[HansSo]

I have now owned a Stream-9 for about a month and while I am generally very happy with it I have run into 3 issues.

I use the Stream-9 as a DLNA renderer controlled by LogitechMediaServer (lms) through the DLNA bridge plugin. Initially tracks were from my own library (both MP3 and Apple Lossless) and Spotify.

Issue nr 1.
If playback is set to gapless then the Stream-9 plays tracks perfectly gapless but the information on the display is only correct for the first track in a playlist, it never updates and keeps displaying the information for the first track. Strangly the Omnia App does display the correct information indicating that the Stream-9 does know the correct information (it is sending it to the App) but for some reason doesn't updates it's display. I found some posts on the WiiM forum (WiiM also uses a Linkplay module) from people having the same problem in the same situation. There this was solved with a firmware update (to version 4.6.516229).

Now I have recently added Qobuz as a streaming service besides Spotify and this has resulted in the next 2 issues.

Issue nr 2.
With the addition of Qobuz tracks are no longer all 16bit/44.1kHz with higher rates from Qobuz. When the sample-rate changes sometimes there is a short fraction of the beginning of the track missing. This is not caused by the DAC (a DAC-9) because if I use SRC on the Stream-9 to send a constant sample-rate to the DAC-9 the problem remains. It is also not caused by lms or the DLNA bridge because if I send the same playlist using the same settings to another streamer (the builtin streamer of my Marantz AV Receiver) then there is no problem.

Issue nr 3.
When playing a track from Qobuz at 192kHz there are frequent clicks, pops and dropouts. Again this is not caused by the DAC-9 as this will accept sample-rates up to 384kHz without problems and also not by lms or the DLNA bridge as playing the same track (at the same sample-rate) on the Marantz works perfectly.

My work around for Issue 1 is only enabling gapless playback if necessary (and the display is not my main source of information about the playing track anyway).
Work around for issues 2 and 3 are to set the DLNA bridge to re-sample everything to 88.2kHz.  Since I do not hear any difference between the original track at 192kHz and the same track down-sampled to 88.2kHz this is a perfectly acceptable work around.

I do however feel these issues should get some attention from the developers.

[rustydoglim]

See https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=185079.0
Contact support@nuprimeaudio.com for a firmware update.

[HansSo]

Hello rustydoglim

While I am not conviced the issues in the treath linked by you are the same I am willing to try. Email send to support requesting the firmware update.

[esiu]

I have now owned a Stream-9 for about a month and while I am generally very happy with it I have run into 3 issues.

I use the Stream-9 as a DLNA renderer controlled by LogitechMediaServer (lms) through the DLNA bridge plugin. Initially tracks were from my own library (both MP3 and Apple Lossless) and Spotify.

Issue nr 1.
If playback is set to gapless then the Stream-9 plays tracks perfectly gapless but the information on the display is only correct for the first track in a playlist, it never updates and keeps displaying the information for the first track. Strangly the Omnia App does display the correct information indicating that the Stream-9 does know the correct information (it is sending it to the App) but for some reason doesn't updates it's display. I found some posts on the WiiM forum (WiiM also uses a Linkplay module) from people having the same problem in the same situation. There this was solved with a firmware update (to version 4.6.516229).

Now I have recently added Qobuz as a streaming service besides Spotify and this has resulted in the next 2 issues.

Issue nr 2.
With the addition of Qobuz tracks are no longer all 16bit/44.1kHz with higher rates from Qobuz. When the sample-rate changes sometimes there is a short fraction of the beginning of the track missing. This is not caused by the DAC (a DAC-9) because if I use SRC on the Stream-9 to send a constant sample-rate to the DAC-9 the problem remains. It is also not caused by lms or the DLNA bridge because if I send the same playlist using the same settings to another streamer (the builtin streamer of my Marantz AV Receiver) then there is no problem.

Issue nr 3.
When playing a track from Qobuz at 192kHz there are frequent clicks, pops and dropouts. Again this is not caused by the DAC-9 as this will accept sample-rates up to 384kHz without problems and also not by lms or the DLNA bridge as playing the same track (at the same sample-rate) on the Marantz works perfectly.

