Companion LINK failure with Roon AIR

[audio_engr]

Last weekend, I replaced my D400 Master to Companion LINK cable from DH Labs Silver Sonic RCA-AES to Audioquest Diamond RCA-AES. Since then, I am observing that when I stream from Roon Air, only certain albums are playing perfectly and many albums are creating a LINK failure on the Companion, forcing the Companion to Shut-down. In that state, the moment I select an album that plays correctly, the Companion in Shut-down state wakes up, the LINK failure status is now OK and it reverts to normal playback. 

Roon Air on my Macbook Air is build 259. D400 is v10.1.0

Any sort of help will be most appreciated ...

[thumb5]

Stating the obvious, but... if the problem has only started to happen since you replaced the link cable, perhaps the new cable is faulty or not working to the specification required by the Devialets (perhaps possible since I think you said it was custom-built). Have you tried putting the original cable back to see whether the unplayable albums then play OK? That would seem to be the first step to try.

Is there a common factor in the unplayable albums, such as the sample rate? Maybe the new cable works at lower sample rates but not higher?

[audio_engr]

Stating the obvious, but... if the problem has only started to happen since you replaced the link cable, perhaps the new cable is faulty or not working to the specification required by the Devialets (perhaps possible since I think you said it was custom-built).  Have you tried putting the original cable back to see whether the unplayable albums then play OK?  That would seem to be the first step to try.

Is there a common factor in the unplayable albums, such as the sample rate?  Maybe the new cable works at lower sample rates but not higher?

Thanks for your suggestions. I'll try out all the things you've mentioned and report back. 

Also, I was wondering if the 72V DBS of AQ Diamond was interfering with the LINK ?  Is there a way to bypass DBS I wonder ?

[kerkhoffd]

Stating the obvious, but... if the problem has only started to happen since you replaced the link cable, perhaps the new cable is faulty or not working to the specification required by the Devialets (perhaps possible since I think you said it was custom-built).  Have you tried putting the original cable back to see whether the unplayable albums then play OK?  That would seem to be the first step to try.

Is there a common factor in the unplayable albums, such as the sample rate?  Maybe the new cable works at lower sample rates but not higher?

Thanks for your suggestions. I'll try out all the things you've mentioned and report back. 

Also, I was wondering if the 72V DBS of AQ Diamond was interfering with the LINK ?  Is there a way to bypass DBS I wonder ?

Maybe try to unplug the DBS in your Diamond Interlink. It doesn't look that way at first glance, but there is an plug on the DBS box side of the unterlink where you can unplug the entire DBS unit.

I use an AQ Diamond between my source and the Devialet, and I had a similar problem with all albums that were 24 bit, 192 kHz. All other files played, but the high resolution files failed. I have always thought it had something to do with the uncompatability between Linn (BNC out) and Devialet (RCA in). So had the cable reterminated to BNC - AES, and that did the trick for me too.

[GuillaumeB]

Last weekend, I replaced my D400 Master to Companion LINK cable from DH Labs Silver Sonic RCA-AES to Audioquest Diamond RCA-AES. Since then, I am observing that when I stream from Roon Air, only certain albums are playing perfectly and many albums are creating a LINK failure on the Companion, forcing the Companion to Shut-down. In that state, the moment I select an album that plays correctly, the Companion in Shut-down state wakes up, the LINK failure status is now OK and it reverts to normal playback. 

Roon Air on my Macbook Air is build 259. D400 is v10.1.0

Any sort of help will be most appreciated ...

I think I reported something similar here.

Guillaume

[audio_engr]

Stating the obvious, but... if the problem has only started to happen since you replaced the link cable, perhaps the new cable is faulty or not working to the specification required by the Devialets (perhaps possible since I think you said it was custom-built).  Have you tried putting the original cable back to see whether the unplayable albums then play OK?  That would seem to be the first step to try.

Is there a common factor in the unplayable albums, such as the sample rate?  Maybe the new cable works at lower sample rates but not higher?

Thanks for your suggestions. I'll try out all the things you've mentioned and report back. 

Also, I was wondering if the 72V DBS of AQ Diamond was interfering with the LINK ?  Is there a way to bypass DBS I wonder ?

Maybe try to unplug the DBS in your Diamond Interlink. It doesn't look that way at first glance, but there is an plug on the DBS box side of the unterlink where you can unplug the entire DBS unit.

I use an AQ Diamond between my source and the Devialet, and I had a similar problem with all albums that were 24 bit, 192 kHz. All other files played, but the high resolution files failed. I have always thought it had something to do with the uncompatability between Linn (BNC out) and Devialet (RCA in). So had the cable reterminated to BNC - AES, and that did the trick for me too.

Hi,

Thanks for joining in with your comments. Wow !!  What do you suggest I do ?

[audio_engr]

Last weekend, I replaced my D400 Master to Companion LINK cable from DH Labs Silver Sonic RCA-AES to Audioquest Diamond RCA-AES. Since then, I am observing that when I stream from Roon Air, only certain albums are playing perfectly and many albums are creating a LINK failure on the Companion, forcing the Companion to Shut-down. In that state, the moment I select an album that plays correctly, the Companion in Shut-down state wakes up, the LINK failure status is now OK and it reverts to normal playback. 

Roon Air on my Macbook Air is build 259. D400 is v10.1.0

Any sort of help will be most appreciated ...

I think I reported something similar here.

Guillaume

Thanks !!

What should I do to fix this problem ?

[Axel]

Perhaps try to unplug the DBS unit as kerkhoffd suggested?

[audio_engr]

Stating the obvious, but... if the problem has only started to happen since you replaced the link cable, perhaps the new cable is faulty or not working to the specification required by the Devialets (perhaps possible since I think you said it was custom-built).  Have you tried putting the original cable back to see whether the unplayable albums then play OK?  That would seem to be the first step to try.

Is there a common factor in the unplayable albums, such as the sample rate?  Maybe the new cable works at lower sample rates but not higher?

Thanks for your suggestions. I'll try out all the things you've mentioned and report back. 

Also, I was wondering if the 72V DBS of AQ Diamond was interfering with the LINK ?  Is there a way to bypass DBS I wonder ?

Maybe try to unplug the DBS in your Diamond Interlink. It doesn't look that way at first glance, but there is an plug on the DBS box side of the unterlink where you can unplug the entire DBS unit.

I use an AQ Diamond between my source and the Devialet, and I had a similar problem with all albums that were 24 bit, 192 kHz. All other files played, but the high resolution files failed. I have always thought it had something to do with the uncompatability between Linn (BNC out) and Devialet (RCA in). So had the cable reterminated to BNC - AES, and that did the trick for me too.

I just did a quick random check and indeed - its the 24/192 files thats creating the Link failure & shut-down ...

[thumb5]

It seems that the AudioQuest cable is technically not performing as well as your original DH Labs cable, then. If I were you I'd simply go back to the cable that works at the higher sample rate, assuming you still have it.