Rendu Support Thread

[birdland45]

On 11/19/2017 at 5:56 AM, vortecjr said:

Thanks for posting the resolution. I'll keep these kinds of issues in mind for others. You did the right thing and separating the power supplies as it seems you where near the limit of the power supply. There are some devices out there that have the center pin as negative DC and not positive DC. The iFi iPower supply we sell has an adapter to convert to center pin as negative DC and you might find similar ones on eBay or Amazon. FYI when you feed the unit and DAC from the same power supply you break any inherent galvanic isolation between them. It's not always a bad thing and it's convenient (I do it here sometimes), but keep that in mind. Enjoy!   

 

Jesus - you posted this back on November 19th.

 

I was wondering about galvanic isolation in my setup AND in a possible future setup.

 

I currently have an ultraRendu and ultraDigital connected to a W4S DAC.  The ultraRendu and ultraDigital are both powered by a single SBooster PS via a Y-cable supplied with the PS by Small Green Computer.  ultraRendu -> USB cable -> ultraDigital -> I2S -> W4S DAC

 

Am I causing a possible problem with this setup with respect to galvanic isolation?

 

I may also be adding an ISO Regen to the mix.  ultraRendu -> USB cable -> IR -> USB cable -> ultraDigital -> I2S -> W4S DAC

 

Is it better to power the ultraRendu and ISO Regen with the SBooster and power the ultraDigital with some other PSU such as an LPS-1?

 

Walter

[vortecjr]

15 hours ago, birdland45 said:

 

Jesus - you posted this back on November 19th.

 

I was wondering about galvanic isolation in my setup AND in a possible future setup.

 

I currently have an ultraRendu and ultraDigital connected to a W4S DAC.  The ultraRendu and ultraDigital are both powered by a single SBooster PS via a Y-cable supplied with the PS by Small Green Computer.  ultraRendu -> USB cable -> ultraDigital -> I2S -> W4S DAC

 

Am I causing a possible problem with this setup with respect to galvanic isolation?

 

I may also be adding an ISO Regen to the mix.  ultraRendu -> USB cable -> IR -> USB cable -> ultraDigital -> I2S -> W4S DAC

 

Is it better to power the ultraRendu and ISO Regen with the SBooster and power the ultraDigital with some other PSU such as an LPS-1?

 

Walter

If you had a problem you would know. The only way to know for sure if there is room for improvement is via trial or measurements. I would not be overly concerned though. I don’t think you need the IsoRegen and that will just complicate the power connection scheme further.

[Kraken53]

I have a MicroRendu and recently had the v1.4 upgrade with SonicOrbiter 2.5.  I am streaming music from my computer in my home office via Ethernet cable to my audio system located on the lower living area of my home.   I routinely power down my audio system after using it.  The computer in my office is on 24/7.  When I power up the audio system, I am having a problem with SonicOrbiter recognizing my DAC.  Additionally, Roon does not see my device when prompted to select an audio zone.  Roon does not see my MicroRendu as an option on the select audio zone menu.  When I open MySonicOrbiter and try to refresh, it does not see the MicroRendu.  I have tried to open the DAC Diagnostics app, but no success.  Restarting Roon Ready or rebooting the system does not work either.

The only way that I can get it to work is to close the MySonicOrbiter windows and open a new MySonicOrbiter window as I would to install the unit for the first time.  Even this method usually takes 2 or more attempts before MySonicOrbiter recognizes the DAC and Roon can the MicroRendu as an audio zone.

There must be an easier way for those of us who do not have the DAC powered on at all times.  Help is appreciated!

Carl

[ShawnC]

Have you tried just unplugging the power and ethernet from the Rendu.  Occasionally this has happened to me.  I usually try all those things you did, but just unplugging works 99% of the time for me.  Roon automatically finds it every time after that, no need to go to MySonicOrbiter web page.  YMMV

 

My computer/server, rendu and DAC never power down.  I leave them on 24/7.  This is actually recommended by the manufacture of my DAC and rendu. Of course if I'm on vacation then I power down my DAC. Computer stays on so I can stream my library wherever I'm vacationing.

