to the router with ethernet. I used ROON to play native files off the laptop. In this scenario, I WAS able to play all files at all resolutions, including DSD64, without any dropouts. Given the above, do you think that my setup is limited to 96kHz or below because of lack of processing power in the NAS? Could this all be resolved by substituting a NUC for the virtual machine?
Thanks in advance for any feedback.
W
@W - wow! Very creative setup, I commend you for that. I do know that Gary on this forum uses a NUC running Windows 10 and AIR in his setup and has down so without issues, maybe he will chime in.
As for myself, I had for a time Roon running on a Windows 10 system with AIR connected via ethernet to my Devialet with music stored on my Synology NAS. This was using either a 2-3 year old laptop with 4GB RAM and/or Mac Mini running Bootcamp with 16GB memory and i7 Quad core. ( 2012 model ).
Usually they ran fine but got the occasional blast of white noise about every third day, so it wasn't worth it for me at this time.
W, welcome to Devialetchat and I'm glad you are trying out AIR, too. My NUC is an Intel 5i5 with 8GB RAM running Win10 and Roon. Like you, I have my Le200 and NUC connected to a router directly. I set Roon's Audio to use Exclusive and Event-driven mode, Diable volume control, Max Sample Rate (PCM) Disabled, Resync Delay 0ms, DSD over PCM (DoP), Max DSD Sample Rate Disabled. AIR delay is set at 1000ms. I use AIR-ETH for Roon playback. My music is on my QNAP TS-212P+ in a different room.
With the above setting, all music files to 24/192 and DSD64 can be played without any problem.
I do occasionally stream Spotify from my Win10 tablet (Atom-based and only 2GB RAM) using AIR-wifi to my Le200 and no issue, too.
(24-Jan-2016, 04:40)hk6230 Wrote: [ -> ]W, welcome to Devialetchat and I'm glad you are trying out AIR, too. My NUC is an Intel 5i5 with 8GB RAM running Win10 and Roon. Like you, I have my Le200 and NUC connected to a router directly. I set Roon's Audio to use Exclusive and Event-driven mode, Diable volume control, Max Sample Rate (PCM) Disabled, Resync Delay 0ms, DSD over PCM (DoP), Max DSD Sample Rate Disabled. AIR delay is set at 1000ms. I use AIR-ETH for Roon playback. My music is on my QNAP TS-212P+ in a different room.
With the above setting, all music files to 24/192 and DSD64 can be played without any problem.
I do occasionally stream Spotify from my Win10 tablet (Atom-based and only 2GB RAM) using AIR-wifi to my Le200 and no issue, too.
Thanks for the replies.
You certainly have me curious about acquiring a NUC for faultless playback at all bitrates -- do you know of any forum dwellers who have tried a similar NUC solution to your own WITHOUT success? In essence, is your setup a reliable solution to the issues with AIR? I could easily repurpose the RAM from the QNAP and then get an M2.SSD for the operating system on the NUC....might be worth a go...
Hi
I run a celeron nuc 2820 with win 10, Roon and AIR. it will play 192 kHz files fine and 99 times out of 100 it will play dsd OK as well. I do, however get stuttering after a couple of hours of playing files at the same sample rate ( if I play a mixture of rates it doesn't seem to happen) and in the 1 out of 100 time I get white noise playing dsd.
I have also had blue screen problems with the air driver in the past but that now seems to have stopped or is very infrequent anyway.
When I used Windows 8 previously I couldn't play 192 files without white noise so win 10 seems to be the best option, apart from the occasional bsod.
AIR does give excellent sound quality, it is a shame that devialet don't seem to be trying harder to make it 100% robust. Maybe roon ready is our best hope?
Cheers
Chris
Quote:Thanks for the replies.
You certainly have me curious about acquiring a NUC for faultless playback at all bitrates -- do you know of any forum dwellers who have tried a similar NUC solution to your own WITHOUT success? In essence, is your setup a reliable solution to the issues with AIR? I could easily repurpose the RAM from the QNAP and then get an M2.SSD for the operating system on the NUC....might be worth a go...
As Chris said, it is not hardware dependent but rather it is Win10. I can't say I know anyone else who is using NUC with Win10 and AIR. Please note on my current setup, AIR is working well with hardly (almost zero) any cases of white noise. But it may happen when switching from 44.1 or 96 to DSD64 or 192. This is rare, though.