My work around for Issue 1 is only enabling gapless playback if necessary (and the display is not my main source of information about the playing track anyway).
Work around for issues 2 and 3 are to set the DLNA bridge to re-sample everything to 88.2kHz.  Since I do not hear any difference between the original track at 192kHz and the same track down-sampled to 88.2kHz this is a perfectly acceptable work around.

I do however feel these issues should get some attention from the developers.

Yes, mine has the same issues #2 & #3! Thanks for the workaround tips for those issues.

[rustydoglim]

Try the manual update instructions on App & Firmware tab on https://nuprimeaudio.com/product/stream-9/

[HansSo]

Hello esiu,

It is always nice to hear that your advice is useful to other people and that you are not the only one with a paticular issue so thanks for your reply.

While I was typing this reply rustydoglim posted information on how to obtain the updated firmware so I will try that and report the results of my testing as soon as possible.

[HansSo]

After a few hours testing here are the results sofar. More testing will be necessary to reach a definitive conclusion.

First let me explain in more detail how I use the Stream-9. While some of the tracks I am listening to are coming from Qobuz my Stream-9 does not "stream from Qobuz" what it is actually doing is playing wav files from a DLNA server. It does not know these "files" don't really exist and are created on the fly from data downloaded from Qobuz by lms, decoded to PCM and then presented as a "file" by the DLNA bridge. One of things I still need to test is what happens if I let the Stream-9 stream directly from Qobuz.

So the first results are :

Issue nr 1.
This is still present but as it was never claimed this was solved this is no surprise.
There is actually a difference in the way gapless playback is functioning in the new release but I will discuss this in another post.

Issue nr 2.
The missing start of tracks after a sample-rate change. This is NOT solved. At least not with my setup. It is however repeatable and I will do more tests by streaming directly from Qobuz to the Stream-9.

Issue nr 3.
Clicks and pops while streaming at 192kHz. This seems to be solved. The only time this seems to happen now is when the first track of a playlist is 192kHz or if the flow of the playlist is interrupted by skipping to a 192kHz track. I am not sure this remaining problem is actually caused by the Stream-9 it might be a lms issue. I will do more test to determine this.

If I have more information I will post it.

[rustydoglim]

playing wav files from a DLNA server. It does not know these "files" don't really exist and are created on the fly from data downloaded from Qobuz by lms, decoded to PCM and then presented as a "file" by the DLNA bridge.

I don't even know how this is done with your setup. Please test with Qobuz directly.

[Cykomiko]

I would like to try the new firmware 4.6.520554 to see if it fixes the issues with Qobuz playlists with different sample rates on my Stream-9.

Currently I do not use Airplay, so the loss of this function is no problem at the moment but that may change in the future. Therefore I would like to know if it is possible to revert back to firmware 4.6.439250.52 if Airplay is needed.

Please advise.

[HansSo]

Hello Cykomiko,

The instructions are on the Stream-9 product page under App & Firmware. Installation is easy and takes just a few minutes. Don't forget to power-cycle after the update utility shows that the firmware is installed correctly.

To rustydoglim the reason I use lms is because compared to lms playlist management on the Omnia App (like on any other App based streamer) is incredibly primitive.

As I said I would I have done tests streaming directly from Qobuz to the Stream-9 however the results are slightly worse compared to using lms.

Issue nr 2 (fix nr 1) is still present, there are still samples being dropped when the sample rate changes. As with lms this is repeatable and I will try to create a playlist that shows this issue and publish it.

Issue nr 3 (fix nr 2) is not completely fixed. I still sometimes get a crackling sound when streaming some 192kHz tracks. Unlike the other issue this is random and if a track exhibits this problem restarting it usually plays it without problem on the the second try. I have sofar encountered this crackling sound only when streaming directly. When using lms I have never encountered this crackling sound.

Test are ongoing.

