Yes I’ve tried them and they are very unreliable
… strange, all my BBC’s are HLS, it must be a function of the Android app or the ND5x2 software. Outside that I have no idea, but I know an iRadio man who does @Stevesky
Hi @Mike-B
It’s an AAC stream encapsulated in a HLS container.
Primarily HLS chops the stream up into chunks and optionally different bitrates and acts a directory of where all those chunks are stored. The players job is to read that directory and glue all the bits together as it plays.
In the case of the BBC on live streams they buffer around 5 secs of audio, so a network connection that is fringe or suffering from high interference / shared with many other devices or users can drop out. Its no different to why video conferencing the audio gurgles / drop out, or video freezes for n’th seconds, while casual browsing the net on non realtime streams is fine.
Best regards
Steve
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I’ve got the url for the HLS stream from here https://garfnet.org.uk/cms/tables/radio-frequencies/internet-radio-player/ and added it as a station at http://myradio.naimaudio.com
It shows up in the app as AAC and just doesn’t work in any way that could be considered reliable
Latest test is to use the HLS stream url on my phone and it is streaming flawlessly using wifi in the same room as the ND5XS2 so why on earth is the ND5XS2 struggling with the stream?
Can you rig a temporary ethernet or move the ND5 to an ethernet connection & try that. If it works on ethernet then it’s a wireless problem & either a fault in the ND5 or something with your WLAN.
I’ve tried it with an ethernet cable connected to a powerline adapter. The internal webpage of the ND5XS2 reports that ethernet is connected but the BBC AAC streams still drop out consistently. Streaming mp3 internet radio streams and FLAC files from the NAS or Tidal are solid with the ethernet cable connected,
Well 16 Mbps ADSL is outstandingly good so should have no issues with that.
I would look at your internal wifi as per my suggestion, and ensure you are not using anything like powerline adapters that are not proper Ethernet and can confuse the streamer.
It might be there is some sort of interoperability issue between your wifi access point and the streamer, try a different access point and see if all starts working.
I think I may have figured it out. I use a Smart DNS Proxy service to access US TV services so it doesn’t always look like my IP address is a UK one. I’ve set the router to use google DNS servers and I’ve had a HD BBC stream running for about 15 minutes now with not a stutter, it hasn’t done that before. I’ll need to raise a ticket with the DNS provider but at least it looks like I’ve got to the bottom of it.
Still doesn’t explain why the streams worked on my phone though.
I think you are saying you are running a VPN tunnel through to a proxy server… yes that will most likely not be a performant connection… unless you are using highly performant proxy server service, and so could highly probably account for poor performance.
As always, keep it simple… 
I’m not sure exactly how the Smart DNS Proxy service works but it doesn’t have any adverse effects on my line performance. Maybe if I had a 150Mb fibre connection rather than 16Mb ADSL that might not be true but with what I have I see no adverse performance effects.
Without measuring the specifics, you will likely find the throughput to the proxy server and back has become a little elastic and bursty… not good for internet radio here in the UK where the proxy and end of the tunnel is in the US.
Anyway it sounds like you have a solution… switch off the VPN, unless you can configure the VPN to bypass the radio streams…
I’m sure that the problem is the geo restrictions on the HLS servicea. Streaming 320kbps MP3 radio streams is absolutely fine with Smart DNS enabled as long as they are not geo restricted. The DNS service does not encrypt data or mask the real IP address the way a VPN does. A brief and simple explanation of the differences here
But if it was geo restricted IP addresses the media transfer wouldn’t work at all, as I understand the sound becomes intermittent with dropouts, so clearly it’s something else.
A VPN does not need to be encrypted, it can simply be a regular tunnel. Whether it’s encrypted or not is largely moot to the case in hand.
So called ‘smart DNS’ is simply a consumer term for split tunnel routing based on destination address and a set of local proxy address rules, which is very common in commercial setups.
The point that is relevant, is that the OP will be likely using a tunnel from the UK to the US for the path then be routed back to the UK. Almost certainly TCP will be being used and so the transfers inevitably will become elastic, and on near real time streams like web radio likely to cause dropouts.
Now if the OP can configure their VPN client to avoid the URLs used fir local UK web radio then the problem should be solved, but that will require quite a bit of config assuming the client can be configured like that.
Therefore the easiest thing is to disable the vpn setup, at least when using web radio.
The only configuration I can do is choosing which DNS servers to use in my router setup. There’s no additional client software involved, not at my end anyway. I’ve raised a ticket with the DNS provider, they are aware of the problem and working on it and in the meantime I have two workarounds so all is good.
I’m happy to report that it looks like the DNS provider has sorted the issue with the UK only HD BBC radio streams, I’ve had it on for a good while this morning and not a stutter 
Well I’ve listened to internet radio (especially BBC R2, R3 and R4) for the past two years through my ND5XS absolutely no problem through its wireless connection and similarly for the past few days using a Superuniti (bedroom set up) again wirelessly.
No drop-outs just solid performance.
I will touch on the wireless system I use (again) which is a Google mesh which I brought just before getting the ND5XS on the recommendation of one of my Tech Geek friends. He just said…‘mate it works a different way to most normal WiFi systems and it’s brilliant’.
Knowing Craig my pal well enough to know he doesn’t buy rubbish (he has an amazing home automation system in his house) I purchased a ‘Three pod’ system for £299. I get through the wall typically around 50mbps (varies up or down from that by 5-6mbps) and checking the mesh using the Google control app on my pixel phone it’s normally the same as what comes through the wall. The speed checks I have done all over the house and there appears to be no difference between rooms. So one pod at the front of the house one at the back and one on the landing (259 sq metre house) seems to give a perfect mesh.
So I kind of suspect that all these issues reported on here about dodgy streaming over WiFi is more to do with the quality of the WiFi network in your house and the equipment used to support it. Just using the WiFi off your router probably isn’t good enough if there’s walls, doors and floors (especially contrete ones with steel reinforcement bars as our house has) and this gives rise to the Anti-wifi rhetoric on many forums.
I’d suggest before trailing an ugly ethernet cable across your house maybe up-grade your WiFi??
Just also to add…we built our house fully networked with two Cat5e cables to more or less every room (excluded the bathrooms) but since adopting Google WiFi have had absolutely no need to use it (even the smart TV runs off it rather than using the ethernet port in the wall behind it).
I hope this doesn’t sound like a promotional advert for Google WiFi but if you are having issues maybe a two pod kit £199 might solve it!?
Cheers. Gaz
I’ve invested in 3 disc BT While Home Wi-Fi mesh system and the network connection to the ND5XS2 is solid. My DNS provider still hasn’t 100% fixed the problem with the BBC AAC streams for the UK but that isn’t the fault of the streamer or the Wi-Fi system.
Continuing problems with BBC AAC streams with my DNS provider have been solved by giving the ND5XS2 a static IP address and telling it to use Google DNS servers. Last time I tried giving the streamer a static IP address the Naim app complained but it seems happy enough this time now I have a nice, clean network. So far, so good with the AAC streams
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