[Ami]

Hello and good morning from California.

 

 

I've been using MicroRendu with Roon for the past year with no issues, but have decided that Roon is not worth the cost (especially due to the horrible Tidal search integration), and am now trying to set it up with BubbleUPNP, which is giving me a lot of grief.

DISCLAIMERS:

* I am an IT professional with extensive experience in networking, and computer software and hardware.

** I read through all the manuals (RTFM) and all articles/blog posts I could find on the web before posting here.

 

I managed to install and setup BubbleUPNP successfully on the MicroRendu itself, and configure an OpenHome.

I am able to use Linn Kazoo to playback Tidal from my Android tablet to the MicroRendu, sometimes...

However, the MicroRendu keeps disappearing from the list of media renderers of the BubbleUPNP web menu, and of course I can't play anything when it's not there.

Rebooting the BubbleUPNP service and/or the MicroRendu sometimes helps, and it appears again for a while, only to disappear again an hour or two later.

When it is gone, it won't come back unless I reboot, sometimes I need to reboot more than once to make it come back.

I have other media renderers on my network, including a few ChromeCasts, and a PS Audio Bridge 2, none of which suffer from this phenomenon and seem to be always available as a BubbleUPNP renderer.

I tried to setup BubbleUPNP on other devices on the network (after uninstalling from the MicroRendu of course), and the same thing happens.

The Rendu will appear on the list, and be gone after some time.

 

Any advice would be highly appreciated,

 

Thanks and have a wonderful weekend!

 

Ami

[vortecjr]

Are you running 2.5? When was the last time you updated your unit? Is the unit connected directly to a router via ethernet? Can you post a screen shoot of your BubbleUPnP server settings? 

 

BTW I run my units for months at a time without a reboot.

[Ami]

Hi Vortecjr and thanks for your reply.

 

1. Yes, I am running 2.5. See attached screenshot.

 

2. I'm not sure what you mean by 'updated the unit'.

Last Rendu 'Update' was when I bought the SD card with 2.5 from you guys.

I have Auto-update set to on for the BubbleUPNP server, and I'm currently running version 0.9 update 27.

See attached BubbleUPNP status screenshot.

 

3. See attached screen shot of media renderers with Rendu missing.

This was taken immediately after a Rendu soft reboot.

See attached seconds screen shot of media renderers with Rendu, and its settings.

This was taken immediately after a second Rendu soft reboot.

 

4. There are several setting screens for BubbleUPNP, and they are set as follows:

• Updates: Auto update is checked
• Chromecast transcoding: Both Enable and Use GPU are checked
• Foobar2000 Remote Access: Max Audio is set to 320Kbps, Apply max audio bitrate is checked
• Advanced: Transcode Hi-res is unchecked, video encoding speed is set to 'medium', Log to file is checked.

 

5. The unit is hard-wired with Cat 7 triple-shielded Gigabit Ethernet cable to my main router, an Apple Airport Extreme. The only other router on the network is a Cisco Catalyst for a separate subnet that isolates my main PS Audio system, the one with the Bridge 2 in it, which BTW is always showing up for BubbleUPNP.

 

Thanks again,

 

Ami

 

[left channel]

Since the update, startup has left my sleepy DAC awake each time. It also did that OK a few times before the update, so I'll keep testing, but for whatever reason that no longer seems to be a problem. Thank you. I've also tried the ultraRendu with two non-sleeping DACs and had no such problem of course.

 

However it's still the case, with all three DACs, that any interruption in connectivity (accidentally switching the DAC off, for example) can result in a long period of downtime. The ultraRendu can't find the DAC (per DAC Diagnostics), and this condition persists through multiple restarts. In fact, forget about the restarts, it's best to just leave it alone and wait. And wait. Even when the uR has found the DAC again, Squeezelite remains confused and takes much longer to start working again no matter how many times I restart and re-select it. All it would take is one visitor to accidentally shut off my DAC, and then there's no music for the rest of their visit. And yet, I voted for the ultraRendu as CA product of the year.

