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New ISP, Network Problems With Audio Device, Help needed


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You should do it only from the router end, and leave all connected devices to get an IP address assigned by DHCP. The router will make sure it will not serve already allocated addresses. Reboot/restart all devices after you are finished assigning addresses in the static IP management, just to be sure.

 

Is your Marantz on its latest firmware?

 

Do consider buying your own router, as Chris suggested, if this does not work out, and check out your network cables for damage.

 

 

 

Quick question on the static IP addresses. I've started doing this, and have set my PC following instructions. But the router offers static IP management and showed a different address. So, does it need setting from BOTH ends, or could I just chnage it from the router end? This would have the advantage of being simple: the router shows all peripheral points and they can all be selected and allocated an IP address.

 

Is there any way of protecting static IPs so that anything new connecting won't be served an already-allocated address by DCHP ?

 

Louise

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You should do it only from the router end, and leave all connected devices to get an IP address assigned by DHCP. The router will make sure it will not serve already allocated addresses. Reboot/restart all devices after you are finished assigning addresses in the static IP management, just to be sure.

 

Is your Marantz on its latest firmware?

 

Do consider buying your own router, as Chris suggested, if this does not work out, and check out your network cables for damage.

 

The Marantz is on the latest firmware.

 

Having set the computer static IP from the computer end, should I un-set it, revert to dynamic, then set it from the router?

 

Is there a way of testing network cables? They all seem to work, is there more to it than that?

 

On reflection, there was a problem with the DSL connection. The phone engineer wired the line just into the house. I ran an extension to the router, and had it set up on a temporary basis to see if it worked. It did. I then wired it to a telephone socket I fixed to the wall, and found that internet connection fell from 27Mb/s to 3Mb/s. I put it back to the temporary arrangement. I don't understand how the connection can be made but with limited speed. Maybe this still has some bearing on the problem.

 

Louise

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I would unset it in the devices, only to prevent the confusion you will encounter if you forget you set it manually and decide to change IP addresses later (or using a different subnet with your *new* Linksys/Netgear/Asus router should you try that).

 

If you get normal speeds when copying files from computer to computer using those network cables I guess you will be fine.

 

You asked for other network players: personally I like my microRendu (but I also still like my SqueezeBox Touches) in combination with a Chord Hugo, but ehhh the world is yours to explore all those options.

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OK, so far so good. Everything on the network has been assigned a static IP (from the router), everything has been turned off, the router re-booted (it took ages) and then everything else re-booted. Lastly, the pesky Marantz. Everything works :) Let's see if its stable now.

 

Louise

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I have an Android box, unused, part of the Free TV package bundled by the ISP, which has Chromecast. I can, have, configured it to be a network UPnP OpenHome renderer, but I cannot get Linn Kazoo, to cast to it. It seems to look for an AVR and nothing else.

 

Windows itself will cast, and my set-up will cast from my computer to my phone, which has Bubble UPnP installed. This is interesting but not useful.

Looks as if the Linn Kazoo app still hasn't been fixed. It has a bug where you must use a unique Room, even if the Name is unique - so it's likely you've set both the AVR & the Chromecast to the same Room.

 

If the BubbleUPnP Android app is working ok with the Chromecast, then it makes it less likely you have a UPnP discovery issue with the router's management of the network, since Google Cast uses a similar device discovery mechanism.

We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.

-- Jo Cox

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Linn Kazoo is the only way I know to get from TIDAL to stream FLAC from my PC. Possibly there are other ways, does anyone know? On my phone, Bubble UPnP will stream TIDAL direct, no need for a middle man.
Don't know of any other streaming methods that don't involve a middle man to get TIDAL to a UPnP/DLNA streamer (assuming the streamer doesn't have built-in Tidal support).

 

Another method you could try is the Squeezebox type device's Logitech Media Server with a couple of plugin components:

the ickStream LMS plugin to get Tidal access &

the UPnPBridge (squeeze2upnp) plugin to provide the Squeezebox emulation for the UPnP/DLNA streamer (similar to how the BubbleUPnP Server provides OpenHome for UPnP/DLNA streamers).

Some Software Beta Downloads - Version 7.9

Announce: UPnPBridge = integrate UPnP/DLNA players with LMS (squeeze2upnp)

 

You should then be able to control the playback with any Squeezebox controller - LMS even has a built-in web browser Squeezebox controller application.

We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.

