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Intermittent audio dropouts when streaming Qobuz Hi Res files on Lumin streamer

Hey all,

Has anyone experienced intermittent audio dropouts when streaming Qobuz Hi Res files (especially 192/24 & 96/24) on Lumin U1 Mini streamer using Lumin app?

I have assembled a system in my living room about 2 yrs ago and have been subscribed to both Qobuz and Tidal Hifi Plus. I stream both Qobuz and Tidal on my Lumin U1 Mini streamer using Lumin app. Everything has gone smoothly and flawlessly until about less than 2 months ago. Lately I have been experiencing intermittent audio dropouts only when streaming Qobuz Hi Res materials (particularly 192/24 & 96/24) but Qobuz CD quality files (44.1/16) are fine. But recently the audio dropouts has become much more frequent and more intense. Again the issue pertains only to Qobuz Hi Res materials (192/24 & 96/24), not the CD quality (44.1/16).

My Lumin streamer is hard wired using a good quality TWL (Triode Wire Labs) CAT6 ethernet cable. I have a fast internet connection and live alone so I don’t share internet with anyone in the house. I also have UpTone Audio EtherREGEN audiophile quality ethernet switch between my router and the Lumin streamer. The issue has only been occurring in the last two months, and it was fine before. So it’s quite recent. I logged out of Qobuz and disabled Qobuz app of the Lumin app and enabled it back up again and logged back in but the issue still persists. I rebooted the Lumin streamer and restarted it up again and didn’t make a difference either.
I have the latest firmware. Again the audio dropouts is intermittent and doesn’t always happen all the time but recently it’s becoming more intense and more frequent. Frankly it’s annoying.

I’m also subscribed to Tidal Hifi Plus and have been streaming Tidal Hi Res FLAC files (Tidal MAX) up to 192/24 on the same Lumin U1 Mini streamer using same Lumin app. Fyi, Last year (2023) Tidal has launched Tidal MAX for those Hifi Plus subscribers which allows us to stream Hi Res FLAC materials up to 192/24. But I have never experienced intermittent audio dropouts when streaming Tidal Hi Res materials up to 192/24 (Tidal MAX). So, it’s pretty obvious that the issue is with Qobuz, not my Lumin streamer or the Lumin app.

Has anyone experienced the same issue when streaming Qobuz Hi Res materials on their Lumin streamers using Lumin app or on any streamers using any apps?

I have contacted both Lumin and Qobuz but Qobuz’s customer support isn’t great. They were slow in responding to your complaints and issues. Lumin customer support isn’t the best either. They are suspecting whether the issue is regional in my area or universal across the globe. I live in Seattle, WA. They asked me to experiment with something and use my cellular phone as hotspot to my home internet/wifi network but I have no clue how to do that.

This living room setup is the only setup in the house where I stream Tidal and Qobuz and this isn’t my main primary system. I have two other dedicated main listening rooms in the house (primary main systems) but I don’t stream Tidal or Qobuz in these main systems in my dedicated listening rooms.

Any help, advise, thoughts and opinions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

caphill
caphill OP
665 posts
 

@erik_squires

I highly doubt it’s my internet connection because I also stream Tidal MAX (Tidal Hi Res FLAC) up to 192/24 and is flawless and not a single audio dropout at all. Tidal MAX (Tidal Hi Res FLAC) streams at exact same resolutions (same bit depths same sampling rates) as Qobuz Hi Res FLAC so I assume both use same amount of bandwidths when streaming their Hi Res FLAC files. But I never experienced a single audio dropout when streaming Tidal Hi Res FLAC (Tidal MAX) up to 192/24.

My Lumin U1 Mini streamer is hardwired using a good quality CAT6 ethernet cable. I use TWL (Triode Wire Labs) Freedom CAT6 ethernet cable (1.25 meter run) between the Lumin streamer and the UpTone Audio EtherREGEN ethernet switch. And I use a 1.75 meter run of Audioquest Cinnamon CAT7 ethernet cable between the EtherREGEN and my router/modem. They are all short runs.

My Lumin streamer does not have built-in WiFi, so using my cell phone as an internet WiFi hotspot won’t work. My Lumin streamer can only be hardwired using an ethernet cable.

But I have contacted Lumin regarding the issue with streaming Qobuz Hi Res FLAC and I explained to them the issue does not apply to Tidal MAX (Tidal Hi Res FLAC). It pertains strictly to Qobuz Hi Res FLAC streams. And they said that it is not about my internet connection or speed. This is about how fast my ISP can download from Qobuz CDN. It’s not about the "fast internet" bandwidth between the ISP and me. That’s what Lumin technical support told me.

Here’s also a reply from Peter at Lumin technical support team :

Hi,

This means your ISP downloads from Qobuz CDN for your region much slower than Tidal CDN.

If your router supports VPN, use it to connect to a different country with a VPN free trial. In some cases it works better because you’re forcing a different CDN server to be used. If this works better it proves my theory.

If your router can run as a WiFi client, you can try using that with your cellular phone as WiFi hotspot. This is an experiment only as it consumes a lot of data. Again If this works better it proves my theory.

 

Best regards,

Peter

 

But I don’t know how to do all those that Peter at Lumin advised me to do (see above reference). I’m not very technical at all when it comes to this kind of thing. Lol….

 

I’m keeping my Qobuz subscription cause it has larger Hi Res library collections than Tidal MAX (Tidal Hi Res FLAC) library collections. Otherwise I would have just stayed with Tidal cause it’s more reliable and stable.

fuzztone's avatar
fuzztone
5,502 posts
 

Try a double blind to see if you notice a difference between HiRez and Redbook. Few can pass this test reliably.

This might be much ado about ...

yyzsantabarbara
4,519 posts
 

@caphill Peter at Lumin has given some good advice. One thing I would have asked him is how much buffering does their Lumin app do. Is there a setting to increase the buffering size. If the CDN you are connected to is slow then having a larger buffer on the Lumin app will help.

I have seen Qobuz have some streaming failures in the past. More so than Tidal. Though in those cases I am pretty sure it was at the Qobuz side and not my gear. These were more than intermittent drops. In the last 6 months Qobuz has been faultless on my setup.

I sometimes wonder why I keep Qobuz when Tidal is functionally better and for me the sonic differences are not anything I even bother testing. Other than messing up my ROON database of songs I could easily drop Qobuz.

Try the song I mentioned in my first post with both Tidal and Qobuz at hi-res rates. At the 39 second mark the data demands are high.

tmccarthy's avatar
tmccarthy
31 posts
 

I'm sure this is completely unhelpful, but I haven't had any dropout issues with my U1 mini. I live in Boise, ID, so I'm in the general region but not close enough to Seattle for my experience to apply to you, unfortunately. Just guessing wildly, have you tried taking the EtherRegen out of the chain, just to test whether it might be malfunctioning? (But if so, why are the problems on Qobuz only?....)

bilyeauxbrew's avatar
bilyeauxbrew
26 posts
 

I’ve recently experienced similar with Hi res Qobuz. Its as if the incoming stream cant keep up and it will cut out momentarily then continue. Bluesound node 2.1 with upgrades. Very intermittent. Texas

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