 

I have no such problems with my microJukebox, which has the same UI and apps (but runs on top of VortexBox, I presume), but I'm hoping to put the microJukebox in the server closet and the ultraRendu in the media room. Still working on this. DACs tested here so far:
• Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital (this is the one that sleeps)

• Schiit Modi 2 Uber

• NuPrime DAC-9

 

[vortecjr]

16 hours ago, left channel said:

Since the update, startup has left my sleepy DAC awake each time. It also did that OK a few times before the update, so I'll keep testing, but for whatever reason that no longer seems to be a problem. Thank you. I've also tried the ultraRendu with two non-sleeping DACs and had no such problem of course.

 

However it's still the case, with all three DACs, that any interruption in connectivity (accidentally switching the DAC off, for example) can result in a long period of downtime. The ultraRendu can't find the DAC (per DAC Diagnostics), and this condition persists through multiple restarts. In fact, forget about the restarts, it's best to just leave it alone and wait. And wait. Even when the uR has found the DAC again, Squeezelite remains confused and takes much longer to start working again no matter how many times I restart and re-select it. All it would take is one visitor to accidentally shut off my DAC, and then there's no music for the rest of their visit. And yet, I voted for the ultraRendu as CA product of the year.

 

I have no such problems with my microJukebox, which has the same UI and apps (but runs on top of VortexBox, I presume), but I'm hoping to put the microJukebox in the server closet and the ultraRendu in the media room. Still working on this. DACs tested here so far:
• Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital (this is the one that sleeps)

• Schiit Modi 2 Uber

• NuPrime DAC-9

 

This is the best advice I can give you:

 

The Rendu needs to sees your DAC before it will show up in Roon/LMS. To verify if the Rendu sees yours DAC go to Apps / DAC Diagnostics. If the DAC is not listed you may have to remove and reconnect the USB cable, then refresh the page. If your DAC is still not listed try power cycling the DAC followed by power cycling the Rendu and then go to Apps / DAC Diagnostics. 

[vortecjr]

On 1/6/2018 at 12:27 PM, Ami said:

Hi Vortecjr and thanks for your reply.

 

1. Yes, I am running 2.5. See attached screenshot.

 

2. I'm not sure what you mean by 'updated the unit'.

Last Rendu 'Update' was when I bought the SD card with 2.5 from you guys.

I have Auto-update set to on for the BubbleUPNP server, and I'm currently running version 0.9 update 27.

See attached BubbleUPNP status screenshot.

 

3. See attached screen shot of media renderers with Rendu missing.

This was taken immediately after a Rendu soft reboot.

See attached seconds screen shot of media renderers with Rendu, and its settings.

This was taken immediately after a second Rendu soft reboot.

 

4. There are several setting screens for BubbleUPNP, and they are set as follows:

• Updates: Auto update is checked
• Chromecast transcoding: Both Enable and Use GPU are checked
• Foobar2000 Remote Access: Max Audio is set to 320Kbps, Apply max audio bitrate is checked
• Advanced: Transcode Hi-res is unchecked, video encoding speed is set to 'medium', Log to file is checked.

 

5. The unit is hard-wired with Cat 7 triple-shielded Gigabit Ethernet cable to my main router, an Apple Airport Extreme. The only other router on the network is a Cisco Catalyst for a separate subnet that isolates my main PS Audio system, the one with the Bridge 2 in it, which BTW is always showing up for BubbleUPNP.

 

Thanks again,

 

Ami

For 1: okay

For 2: Go to Apps / Software Manager and press Update. Wait for the "Back to main Menu" link. Then go to Apps / MPD-DLNA and press Save. 

For 3: It should show up now. FYI You should use a different name for the Room so you can tell them apart. I always add OH to the end on the name. You also need to enable it so the controller sees it. 

For 4: I don't touch these.

For 5: What happens is you connect the micro to that network?      

[left channel]

32 minutes ago, vortecjr said:

This is the best advice I can give you:

 

The Rendu needs to sees your DAC before it will show up in Roon/LMS. To verify if the Rendu sees yours DAC go to Apps / DAC Diagnostics. If the DAC is not listed you may have to remove and reconnect the USB cable, then refresh the page. If your DAC is still not listed try power cycling the DAC followed by power cycling the Rendu and then go to Apps / DAC Diagnostics. 