-- Jo Cox

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OK, so far so good. Everything on the network has been assigned a static IP (from the router), everything has been turned off, the router re-booted (it took ages) and then everything else re-booted. Lastly, the pesky Marantz. Everything works :) Let's see if its stable now.

 

Louise

Just as a matter of clarification, you are really using DHCP reservations rather than static addresses. The devices still use DHCP like they were before the change, but it's the router that simply reserves the same IP address for the device every time the IP lease has expired.

Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems AudiophileStyleStickerWhite2.0.png AudiophileStyleStickerWhite7.1.4.png

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Another method you could try is the Squeezebox type device's Logitech Media Server with a couple of plugin components:

the ickStream LMS plugin to get Tidal access &

the UPnPBridge (squeeze2upnp) plugin to provide the Squeezebox emulation for the UPnP/DLNA streamer (similar to how the BubbleUPnP Server provides OpenHome for UPnP/DLNA streamers).

 

This would take me to the next phase of system implementation. At that point, I want to make sure I choose the right kit long term. My speakers are Monitor Audio Gold 200s. The AVR isn't really fit to drive them, so this needs to be upgraded, perhaps to a stereo amp like the Roksan Caspian. I need to make sure that whatever network player I use matches the audio standard set by amp and speakers. I've heard that domestic computer components will not be good enough, I don't know if there's truth in this or not. I don't want to get caught in an ever-spiralling quest for purity, but I don't want to let those speakers down!

 

In these terms, does the Squeezebox fit the bill? Or should I be looking at something like the Cambridge Audio CXN?

 

Louise

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Well may be not one of the original Logitech Squeezebox type models, as they don't make them any more, but I don't see why you couldn't use a streaming device that runs as a Squeezebox (usually via the Squeezelite Squeezebox emulator) in preference to a standard UPnP/DLNA supporting streamer like the Cambridge Audio CXN. I certainly don't think there's any sound quality issue with either network streaming method - in both technologies the audio file is decoded & played by the streaming receiver device, so there should be no difference assuming they're streaming the same music file.

 

The issue is not which streaming technology is better, but which streamer is built better (so DAC, power supply, general build, etc).

 

BTW, did you check if you'd set up the Chromecast and the AVR with the same OpenHome Room or not in BubbleUPnP Server?

We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.

-- Jo Cox

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BTW, did you check if you'd set up the Chromecast and the AVR with the same OpenHome Room or not in BubbleUPnP Server?

 

This is confusing. In the Bubble configuration, the OpenHome Room is given the name of the device, so it was called Marantz SR6009, which until now in Kazoo I'd thought was the device it linked to. Now I see it the room name! So perhaps I should call them both Room instead. Bubble Server seems to allow only one renderer to be created, rather than only allow one to be chosen.

 

I haven't installed the recent Kazoo update yet.

 

I want to see if today's work has made any improvements, so I'm not going to try Chromecast just yet, nor change the room name. I'll save that excitement for later :)

 

Louise

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My last reply seems to have gone missing.

 

The static IPs didn't make any difference, the Marantz lost its connection settings last night. So this morning I set the Android box up as a renderer, with an optical feed to the Marantz, thus bypassing the AVR's network functionality, and set up Linn Kazoo to see the Android box.

 

Now I'll wait to see if this renderer is stable or not. It's actually no good music-wise, the quality of the rendering is way down on the Marantz, but it may prove a point about network stability.

 

Louise

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Marantz France (I live in France) have not responded to my query on networking passed to them a week ago. Marantz UK say speak to the ISP, which seems an unlikely route to find a solution, given that the right ports are open and static IPs are set.

 

The Chromecast renderer works without any problem, but the quality is so low that there's no point sending FLAC to it, I may as well just use Spotify.

 

So, for now, I have cancelled my TIDAL FLAC subscription as the Marantz AVR is incapable of playing them. Sad.

 

Louise

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Marantz France (I live in France) have not responded to my query on networking passed to them a week ago. Marantz UK say speak to the ISP, which seems an unlikely route to find a solution, given that the right ports are open and static IPs are set.
The ISP providing the solution seems even less probable, given that the Marantz also has problems with basic connecting to the network after powering up!

We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.

-- Jo Cox

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Marantz has come back to me suggesting checking the firewall function of the router.

 

Can anyone advise, before I try discussing this in French with my ISP (my French is OK but not brilliant, so this won't be easy!)

