BBC 6 MUSIC - Stream problems?

Hi
I have a 2nd Gen MUSO and we spend a lot of time listening to BBC 6 MUSIC. I’ve noticed recently that I’m getting regular drop-outs (no audio) perhaps lasting from a second to 4 or 5 seconds. Frequency of drop-outs is not consistent; from hours to 10’s of minutes between drop-out.

I’ve tried other Internet stations and don’t appear to have a problem. I also regularly use the MUSO to stream music from a local media server and I’ve not had any drop-out issues so I’m inclined to conclude that this is not a local network issue.

Is there an issue with the 6 Music feed?
Cheers.

6 Music playing fine here, though that’s not much help to yourself, sorry. :wink:

Do other BBC stations have dropouts or just 6 Music? Do you use any 3rd party DNS services?

Not done extensive testing of other BBC channels, I can try that.

I was using the standard BT FTTP DNS service up until recently but I have flipped in the last couple of days to using a couple of open DNS servers that demonstrate good performance. I’ve not noticed any difference to the 6 MUSIC issue though.

I still have dropouts from BBC stations (I listen to R3 a lot) despite latest FW upgrade which was meant to fix

So as a test I’ve listened to BBC 1 most of the afternoon and not noticed a single drop-out.

I’ve also been streaming 6 MUSIC via http://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/uk/sbr_high/ak/bbc_6music.m3u8 on my 6 year old PC and it’s perfect.

Does anyone know which streaming service NAIM use or if it’s possible to use the above URL ?

Surely it’s not unreasonable to stream a mainstream UK radio station over FTTP without pauses?

You can add internet radio stations for your streamer at naim.vtuner.com using the MAC address of your Muso and the URL of the station. It will then appear in the Naim app iRadio input. However, this really shouldn’t be necessary for a BBC station, and I’m not sure if the address you mention would work.
It does seem odd that R6 doesn’t work reliably though. Maybe worth asking Naim support to investigate, or @Stevesky might be able to help.
A couple of other things:
Is it only the HD station that’s unreliable, or do you get dropouts on both versions?
If your firmware up to date?

So I’ve done some more testing. It appears it’s somehow related to the network mains extender I’m using. If I revert back to wireless I don’t get the drop-outs.
This is strange though as I have a 4k TV running over the same extender (not at same time) without any problems at all. I’ve also plugged my laptop into the extended port I used for the MUSO, streamed 6 MUSIC on the laptop and then used Bluetooth to the MUSO, no drop-outs. I ran a ping test continuously for a number of hours and all results were below 10ms except for around 10 which were below 20ms. If I run an Internet speed test I max out my 50mb speed from BT.

I guess I’ll have to put it down to another MUSO networking quirk.

That’s similar to the problems I had when I first got my ND5XS2. I was plagued with problems with drop outs and the Naim app not finding the streamer. The streamer was connected by wifi but I did have powerline adapters serving other devices on my network. I got rid of the powerline adapters and replaced them with a BT Whole Home wifi mesh system and since then the streamer has been rock solid.

Hi all,

The problem with ethernet over mains adapters is that noise on the mains can knock them out comms wise for short period of times. When streaming audio (or video) that is heavily buffered then this is not a problem as the audio plays from local buffers while the network sorts itself out. However, on a live stream like radio there isn’t the audio in the buffers (as it hasn’t been broadcast yet) and this causes drop outs. The BBC HLS streams are quite tight on buffering as well (about 5 secs) so are more prone to expose it.

We have also found that some of the adapters are buggy and don’t handle multicast discovery traffic properly (we use UPnP SSDP and Apple Bonjour). They eat the comms randomly meaning it messes up product discovery and causes havoc.

Overall, if networking is messing around and there are ethernet over mains adapters in the mix, that is the first thing to look at. They might work in some installs, but typically they are a networking nightmare and cause havoc on anything that has to do anything beyond some casual internet browsing.

For those interested in diagnosing intermittent stuff like this, my first trick is to plug a laptop into the link and continuously ping the router. In windows on cmd use command:
ping -t 192.168.0.1 (where in my case 192.168.0.1) is the house main wifi router. The -t means it pings forever, until ctrl+c is pressed. Now and then it will loose pings while the adapters resync on the mains due to interference.

Best regards

Steve Harris
Software Director
Naim Audio Ltd.

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Many thanks for jumping in here Steve, appreciate the input.

Whilst I’m not at all surprised to hear that mains adapters can cause problems I’m not so convinced that it’s quite as simple as that in my case. I had previously conducted the test you outlined (using my laptop in place of the MUSO also streaming from BBC) and in nearly 7000 pings I had no errors at all and a consistent fast response. I pop the MUSO back on and it immediately struggles.

On the plus side, the wireless is actually fine so I’ll still with that.

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