UPnP streaming hints

[CongoFather]

Unfortunately, the UPnP implementation on the Devialet Expert Pro is currently an unmitigated disaster. If you want to use UPnP, it's best to not buy this device. Here are the two most crippling issues:

At least when streaming from a Linux-based UPnP server, one notices periodic 6-12s interruptions in the musical rendering (complete silence). This is actually a bug in the Devialet firmware. I've posted details about the bug and a workaround here: https://twitter.com/danteodosiu/status/1...3036314624. You typically won't be able to apply this fix unless you have a homemade UPnP server I'm afraid.

Gapless play is not supported. This is *not* because, as Devialet claims, the UPnP protocol is not well defined. It's because they use an ancient version of UPnP renderer software Rygel that doesn't have the gapless support implemented yet. Funnily, Rygel has supported gapless playback for about 9 years now. Details here: https://twitter.com/danteodosiu/status/1...8301847559.

I've been going back and forth over these issues with Devialet support for the last 5 months, since I bought an Expert Pro 140. I'm not sure they even understand the issues, or that Devialet even has an engineering team actively supporting the Expert Pro.

Forget about the streamer implementation on Expert Pro series. It's awful as you say!!. Just use another up-to-date streamer whose OS and plugins are optimized and which has very low jitter on AES/EBU output. 

Instead of using a single streamer(single node) connected to Devialet, I highly advise you to use 2 separate nodes to get a better experience. In this case, one of the nodes is the player-server, for example Euphony server running Stylus OS(Tidal, Qobuz, NAS etc are supported); the other one is the MPD/UpMpdCli end point(I use Mercury streamer running Gentooplayer on it). 

The endpoint in this case is connected to Devialet by using digital AES input. In either case, you'll not have any dependency to Devialet software upgrades, streamer implementation etc. As your streamer software is upgraded regularly, you'll always get the best if your streamer hardware is also good.