 

1) if I've opened the ports needed by the AVR, does this bypass the firewall or is it possible that there is still a firewall setting blocking things?

 

2) as the AVR works fine after initialization, only losing connection overnight, does this suggest a firewall problem or not?

 

3) the router manual doesn't say much about the firewall but does say that setting a DMZ, or demilitarized zone (how do they think up names like these?) will bypass the firewall but is dangerous because it leaves the router open. Is this what is needed?

 

Louise

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The Chromecast renderer works without any problem, but the quality is so low that there's no point sending FLAC to it, I may as well just use Spotify.

Chromecast Audio can also be connected using a mini-Toslink-to-Toslink cable. Your AVR has two optical inputs on the rear panel. This is a digital connection and should sound fine.

61w9uhddP0L._SY355_.jpg

 

The firewall concern may be legit but typically firewalls protect from outside (WAN) intrusions leaving LAN traffic to flow freely. You might try temporarily disabling the firewall to see if any improvement. If this solves the problem we can work on finding the right port settings.

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Chromecast Audio can also be connected using a mini-Toslink-to-Toslink cable. Your AVR has two optical inputs on the rear panel. This is a digital connection and should sound fine.

The firewall concern may be legit but typically firewalls protect from outside (WAN) intrusions leaving LAN traffic to flow freely. You might try temporarily disabling the firewall to see if any improvement. If this solves the problem we can work on finding the right port settings.

 

I was using the TOS link. I suppose I should have tried the HDMI as well, but the loss wasn't marginal, it was a no-go.

 

Not sure about shutting down the firewall, it would have to be for days to see if the system is stabe. Is there significant risk with that?

 

Louise

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Chromecast Audio can also be connected using a mini-Toslink-to-Toslink cable. Your AVR has two optical inputs on the rear panel. This is a digital connection and should sound fine.
It's not any of Google's own Chromecast devices, such as the Chromecast Audio. Louise said it was an Android TV/media player type box with integrated Chromecast support, supplied (& presumably badged) by her ISP.

We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.

-- Jo Cox

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2) as the AVR works fine after initialization, only losing connection overnight, does this suggest a firewall problem or not?
I'm certainly no network expert, but I cannot see how the router's firewall port settings could have any influence the AVR no longer being able to connect to the network itself when powering up. Some router's can be manually configured to prevent devices with unrecognised network adapter MAC addresses from accessing the network, though this feature shouldn't have any bearing unless the AVR's MAC address has unexplicably changed on power up and reset to its original MAC address when initialised!

We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.

-- Jo Cox

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I'm certainly no network expert, but I cannot see how the router's firewall port settings could have any influence the AVR no longer being able to connect to the network itself when powering up. Some router's can be manually configured to prevent devices with unrecognised network adapter MAC addresses from accessing the network, though this feature shouldn't have any bearing unless the AVR's MAC address has unexplicably changed on power up and reset to its original MAC address when initialised!

 

Well, exactly, it doesn't make much sense, does it?

 

The only other thing I have wondered is that we have pretty ratty voltage here, I wonder if volt drops could cause software glitches?

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Sorry I didn't see this thread earlier, I'm the designer of one of the products mentioned in this thread, we have had a lot of experience with lots of customers and their network issues, I have come up with a set of recommendations, which may help you with the problems you have.

 

First off some definitions, the standard home router is a box that contains many functions in one box:

 

modem, DSL in your case

router, connects your local network addressing to the internet addressing

firewall, attempts to keep unauthorized outside from getting in, and keeping your stuff inside from getting out

WAP, Wireless access point (otherwise known as "the WiFi")

DHCP server, assigns local addresses to the devices on your local network

switch, connects the devices on your local network (the multiple "Ethernet jacks" connect to the switch)

 

All this can be done in one box or it can be split up into different boxes in various combinations.

 

Because the "home router" has all this in one inexpensive box, none of it really gets done very well. So the fun part is to figure out which part is the most important to digital audio and do that in a separate box. This will usually fix the type of problems you are experiencing.

 

My experience has shown that there are two common problems, it is hard to tell which it might be without doing some testing.

 

The two issues are:

switch

DHCP server

 

MANY home routers have terrible switches, which usually doesn't show up for normal file copying etc, but can wreak havoc with digital audio because it is real time. If the switch takes too long to forward packets it won't matter for a printer, but can cause major problems for audio which needs the data to be coming at a regular interval.