Like Chris, I have encountered BSOD before but with the latest Win10 update and auto-update disabled, I don't experience BSOD anymore.
(24-Jan-2016, 06:59)hk6230 Wrote: [ -> ]Quote:Thanks for the replies.
You certainly have me curious about acquiring a NUC for faultless playback at all bitrates -- do you know of any forum dwellers who have tried a similar NUC solution to your own WITHOUT success? In essence, is your setup a reliable solution to the issues with AIR? I could easily repurpose the RAM from the QNAP and then get an M2.SSD for the operating system on the NUC....might be worth a go...
As Chris said, it is not hardware dependent but rather it is Win10. I can't say I know anyone else who is using NUC with Win10 and AIR. Please note on my current setup, AIR is working well with hardly (almost zero) any cases of white noise. But it may happen when switching from 44.1 or 96 to DSD64 or 192. This is rare, though.
Like Chris, I have encountered BSOD before but with the latest Win10 update and auto-update disabled, I don't experience BSOD anymore.
Chris, Gary, thanks for the responses. I'll probably give a NUC a try in the coming couple of weeks to see whether I can achieve reliable "ultra" hi res streaming as you have via AIR. I have a feeling the NAS server would be rock solid using the Win 10 virtual server setup I described above if it was one of the higher end QNAP models with an i5 or i7 processor. As you've alluded to, Win10 is a game changer.
There's still a part of me that doesn't trust AIR at all and I'm half expecting to blow my speakers one of these days when it finally kicks in! The safer option would be to use my Slim Devices Transporter (which is now supported by ROON) and hook it up via AES to the D200...but AIR sounds ever so slightly superior.
(24-Jan-2016, 07:45)El_Duderino Wrote: [ -> ] (24-Jan-2016, 06:59)hk6230 Wrote: [ -> ]Quote:Thanks for the replies.
You certainly have me curious about acquiring a NUC for faultless playback at all bitrates -- do you know of any forum dwellers who have tried a similar NUC solution to your own WITHOUT success? In essence, is your setup a reliable solution to the issues with AIR? I could easily repurpose the RAM from the QNAP and then get an M2.SSD for the operating system on the NUC....might be worth a go...
As Chris said, it is not hardware dependent but rather it is Win10. I can't say I know anyone else who is using NUC with Win10 and AIR. Please note on my current setup, AIR is working well with hardly (almost zero) any cases of white noise. But it may happen when switching from 44.1 or 96 to DSD64 or 192. This is rare, though.
Like Chris, I have encountered BSOD before but with the latest Win10 update and auto-update disabled, I don't experience BSOD anymore.
Chris, Gary, thanks for the responses. I'll probably give a NUC a try in the coming couple of weeks to see whether I can achieve reliable "ultra" hi res streaming as you have via AIR. I have a feeling the NAS server would be rock solid using the Win 10 virtual server setup I described above if it was one of the higher end QNAP models with an i5 or i7 processor. As you've alluded to, Win10 is a game changer.
There's still a part of me that doesn't trust AIR at all and I'm half expecting to blow my speakers one of these days when it finally kicks in! The safer option would be to use my Slim Devices Transporter (which is now supported by ROON) and hook it up via AES to the D200...but AIR sounds ever so slightly superior.
Hi, and thanks for sharing your interesting approach. My system is similar to Gary's, and I am extremely grateful to him for all the tips and suggestions he has shared on this forum over the months. Following his advice, I got my NUC system to be about 95% reliable most of the time using AIR2.1.3 but the final step was to install FW 9.0.1 in my D400 about 3 weeks ago. Since that time, I have not had a single BSOD or other issue, even with leaving the system playing for days at a time, and assuming it stays that way, I shall not be looking to add a RoonReady device, since AIR is doing all I need for now.
Please keep us informed of your progress, and good luck.
(24-Jan-2016, 10:41)Zappydev Wrote: [ -> ] (24-Jan-2016, 07:45)El_Duderino Wrote: [ -> ] (24-Jan-2016, 06:59)hk6230 Wrote: [ -> ]As Chris said, it is not hardware dependent but rather it is Win10. I can't say I know anyone else who is using NUC with Win10 and AIR. Please note on my current setup, AIR is working well with hardly (almost zero) any cases of white noise. But it may happen when switching from 44.1 or 96 to DSD64 or 192. This is rare, though.