[HansSo]

OK I have created a public playlist on Qobuz called Stream9-samplerate-test. This playlist contains 4 consequetive tracks from Pink Floyd's life album Pulse. These four tracks were choosen because they are reletively short. The first and third track are from a 24bit/192kHz version of the album while tracks 2 and 4 are 16bit/44.1kHz.

If I stream this playlist directly from Qobuz to the Stream-9 then there are gaps between the tracks. Samething when I use lms to stream this playlist and leave the samplerate as is. However when I re-sample everything to 24bit/192kHz then there NO gaps, the transitions are not all perfect probably because the tracks on both albums are not cut at exactly the same time but there are no gaps.

And Cykomiko I mis-read youre question. I do not have an answer to that.

[zappan]

Issue nr 2.
With the addition of Qobuz tracks are no longer all 16bit/44.1kHz with higher rates from Qobuz. When the sample-rate changes sometimes there is a short fraction of the beginning of the track missing. This is not caused by the DAC (a DAC-9) because if I use SRC on the Stream-9 to send a constant sample-rate to the DAC-9 the problem remains. It is also not caused by lms or the DLNA bridge because if I send the same playlist using the same settings to another streamer (the builtin streamer of my Marantz AV Receiver) then there is no problem.

Hmmm, I experience the same, where my setup is a NuPrime Pi-9 streamer (*) running PiCorePlayer OS with both the LMS server and Squeezelite player/renderer on the same box. And my DAC is also DAC-9. The short fraction of the beginning of the track missing happens when the sample rate of the played music changes from the 44.1/88.2/176.4kHz to 48/96/192kHz and vice versa.

My hunch is that the issue is with the DAC as it needs to change the clock chip from the 44.1kHz multiplier to the 48kHz one, and that is where that sound gap happens.

You claim that it doesn't happen when you send your music from the LMS to your Marantz AV receiver - but in that case, you're not using the Stream-9 nor the DAC-9, correct? If so, then you can't really tell whether it was the Stream-9 or the DAC-9. I'm aiming at the DAC here (if you already 100% excluded the LMS as a cause of trouble).

What is your LMS server hardware-wise? Is there a chance you could run the Squeezelite player on the same box and run the USB connection to your DAC-9 and test what happens without the Stream-9 in the chain but with the DAC-9 in?


(*) the Nuprime's prototype streamer based on the Raspberry Pi that never went into production

[HansSo]

Hello zappan,

I have considered that it could be the DAC-9. I have eliminated that possibility by using SRC on the Stream-9 to send a constant samplerate to the DAC-9, in that situation the problem remains so it is really the Stream-9 causing the problem not the DAC-9. And yes when streaming to the AVR this does not involve the DAC-9 but it does involve all the same software using exactly the same settings.

The hardware for the lms server is a self build PC with a 4.1 GHz Pentium processor and 8 GB ram. It's cpu load is basically 0. I actually have Squeezelite running on that server but when I tried getting the DAC-9 connected to that via USB some time ago (before I had the Stream-9) I could never get that working. This is probably because I am running Freebsd and not Linux.

[HansSo]

Oh dear.

zappan's post made me re-examine the interaction between the Stream-9 and the DAC-9. On tests with the old firmware I thought I had eliminated the DAC-9 as the source of the missing start of some tracks after a samplerate change by using SRC on the Stream-9 to present a constant samplerate to the DAC-9, when that didn't eliminate the problem I concluded that the DAC-9 was not the source of the problem.

I had not used SRC during the tests of the new firmware yet so decided to do some tests using SRC.

The results of these test are awfull.

On the previous firmware the DAC-9 would flash the samplerate (384 or d5.6) just once, at the beginning of the playlist but never between tracks even if those tracks had a different samplerate. On the new firmware the DAC-9 flashes 384 between every track and the transitions now sound a lot worse than with SRC off.

So it seems the new firmware has (partially) broken SRC.

These tests were done using lms, I will repeat them streaming directly from Qobuz as soon as possible.

