Firmware

[David A]

How do you reproduce the problem? In contrast to most of the users, I did not have such a problem in my system. The only difference between my system and most of others' is that I use two different switches between the audio-related components(Mac Mini, Devialet) and other network devices(such as NAS, TV, Internet Router). These two switches are connected to each other by using a fiber-optic connection. The Ethernet outputs on these switches are all Gigabit-Ethernet enabled. I can play large DSD256, DSD64 audio files over the network by using Roon(it converts the DSD256 stream to DSD64)

I think I'm lucky about it. I played several albums which are mostly DSD128 files. There is no dropout. It may be due to switch configuration (EdgeSwitch10x-->SOTM Sotm SNH-10g-->Devialet) or operating system(Macos driver)

You said "In contrast to most other users…". I suspect your experience may actually be similar to most users because I think the majority of users have not had the problem. If you think about it, those reporting the problem meet 3 criteria. They use the ethernet input on their Devialets rather than wifi, they use a gigabit speed ethernet connection. and they use RAAT instead of AIR. Lots of users rely on the wifi input (I know you don't), and there was a poll here when the update came out asking whether people preferred RAAT or AIR. 39 out of 113 people preferred RAAT, the rest either preferred AIR (fewer than those who preferred RAAT), couldn't pick a difference, or couldn't be bothered A/B testing. If we assume that half of the Expert Pro Roon users are using the wifi input and the users who prefer RAAT are evenly distributed between wifi and ethernet users, then 40% of the 50% of ethernet users could have a gigabit connection and the problem. That's only 20% of total users with the problem but we also know that not all of them—for example you for one—don't report the problem.

My experience is similar to yours. Most of what I stream is 96/24 or lower in resolution. The rest, less than 5% of what I stream, is either DSD 64 or the 1 album I have at 176.4/24 resolution. I didn't notice the problem at all until the day I decided to see if I could find out what the comments were about and set Roon to upscale everything to 192/24. Then I got the problem. I don't think your "immunity" is due to your switch configuration or OS, I think it's because you aren't streaming 192/24 files. The reason you didn't get any dropout with DSD128 is because, if you look at your signal path photo, you'll see that Roon rescaled your files to DSD64 before sending them to your 220 and I think DSD64 is roughly equivalent to 88.4/24 or 96/24 based on what I've read.

I think you, and I because my experience has been very similar to yours, are really in the majority. If you look at the thread about the problem here, there's quite a lot of posts but many of us who posted there posted many. many times. There's probably less than 100 people posting in that thread and not all of them reported the problem. Note that Devialet and Roon both say they didn't see the problem during the certification process. I certainly think there may be some network factors that exacerbate the problem for some people but overall I think that given the number of people using wifi and the number of ethernet users using AIR, plus the probably low number of people streaming files of higher than 96/24 resolution, only a very small proportion of Expert Pro users, maybe 10% or lower, have actually had the problem.

I'm not trying to minimise the seriousness of the problem for those who have it, I've managed to reproduce it in my system as I said and it really is an extremely bad problem. What I am saying is that I think only a small proportion of Expert Pro users have actually had the problem because I think most users are either wifi users or ethernet/AIR users and because I suspect the majority of the gigabit ethernet/RAAT users aren't streaming content of higher than 96/24 resolution.

So, when you said in your second post "I think I'm lucky about it", you may have identified the problem but possibly the situation in the wrong way. Another way of looking at things, one I suspect Devialet probably subscribe to, is that those who are experiencing the problem are unlucky because they're the few who made 3 specific choices, gigabit ethernet over lower speed ethernet or wifi, RAAT over AIR, and chose to stream content at the highest resolution the Devialet can accept when most content available to people is significantly lower in resolution. I suspect Devialet may see this as a problem afflicting a small minority who really want to push the limits of what their amps can do and while only a minority are affected they aren't particularly motivated to do something about it as promptly as they should be because, according to Devialet's own specifications and public announcements, RAAT over gigabit ethernet should work and this problem should not exist.

There's a bug in the system and they need to fix it.