 

A DHCP server assigns an address to a device (the computer, the AVR etc) for a certain period of time (usually somewhere between1 and 24 hours), this is called a lease. At the end of the lease time the device and the DHCP server have to re-negotiate the lease, if they don't do this in time, the lease runs out and the device can't talk over the network any more. When the two try and do this there is a timeout involved, if the DHCP server doesn't respond fast enough the device might timeout and not get the new lease. Different devices have different timeouts, so what may work fine for one device may not work for another.

 

So how do you fix these?

 

For the switch issues you buy a separate switch, a simple inexpensive switch is the best, you can get these for less than $25. A lot of people like the Netgear metal box switches. (including me, I have a whole bunch of them)

 

There are two ways you can hook this up, completely replace the switch in the router with the new switch, in which case all of your devices plug into the new switch, and you have one cable from the new switch back into the router. The other is to use the new switch just for the audio connection. Plug the AVR into the new switch and the computer which runs the server, and everything else is still on the router, you still need the cable from the new switch to the router.

 

To fix the DHCP issue you have two choices, run the audio devices (the AVR and the computer running the server) with a true static IP address, this way they never talk to the DHCP server so they could care less about leases running out. The downside is you have to make sure that the IP address you use will not conflict with one handed out by the DHCP server.

 

Getting a new DHCP server is a little more complicated because you have to make sure everything uses the new one, NOT the one in the router. That gets a little more complicated, I can go over that if you decide to go that route.

 

My recent experience seems to point to the switch problem being slightly more likely, so it is probably best to get a separate switch and try that and see if it that fixes the issue.

 

The comments about firewalls and such are only valid if you are getting your music over the internet (Spotify, Tidal, internet radio etc), if you have music files stored somewhere on your own network a firewall will have nothing to do with it. (a firewall is the gatekeeper between your home network and the wilds of the internet)

 

I hope that is not too much information thrown at you at once. Ask questions if any of that wasn't clear.

 

John S.

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Supplemental to John Swenson's advice regarding IP addresses and DHCP:

 

Most routers allow you to assign a fixed IP address to a specified client (computer) based on its hardware (MAC) address. This allows you to preserve the DHCP configuration on the client, yet it will always have the same IP address.

 

Alternatively, you can configure the client to use a fixed IP address instead of DHCP. To avoid the problem John raised regarding the fixed IP address overlapping with addresses being assigned by the router, simply choose a fixed IP address far away from the first address in the range of addresses assigned by the router. For example, if the router assigns IP addresses in the range 10.0.0.1 to 10.0.0.255, choose a fixed IP address of 10.0.0.254 or 10.0.0.255.

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I hope that is not too much information thrown at you at once. Ask questions if any of that wasn't clear.

John S.

 

Lots of lovely information! Thank you :)

 

I had earlier in this thread raised the issue of the time remaining allocated by the router to each device, not knowing what it was but it did seem to be connected with the dropouts, so it looks like the switch problem is a likely candidate.

 

Currently, the router sits near the AVR and is connected straight to it. Another network cable goes from it to a switch (TPLink) the far side of the room, and from that switch to, among other things, the computer which controls the AVR. So, if I simply took a long network cable from the AVR to the switch, rather than to the router, would I achieve the avoidance of the router switch?

 

I do get all my music from the internet, not having a CD collection and having decided to spend money on streaming rather than discs.

 

Supplemental to John Swenson's advice regarding IP addresses and DHCP:

 

Most routers allow you to assign a fixed IP address to a specified client (computer) based on its hardware (MAC) address. This allows you to preserve the DHCP configuration on the client, yet it will always have the same IP address.

 

Alternatively, you can configure the client to use a fixed IP address instead of DHCP. To avoid the problem John raised regarding the fixed IP address overlapping with addresses being assigned by the router, simply choose a fixed IP address far away from the first address in the range of addresses assigned by the router. For example, if the router assigns IP addresses in the range 10.0.0.1 to 10.0.0.255, choose a fixed IP address of 10.0.0.254 or 10.0.0.255.

 

I have the router set to static IPs to all connected devices, although I've seen somewhere that this may be some kind of virtual static setting rather than actual. So, when I connect the AVR to the room switch, do I need to assign a fixed far-range static IP for the AVR from my computer? And presumably remove the static IP for it set by the router?

 

Louise

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