Practical consequence of this situation is that I can now no longer be certain if any problem with the transition between different samplerate is caused by the Stream-9 or the DAC-9. I have a Cambridge Audio DacMagic 100 and will include that in my testing.

[HansSo]

Unsurprisingly streaming the same playlist directly from Qobuz to the Stream-9 results in exactly the same results as streaming via lms.

For those interrested in testing yourself the playlist is published on Qobuz as : Stream9-samplerate-test2 (I have removed the previous one as it was not showing what I thought it was)

There are artefacts at every transition but because of the broken nature of the SRC I can now no longer determine what influence the DAC-9 has on the result.
SRC also behaves the same as while streaming via lms (flashing 384 at every transition and making the transition sound worse)

Next test will be changing the DAC-9 with the DacMagic 100.

[zappan]

Unsurprisingly streaming the same playlist directly from Qobuz to the Stream-9 results in exactly the same results as streaming via lms.
<cut>
Next test will be changing the DAC-9 with the DacMagic 100.

Can you also stream Qobuz directly to the DAC-9?
(as a Qobuz app playing on your computer, sending audio via USB from a computer to the DAC-9)

That way you'd exclude the Stream-9 from the equation
While with Qobuz => Stream-9 => DacMagic you'd exclude the DAC-9.

[HansSo]

Can you also stream Qobuz directly to the DAC-9?
(as a Qobuz app playing on your computer, sending audio via USB from a computer to the DAC-9)

That way you'd exclude the Stream-9 from the equation
While with Qobuz => Stream-9 => DacMagic you'd exclude the DAC-9.

I had not considered this option. Thanks for suggesting it to me.
I had done some tests using my Bluray player as the streamer and the AVR as dac.

After the test done so far the combined results are

Group 1.
Perfect transitions between tracks of different samplerate

Qobuz ==> LMS ==> AVR
Qobuz ==> LMS(resample) ==> Stream-9 ==> DAC-9

Group 2.
Missing small fragments at transitions between tracks of different samplerate

Qobuz ==> Stream-9 ==> DAC-9
Qobuz ==> LMS ==> Stream-9 ==> DAC-9
Qobuz ==> LMS ==> Bluray ==> AVR
Qobuz ==> PC ==> DAC-9

Group 3.
Missing large fragments at transitions between tracks of different samplerate

Qobuz ==> Stream-9(SRC) ==> DAC-9
Qobuz ==> LMS ==> Stream-9(SRC) ==> DAC-9

There is no obvious difference between combinations within the same group.

It is possible that the Stream-9 doesn't cause the missing fragments but SRC should prevent them completely by presenting a constant samplerate to the DAC-9 but it is now making the problem worse.

In order to test with the DacMagic I am waiting for a cable which should be delivered tomorrow.

[rustydoglim]

I would like to try the new firmware 4.6.520554 to see if it fixes the issues with Qobuz playlists with different sample rates on my Stream-9.

Currently I do not use Airplay, so the loss of this function is no problem at the moment but that may change in the future. Therefore I would like to know if it is possible to revert back to firmware 4.6.439250.52 if Airplay is needed.

Please advise.

It can revert back if you manually update the firmware (we will provide the firmware file).

[rustydoglim]

Group 2.
Missing small fragments at transitions between tracks of different samplerate

Qobuz ==> Stream-9 ==> DAC-9
Qobuz ==> LMS ==> Stream-9 ==> DAC-9
Qobuz ==> LMS ==> Bluray ==> AVR
Qobuz ==> PC ==> DAC-9

So in this group, whether Stream-9 is used or not, the problem of "Missing small fragments at transitions between tracks of different sample rate" is there? 

[HansSo]

So in this group, whether Stream-9 is used or not, the problem of "Missing small fragments at transitions between tracks of different sample rate" is there? 

Yes. So at least part of the problem is caused by the dac. (both the DAC-9 and the dac in the AVR when used by an external device)

But at the moment I am more concerned by group 3. As SRC did not cause this on the old firmware.