09-Mar-2020, 21:01
I agree with Ian.
It seems to me that people are calling the behaviour (the stuttering and stopping of playback, especially with high res files) as the problem. That isn't the problem, that's the symptoms which tell us that there is a problem. The problem is whatever is causing the symptoms.
As for the symptoms, there are a number of things which can cause them. For example, the loss of the first second or so of playback *CAN* be due to a DAC taking a bit of time to adjust to a change in resolution and Roon has a setting to correct that by providing a delay when resolution changes. There's more than one cause which can generate the sort of symptoms we're talking about.
We definitely do have a problem with RAAT and gigabit connections, it's been confirmed by both Roon and Devialet and Devialet have now said they're testing a fix (at last) but one of the features of this problem, right from the start, is that some people experienced it more severely and/or frequently than others. Why? If it were just a simple bug then it should have affected everyone equally. I think that while the problem has a root cause which is common, there is probably something else involved which accounts for the differences in severity and frequency reported, something which can exacerbate the symptoms. That factor probably has something to do with our individual network setups because provided Roon is running without problems and our respective Devialets are all the same when it comes to the bug, the only thing that can contribute to the difference has to lie between Roon and the Devialet and what's between them is our networks.
I'm also using an EtherREGEN and I've now had playback stop on 3 occasions with Roon dropping my Roon Ready connection which disappears from my list of possible endpoints in Roon's audio settings while Roon still offers me a connection via AIR. While I solved it the first time by mucking about and eventually rebooting my 140, and then my Roon Nucleus+, neither of which worked, and then finally rebooting the EtherREGEN, what I've found since then with the 2 subsequent incidents is that rebooting the EtherREGEN solves the problem. I don't know what's causing the issue and I reported the first incident to Alex Crespi at Uptone Audio who had received no other reports at that stage. I have no idea of what's going on but I wonder whether the problem is in some way associated with or caused by the RAAT/gigabit bug, even though I'm using the EtherREGEN's 100T port to connect to my 140, because the one thing this has in common with the RAAT/gigabit issue is that it affects RAAT but does not affect AIR.
I haven't tried assigning a fixed address to the 140 as yet but, given that we're apparently close to seeing a firmware release to fix the RAAT/gigabit bug I'll probably hold off and see what that fix does when it's released and then consider a fixed address if that doesn't work. As problems go, this loss of the RAAT connection is minor since it occurs at intervals of 2 or 3 weeks and is easily and quickly fixed so it's a minor annoyance for me. Whatever the cause is, I'm also not seeing any reports from other EtherREGEN users on the Uptone Audio forum at AudiophileStyle soI'm inclined to think that it's a Devialet issue rather than an EtherREGEN issue, especially when the Devialet has an acknowledged issue with how it handles RAAT connections.
I think it's going to be very interesting to see how the Devialet bug fix works for people. Given the variability in reports that we've seen, is the fix going to resolve all issues for ausers experiencing the problem or is it only going to fix some issues, and is it going to fix things for some people and not for others? Has everyone been experiencing the same problem or have some people got a different problem with similar issues? Hopefully we'll get some answers soon, and hopefully those answers will be the answers everyone is waiting for.
It seems to me that people are calling the behaviour (the stuttering and stopping of playback, especially with high res files) as the problem. That isn't the problem, that's the symptoms which tell us that there is a problem. The problem is whatever is causing the symptoms.
As for the symptoms, there are a number of things which can cause them. For example, the loss of the first second or so of playback *CAN* be due to a DAC taking a bit of time to adjust to a change in resolution and Roon has a setting to correct that by providing a delay when resolution changes. There's more than one cause which can generate the sort of symptoms we're talking about.
We definitely do have a problem with RAAT and gigabit connections, it's been confirmed by both Roon and Devialet and Devialet have now said they're testing a fix (at last) but one of the features of this problem, right from the start, is that some people experienced it more severely and/or frequently than others. Why? If it were just a simple bug then it should have affected everyone equally. I think that while the problem has a root cause which is common, there is probably something else involved which accounts for the differences in severity and frequency reported, something which can exacerbate the symptoms. That factor probably has something to do with our individual network setups because provided Roon is running without problems and our respective Devialets are all the same when it comes to the bug, the only thing that can contribute to the difference has to lie between Roon and the Devialet and what's between them is our networks.
I'm also using an EtherREGEN and I've now had playback stop on 3 occasions with Roon dropping my Roon Ready connection which disappears from my list of possible endpoints in Roon's audio settings while Roon still offers me a connection via AIR. While I solved it the first time by mucking about and eventually rebooting my 140, and then my Roon Nucleus+, neither of which worked, and then finally rebooting the EtherREGEN, what I've found since then with the 2 subsequent incidents is that rebooting the EtherREGEN solves the problem. I don't know what's causing the issue and I reported the first incident to Alex Crespi at Uptone Audio who had received no other reports at that stage. I have no idea of what's going on but I wonder whether the problem is in some way associated with or caused by the RAAT/gigabit bug, even though I'm using the EtherREGEN's 100T port to connect to my 140, because the one thing this has in common with the RAAT/gigabit issue is that it affects RAAT but does not affect AIR.
I haven't tried assigning a fixed address to the 140 as yet but, given that we're apparently close to seeing a firmware release to fix the RAAT/gigabit bug I'll probably hold off and see what that fix does when it's released and then consider a fixed address if that doesn't work. As problems go, this loss of the RAAT connection is minor since it occurs at intervals of 2 or 3 weeks and is easily and quickly fixed so it's a minor annoyance for me. Whatever the cause is, I'm also not seeing any reports from other EtherREGEN users on the Uptone Audio forum at AudiophileStyle soI'm inclined to think that it's a Devialet issue rather than an EtherREGEN issue, especially when the Devialet has an acknowledged issue with how it handles RAAT connections.
I think it's going to be very interesting to see how the Devialet bug fix works for people. Given the variability in reports that we've seen, is the fix going to resolve all issues for ausers experiencing the problem or is it only going to fix some issues, and is it going to fix things for some people and not for others? Has everyone been experiencing the same problem or have some people got a different problem with similar issues? Hopefully we'll get some answers soon, and hopefully those answers will be the answers everyone is waiting for.
Roon Nucleus+, Devilalet Expert 140 Pro CI, Focal Sopra 2, PS Audio P12, Keces P8 LPS, Uptone Audio EtherREGEN with optical fibre link to my router, Shunyata Alpha NR and Sigma NR power cables, Shunyata Sigma ethernet cables, Shunyata Alpha V2 speaker cables, Grand Prix Audio Monaco rack, RealTRAPS acoustic treatment.
Brisbane, Qld, Australia