 

The 'Rendu has a lot of trouble finding a DAC again after it's lost it. But even after the DAC shows up in DAC Diagnostics, as I said above Squeezelite remains confused and takes much longer to start working again no matter how many times I restart and re-select it.

This happens regardless of whether or not the Squeezelite button shows "Active". I've tried to fix this in many ways, including the power cycling you suggest but that may just prolong the situation. My uRendu has walked up at least 20 IP addresses due to all the restarts.

Both of these problems — finding a DAC after an interruption, and getting Squeezelite started — do not happen on my microJukebox in the exact same conditions. I am not the only one experiencing the Squeezelite problem.

[vortecjr]

I'll merge that thread here soon. Look at the comments I left as they apply to your microJukebox as well. 

[left channel]

Thanks @vortecjr. Merging may confuse things in this case as it will be hard to follow comments and replies. But anyway my takeaway from your reply there is that I'm doing better with the microJukebox because I'm then running LMS and Squeezlite on the same machine. The microJukebox also finds my DAC faster and recovers faster if the DAC is accidentally turned off and back on, but that's apparently a separate issue.

[vortecjr]

I just tried the following:

 

1. I booted up my ultraRendu without the ultraDigtial attached. I look in Apps / DAC Diagnostics and there is nothing there as expected. I hook up the ultraDigtial and refresh DAC Diagnostics and it's now listed. I go to Settings / SqueezeLite and press Save to active the output. I open LMS running on the ultraRendu and it's there ready to use.

 

2. I turn off LMS on the ultraRendu. I start LMS on my Mac and there it is ready to use.

 

3. I turn off LMS on the Mac. I enable SqueezeBox support on Roon. It's not there so I reboot the ultraRendu to release it from where ever its connected to. After the unit boots it pops up in Roon on my Mac and its ready to use.

 

4. I have a sonicTransporter with LMS, but I'm confident it will see SqueezeLite on the ultraRendu:)

[birdland45]

Hi Jesus:

 

Roon is not in the picture in my setup.  I'm monitoring this topic as well since it is related to the ultraRendu and Squeezelite.  Please see my latest posts here.

[vortecjr]

I'm just showing that I can connect to it without issue with different configurations. I'm going to continue here since this is the official support thread.

[birdland45]

4 minutes ago, vortecjr said:

I'm just showing that I can connect to it without issue with different configurations. I'm going to continue here since this is the official support thread.

Should I enter my post here from the other topic?

[birdland45]

OK.  Stopped copying files to test again.  Plugged my NTFS drive into the ST.  powered it up but nothing else and I see the drive and I see the music files on the drive in the LMS controller on the ST.  No Player since ultraRendu is not up.

 

Powered up my W4S DAC.  Then powered up the ultraRendu and ultraDigital.  W4S DAC shows I2S 48k.  ultraRendu shows up in the controller as player now.  I checked Squeezelite on ulraRendu and it is active.

 

Selected a 16/44.1 file and played it.  It seemed to play according to the controller.  However, the W4S DAC now says DSD 256 and meters on the tape deck show no signal.  DAC Diagnostics shows ultraDigital was found by ultraRendu although Status line says:

 

Status: Unknown (status not available when device is not playing)

 

But it is supposed to be playing.

 

Under Settings for Squeezelite, I have:

 

Player Name: SBLwalter

Audio Device: USB output (greyed out)

Buffer size: blank

Period count: blank

... all blank until

Sample format: auto

DSD Support: Native DSD

DSD and PCM switch delay: blank

Player MAC address is greyed out and is 00:52:16:7F:49:E4

 

[birdland45]

Decided to re-install PDB/DLNA Renderer on ultraRendu.  Rebooted and cleared MPD database after starting up JRiver on my desktop.  JRMC sees the ulraRendu and I can play music to it.  I played a 24b/96kHz file and the tape deck meters show that music is playing.  W4S DAC shows 96K

 

The Status section under DAC diagnostics shows:

 

access: RW_INTERLEAVED
format: S32_LE
subformat: STD
channels: 2
rate: 96000 (96000/1)
period_size: 12000
buffer_size: 48000

Played a DSD64 file and W4S DAC shows DSD64.  Status section under DAC diagnostics shows:

 

access: RW_INTERLEAVED
format: DSD_U32_BE
subformat: STD
channels: 2
rate: 88200 (88200/1)
period_size: 11025
buffer_size: 44100

Not sure why 88200 but I know the W4S DAC is receiving native DSD so doesn't really matter.