Like Chris, I have encountered BSOD before but with the latest Win10 update and auto-update disabled, I don't experience BSOD anymore.
Chris, Gary, thanks for the responses. I'll probably give a NUC a try in the coming couple of weeks to see whether I can achieve reliable "ultra" hi res streaming as you have via AIR. I have a feeling the NAS server would be rock solid using the Win 10 virtual server setup I described above if it was one of the higher end QNAP models with an i5 or i7 processor. As you've alluded to, Win10 is a game changer.
There's still a part of me that doesn't trust AIR at all and I'm half expecting to blow my speakers one of these days when it finally kicks in! The safer option would be to use my Slim Devices Transporter (which is now supported by ROON) and hook it up via AES to the D200...but AIR sounds ever so slightly superior.
Hi, and thanks for sharing your interesting approach. My system is similar to Gary's, and I am extremely grateful to him for all the tips and suggestions he has shared on this forum over the months. Following his advice, I got my NUC system to be about 95% reliable most of the time using AIR2.1.3 but the final step was to install FW 9.0.1 in my D400 about 3 weeks ago. Since that time, I have not had a single BSOD or other issue, even with leaving the system playing for days at a time, and assuming it stays that way, I shall not be looking to add a RoonReady device, since AIR is doing all I need for now.
Please keep us informed of your progress, and good luck.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. Reviewing this forum and the ROON forums leads me to believe that most, but not all, users using an Intel NUC setup have managed to get AIR working to a high level of reliability.
I'm going to continue to tweak the virtual server environment for a bit and see if I can coax a little more performance out of it. One of the advantages of this setup that I did not mention in the OP is the ability to dedicate one of the four LAN ports on the NAS to the virtual machine. In essence, ROON and AIR have a dedicated 1000Gbps connection to the router. The throughput on this segment of network is insane.
I'll certainly keep the forum apprised of any progress.
(24-Jan-2016, 17:26)LEl_Duderino Wrote: [ -> ] (24-Jan-2016, 10:41)Zappydev Wrote: [ -> ] (24-Jan-2016, 07:45)El_Duderino Wrote: [ -> ]Chris, Gary, thanks for the responses. I'll probably give a NUC a try in the coming couple of weeks to see whether I can achieve reliable "ultra" hi res streaming as you have via AIR. I have a feeling the NAS server would be rock solid using the Win 10 virtual server setup I described above if it was one of the higher end QNAP models with an i5 or i7 processor. As you've alluded to, Win10 is a game changer.
There's still a part of me that doesn't trust AIR at all and I'm half expecting to blow my speakers one of these days when it finally kicks in! The safer option would be to use my Slim Devices Transporter (which is now supported by ROON) and hook it up via AES to the D200...but AIR sounds ever so slightly superior.
Hi, and thanks for sharing your interesting approach. My system is similar to Gary's, and I am extremely grateful to him for all the tips and suggestions he has shared on this forum over the months. Following his advice, I got my NUC system to be about 95% reliable most of the time using AIR2.1.3 but the final step was to install FW 9.0.1 in my D400 about 3 weeks ago. Since that time, I have not had a single BSOD or other issue, even with leaving the system playing for days at a time, and assuming it stays that way, I shall not be looking to add a RoonReady device, since AIR is doing all I need for now.
Please keep us informed of your progress, and good luck.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. Reviewing this forum and the ROON forums leads me to believe that most, but not all, users using an Intel NUC setup have managed to get AIR working to a high level of reliability.
I'm going to continue to tweak the virtual server environment for a bit and see if I can coax a little more performance out of it. One of the advantages of this setup that I did not mention in the OP is the ability to dedicate one of the four LAN ports on the NAS to the virtual machine. In essence, ROON and AIR have a dedicated 1000Gbps connection to the router. The throughput on this segment of network is insane.
I'll certainly keep the forum apprised of any progress.
So much for my hopes and dreams. After 2 weeks or more of 24/7 fault-free operation with AIR I foolishly powered everything down for a short trip away from home, and now I have had 3 BSOD in the space of 45 minutes. I am SO glad I didn't have 30k to drop on a pair of copper door-stops. This French software sucks, and I will be investing in a RoonReady device pretty soon. Pile of merde.