Squeezebox dropouts - another question

Hi Matt,

Good points by the others, especially about the possibility that other wireless devices may be competing for bandwidth. If you haven't already, try turning off all other devices in the house that may be wirelessly communicating with the router, or else putting them on the 5 GHz band if possible. For that matter, try turning off all wireless devices in the house that may utilize the 2.4 GHz band, regardless of what they may be communicating with.

Also, try changing the wireless channel that is being used, within the 2.4 GHz band. The manual for the router should explain how to do that.

Also, try disabling encryption if it is presently enabled.

Regarding wireless-G compatibility with 96 kHz/24 bit/2 channel music data, if that is what you are trying to play, the corresponding rate for the music data itself is 4.608 megabits per second. Error detection and correction information, packet headers, control words, encryption, and packet retries when and if needed, all consume bandwidth in addition to that. An optimally functioning wireless-G link, IME, will typically provide rates in the 12 to 20 mbps area, which should be adequate. But there isn't a great deal of margin to accommodate bandwidth competition, RF interference, or less than optimal performance by any of the hardware that is involved.

A point of information regarding one of the earlier comments: If a wireless-G device, such as the Squeezebox, is connected to a wireless-N router, the speed with which the router communicates with other wireless-N devices will not slow down to wireless-G rates. It will communicate with other N devices at N rates, while communicating with G devices at G rates. Although of course the G device will tie up the network for a greater amount of time than it would if a given amount of data were communicated at N rates. N is different in that respect than wireless-G, where the presence of a slower wireless-B device will cause all communications on the network to slow to B speeds.

Regards,
-- Al

Al,

Thanks for providing the bandwidth details for Wireless G relative to high res audio format. I did those estimates awhile back and reached a similar conclusion, though the numbers had long since gone in one side and out the other of my head.

SO there is hope perhaps, but things must be running fairly optimum end to end, not a lot of margin for error or inefficiency.

Making sure the SB is configured to use lossless compressed FLAC format for transmission should only help further. I think that is the default for example for CD resolution .wav files that I use regularly, but not sure if that is the case for high res file formats having not tried. All should be configurable as needed using SB system administrative/configuration tools provided.

2 things I found interfered with wireless is my old home cordless phones and when microwave oven running.

I bought a DECT 6.0 cordless phone system and problem solved.

You can also hang a wireless N bridge off the back of the Squeezebox.

Thanks for all your responses. I am not sure if the SBT is G or N. How do I tell ?? Lots to ponder here. I guess this brings up another axiom of the digital age we live in: "Your need / appetite for bandwidth will always exceed the available bandwidth ". I am away for a bit, so it may be a while before I update the condition of my network, but I will keep you posted. Once again, A'gon is great. It's terrific having a way to chat with fellow audiophiles all over the world.