Denon Network Player problems

MrHyde

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Nov 30, 2013
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Hi folks!

First post here, and really hoping that you can help me.....

I've fairly recently bought a Denon hifi system, centering around the DNP-F109 Network Audio player..
So. Set it all up and initially had problems getting the unit to "speak" to the network due to firewall issues, but got this sorted without too much difficulty. Now the whole system comprises of the above mentioned Network Audio player, a CD player and an amp/receiver. CD is fine, amp is fine, FM reception is fine, DAB radio is fine, Internet radio is fine. Oh, and also now added a Western Digital 3TB NAS drive, on which all the music is stored

The problem is when streaming from music stored on my laptop. There's two choices here:-
[*]1) Connect directly to music on the HDD and choose tracks via the smallish display on the Denon (squinting across the room is not good!)[*]2) Go into iTunes and, using Airplay, choose all the songs etc from the iTunes interface, then stream to the hifi
For the former, there's no problem. OK, the display is a bit tiny to see from the other side of the room, and navigation is clatty, but the sound is good, and there's no stuttering, buffering, stopping etc

So, my issue is when using iTunes and Airplay. Basically it is stuttering, buffering, stopping all the time and ruining the experience. Thought originally that it could be down to the wireless connection. The router is in the hallway, about 30 feet from the laptop and hifi, which are in the living room. Signal strength is showing an average of 82% here. So, have just tried moving the router (via a phone extension cable) temporarily into the living room and hardwiring via LAN into the Denon - this gave 100% signal. Still got the issues though. Last thing I have tried is a LAN from the laptop to the router as well, meaning full wired connections. With this setup (which is not practical and also defeats the streaming ideal) the music flows perfectly. However, unplug the LAN from the laptop and music instantly stops. Not surprising, but weirdly, switch the wifi off on the laptop whilst leaving the physical connections and it also stops!

It would seem from all this that the wireless setup is OK, as when not using Airplay the music is fine. But with iTunes and Airplay then the issues start. I don't think there's any buffering problems with iTunes itself, as played via the laptop speakers it's fine. So it's almost as if iTunes is spitting out it's dummy unelss there is 100% perfect connection 100% of the time....?Initially the NAS drive was not part of the system, but last week I added this in the hope of improving things, popping in the WD drive and a semi-wired connection from hi-fi to this unit (by which I mean LAN connection through the house wiring using a pair of BT Vision Powerline Adapters)

Basically the set-up now is that the iTunes server software is installed on the WD NAS drive, alongside all of the MP3 music. The NAS is physically plugged into the router (EE Brightbox) which in turn is physically plugged into one of the BT adaptors, which then makes an effective hard-wired connection to it's pair, and finally this is physically connected to the Denon Network Player. So ultimately, the Denon is physically connected to the NAS drive which the music is being played from, and the whole thing is controlled from my laptop, which is wirelessly linked into the circuit

So, having set this all up, I sat back smugly anticipating that I would get seamless, stutter free playback. As my previous attempts had suffered connection break-ups every 30 seconds or so, I was feeling confident when it went over a minute - but then playback had a small glitch. Now any glitch is a glitch too many, but I was even more cheesed off when, at the two minute point, playback hung completely....So, now I am an unhappy bunny once more!

I can find precious little about these sort of issues online, so was hoping that an expert out there might read this and give me some advice!!
 

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