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Streaming: Qobuz, DLNA, UPnP etc

Tony L said:
That’s interesting. You don’t use it as an exploration device? I’m subscribed to many new release emails, e.g. Rough Trade, Assai, Norman, Bleep etc and given vinyl so often lags behind digital due to pressing plant delays, it provides an opportunity to listen properly in high quality before committing to buy that nice limited edition. That is my primary usage intention (along with just exploring a whole world of new music of all eras).
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That is the only way that I do use it. I'd never stream something I have on LP and rarely on CD. It's for when I'm tired. I've not invested anything like so heavily in digital because the goal posts are still shifting and it takes very big money to beat my vinyl setup.
 
Tony L said:
The Amazon switch is very much a temporary measure, I’ve got a very nice little Cisco managed switch on the way thanks to @beammeup. I’ll maybe try your suggestion as an experiment at some point, but I don’t want a switch in the hi-fi room long-term. The way my network is configured it makes much more sense having everything neatly in the back room near the router.
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Cool. Whichever switch you use, what makes sense is to position it where it can make the biggest sonic difference and this is not where it’s nearest = out back. Inconvenient truth and all that!
Regardless of whether the Cisco is managed or not, many of their models are well-regarded for the quietness of their psu etc so that is almost bound to sound better than the cheap switch if installed just before your streamer.
I know you’ll report back!
 
I’ve just pulled the trigger on a Netgear XR1000 gaming router, meant to have an RRP of £350 but on offer for £157 on Amazon.

Yes, it does look like it belongs in my 8yr old son’s Starwars themed bedroom but, it will be tucked away. It’s suppose to have very low latency for gaming so I will connect my streamer into the prioritised gaming port and see what happens, hopefully I will upgrade from a C to a B on the waveform test.

If it’s crap, looks too silly, I can always send it back.
 
Eoin said:
Tony is this working now with the basic 100mbps switch?
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Not 100% (I had a couple of drops last night), but mostly, yes, once I swapped the router out to the older one. I’m convinced I’m on the right path and I’m sure it will all work very reliably once all the pieces are in place.

I’m clearly very close to its happy zone as is and I still have a nice Cisco switch, a doubling of broadband bandwidth (25th this month), and buying a better router ahead.
 
Try the short cable Switch->Chord and 15m cable Router->Switch. 15m should be fine but who knows.
 
I remember someone linking to https://speed.cloudflare.com/ test on the other thread. It is another good test. I’ve just tried it and my results (with the apparently lower latency earlier Smart Hub One in place) are:

Video Streaming: Average
Online Gaming: Poor
Video Chatting: Average

So plenty of scope to improve there!
 
Tony L said:
I’m certainly be interested in router recommendations. Draytek would instinctively be top of my list, e.g. this Vigor2866. I don’t really want one of current fad of shiny black alarmingly pointy the ‘gaming’ types that look like something from Darth Vader’s private bathroom cabinet, there have to be sensible looking ones with similarly low-latency.
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I have a Draytek (older one) and it is great. Very reliable and flexible. I have a separate wifi setup (Asus).
 
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Tony L said:
I remember someone linking to https://speed.cloudflare.com/ test on the other thread. It is another good test. I’ve just tried it and my results (with the apparently lower latency earlier Smart Hub One in place) are:

Video Streaming: Average
Online Gaming: Poor
Video Chatting: Average

So plenty of scope to improve there!
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Over wifi I get:

Video Streaming:
Average
•
Online Gaming:
Good
•
Video Chatting:
Good

Wired I get the same so it is probably looking for a faster broadband connection to get to "Good" for video streaming. I use Apple Music lossless for audio, or LMS for local streaming.
 
Three goods here. I'm not sure that the VDSL (which I run, I'm getting 60 Mbps rather than 80) is the issue, it just feels like an internal issue to me. One thing that the Asus router does have is a quad core cpu...
 
I’m increasingly convinced the Smart Hubs are pretty poor. Fine for free, but should be very easy to better. I’ve read a load of criticism for latency, bloat under load etc, so I’m not an outlier here. Gamers certainly do not like them.
 
Hcanning said:
If you stream the same Qobuz content from another device that supports the service natively, do you get the same dropouts?
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Every other device I could use is a fully fledged computer with buffering capabilities, so the comparison is irrelevant. I think the point I struggled to get across on the last thread is the DSX1000 is just a DLNA network renderer. It isn’t a Raspberry Pi, MacBook, iPad, Android TV etc. It has no storage beyond maybe a couple of ethernet packets in the network interface.
 
Then I'm not convinced that any internet connection or router changes are going to improve things, since DLNA is designed for local network usage, but I hope for your sake that it does.
 
Hcanning said:
Then I'm not convinced that any internet connection or router changes are going to improve things, since DLNA is designed for local network usage, but I hope for your sake that it does.
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Given a) it works 95% of the time, and b) my local network is provably/measurably bad in precisely the areas that would cause dropouts I‘d bet on it working!

You are correct in that this device is a local network streamer, but broadband speeds have moved such a long way in the decade since it was current to the point a good modern gaming-spec broadband connection is far faster than most people’s home networks when this thing was designed. I haven’t got a precise figure of how much latency I need to lose for absolutely rock solid performance, but it is clearly within reach as I have identified obvious issues on my own network (which are being fixed) and a more than doubling of broadband bandwidth booked for install later this month.
 
Tony L said:
Every other device I could use is a fully fledged computer with buffering capabilities, so the comparison is irrelevant. I think the point I struggled to get across on the last thread is the DSX1000 is just a DLNA network renderer. It isn’t a Raspberry Pi, MacBook, iPad, Android TV etc. It has no storage beyond maybe a couple of ethernet packets in the network interface.
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I’m kind of thinking (though I have very little knowledge of it) that Hi-Fi streamers do very little, if not no buffering to keep the signal as pure as possible, thus reducing noise etc from whatever does the buffering, I’m most likely wrong but that’s my theory and I will stand corrected if anyone shoots me down.

With gaming, it has to be as realtime as possible. I remember when I used to play call of duty on the PlayStation online, it would buffer and when it came back online, you’d been shot a hundred times which wasn’t very good.

I did the cloudfare test,

Got Average for all 3.

Hopefully this new router which turns up tomorrow helps out otherwise, it is what it is and will have to look at other options.
 
Tony L said:
I remember someone linking to https://speed.cloudflare.com/ test on the other thread. It is another good test. I’ve just tried it and my results (with the apparently lower latency earlier Smart Hub One in place) are:

Video Streaming: Average
Online Gaming: Poor
Video Chatting: Average

So plenty of scope to improve there!
Click to expand...
Is that on a device connected by Ethernet or WiFi?
 
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