 

So what is going on with the ultraRendu/ultraDigital chain when I use Squeezelite instead of MPD/DLNA????

 

BTW, Squeezelite app is still installed but obviously not selected under the App Switcher.

[vortecjr]

We don't resample so either LMS is set to resample or your DAC is not displaying the correct rate. You can see the momentary rate passing through the ultraRendu in Apps / DAC Diagnostics. You have to refresh the page for each new file streamed.

[vortecjr]

5 minutes ago, birdland45 said:

Decided to re-install PDB/DLNA Renderer on ultraRendu.  Rebooted and cleared MPD database after starting up JRiver on my desktop.  JRMC sees the ulraRendu and I can play music to it.  I played a 24b/96kHz file and the tape deck meters show that music is playing.  W4S DAC shows 96K

 

The Status section under DAC diagnostics shows:

 

access: RW_INTERLEAVED
format: S32_LE
subformat: STD
channels: 2
rate: 96000 (96000/1)
period_size: 12000
buffer_size: 48000

Played a DSD64 file and W4S DAC shows DSD64.  Status section under DAC diagnostics shows:

 

access: RW_INTERLEAVED
format: DSD_U32_BE
subformat: STD
channels: 2
rate: 88200 (88200/1)
period_size: 11025
buffer_size: 44100

Not sure why 88200 but I know the W4S DAC is receiving native DSD so doesn't really matter.

 

So what is going on with the ultraRendu/ultraDigital chain when I use Squeezelite instead of MPD/DLNA????

 

BTW, Squeezelite app is still installed but obviously not selected under the App Switcher.

88.2k is correct for native DSD streaming which the ultraDigital supports. 

[birdland45]

11 minutes ago, vortecjr said:

We don't resample so either LMS is set to resample or your DAC is not displaying the correct rate. You can see the momentary rate passing through the ultraRendu in Apps / DAC Diagnostics. You have to refresh the page for each new file streamed.

I have no clue where in LMS to set resampling so unless it is set by default, I did not set it.

 

My DAC is displaying the correct rate for MPD/DLNA.

 

Also, I just noticed that JRMC sees the LMS from the ST i5.  I just loaded its library and I am playing via JRMC to the ultraRendu and everything is playing fine and rate is correct.  Of course, this is NOT using Squeezelite on the ultraRendu.

[vortecjr]

That is why you need to look in Apps / DAC Diagnostics...to see if that is what we are receiving as the sample rate. What happens in MPD/DLNA is not relevant because it's a different streaming protocol with a different server.

[birdland45]

I powered down everything before I saw your update.  So powered everything back up.  MPD/DLNA still active.  DAC Diagnostic shows DAC (ultraDigital) is connected.

 

So I switched to Squeezelite on the ultraRendu.  Clicked on DAC Diagnostics and the ultraRendu page just sits there trying to get the status and finally comes back with Error 500 Service unavailable.  Squeezelite shows UNKNOWN state in Audio App Switcher.  Based on previous experience, I will not be able to get out of this situation without a power off and on and maybe that won't help either.

 

Clicking on Squeezelite in the App Switcher says 'Squeezelite started.' but it says Stopped in red next to Squeezelite.

 

 

[birdland45]

Unplugged USB cable going to ultraDigital and plugged it back in but clicking on DAC diagnostics does not get me to the DAC status page and eventually gives me the Error 500 ...

 

Now if I close that webpage and go to MySonicOrbiter and click Manage for the ultraRendu, I cannot get to the ultraRendu at all.  It is still showing up on MySonicOrbiter though.  Sometimes it disappears from there as well when it is in this state.