Good summary Jeff and it's worth noting that by hard wiring the PC you have also halved the amount of traffic on your wifi network so this may have helped with the dropouts.

Good point, it can't hurt, although when I was streaming from the iPad on Spotify it was all wireless, and most of my iTunes music is 256kbs while Spotify is on max quality at 360kbs. 

I wonder if I'm getting dropouts that are ordinarily below the buffering threshold of the PM but if you add dropouts from the PC they get long enough to exceed the recovery limits. 

Aint wireless networking wonderful? 

When using static ip-addresses, here's a usefull hint: give the device you're assigning an ip-address outside the dynamic range of the modem/router.

So when your router or modem has a dynamic range from e.g. 192.168.1.100 - 255, then give the device an address below 192.168.1.100.

I've had the experience with a Huawei router which gave an ip-address which already was used by another (active working) pc in the network.

Shitty firmware in the router, but took some time to find out.

So, the idea is to assign/use a static ip-address below the dhcp range of the modem/router.

I've had IP address conflicts in the past using other routers even using DHCP and no static IPs assigned. I have a Netgear WNDR4500 dual band router now, and am very happy with it. I had been trying to get by with cheaper routers in the past, there's no comparison in performance. This is one area where the money spent seems to be worth it.

The Netgear has a reserved IP table, you enter the name, IP address, and MAC address of the device and it reserves that IP for any static IP devices you have. So far the only one I have with a static IP is the PM, but I may try assigning a static IP to the laptop and see what happens.

On the 5 GHz band I get about 29-30 MBS download, which is not bad as I am only paying for 30 MBS from the cable company. Back in Florida where I used to live I was not on a fiber trunk unfortunately, as my coworker was and he was getting 1 GBS service.

Jeff wrote:

I've had IP address conflicts in the past using other routers even using DHCP and no static IPs assigned.

This is often due to bad clients using an old DHCP lease even after the original lease time has expired. A device crashes (or sometimes even is shut down properly), and doesn't announce to the DHCP server that it is going away. Perhaps the network was down at that time. Then, the server assigns the same IP to another device, and the former one reappears and starts shouting around with its old IP address -> conflict.

Some server implementations are more eager to recycle released or expired IP addresses at the start of the range, while some keep them reserved for a particular MAC address that formerly held it, for as long as there are new unused slots in the range.

Anyway, it is crucial to pick the static IP addresses from outside the local DHCP address range, as already stated.

If you look at the drawings of every NL-product, you can see that in all scenario’s, B&O uses a 2nd router. A network link router, on top of the ISP router. This is an approved router that B&O recommends for a trouble free subnetwork. 

I think lots of problems that were reported here could be prevented if that advice was taken more serious, including Jeff’s experience. (no pun intended!!)

Beobuddy wrote:

When using static ip-addresses, here's a usefull hint: give the device you're assigning an ip-address outside the dynamic range of the modem/router.

So when your router or modem has a dynamic range from e.g. 192.168.1.100 - 255, then give the device an address below 192.168.1.100.

I've had the experience with a Huawei router which gave an ip-address which already was used by another (active working) pc in the network.

Shitty firmware in the router, but took some time to find out.

So, the idea is to assign/use a static ip-address below the dhcp range of the modem/router.

Good hint, but I would leave all devices in default, and let the router assign static ip addresses outside the DHCP range, based on the unique MAC-address of the devices. Different approach, but with the same result. Your PlayMaker for example would also work out of the box in a different (W)LAN network, or when your NAS comes back from repair. It also gives you a better summary which IP, every device has in case of troubleshooting.

Sounds difficult if you never done this, but actually fairly easy with the routers B&O recommends. 

Nope, totally clear.

It's the other way around. Instead of assigning through the device, reserving an ip-address at the ip-table inside the router, recognized by it's MAC address.

BTW, if have 2 routers. More features/security then the standard router from the ISP.

Jeff wrote:

Good point, it can't hurt, although when I was streaming from the iPad on Spotify it was all wireless, and most of my iTunes music is 256kbs while Spotify is on max quality at 360kbs. 

Hi Jeff I think airplay transcodes the audio into Apple Lossless format before sending so the actual data rate over your network is much higher than the source music may be. In any case, yes wifi can be temperamental so the more things you can attach to wired ethernet the better. I'm an IT manager by trade and the number one question I get about people's home networks is about why their wifi is unreliable or slow. I've seen all kinds of crazy problems such as - it will work on the 3rd floor of someone's house unless someone starts using an iPad on the 1st floor and then the wifi becomes unusable on the 3rd floor.

I've also helped many friends set up airplay for parties so they can have the same music playing in 2 or 3 parts of their houses and I've yet to see it actually go the whole night without dropping out or failing when using wifi - especially with a house full of people absorbing the wifi signal. The bose soundlink units are particularly troublesome.

By the way if anyone has a big house that needs a bunch of wifi access points, the Ubiquity networks unifi product is great - it does require a computer to be left on for full functionality in controlling all the access points though  http://www.ubnt.com/unifi

Interesting, why would they do that? Transcode it to lossless? So that things like the Airport don't have to decode anything but one codec?

In my last job we worked with a guy who was with the Navy simulation division, he developed audio servers for training areas, such as houses for the law enforcement and emergency services training, etc. The idea was that there were projected people to interact with, and also audio distributed in various rooms to act as training cues. You would have the trainees searching the house, and hear either a cell phone ring, or the sound of someone in a room if you were searching for people ala fire and rescue, whatever, to direct the trainees to go into a room. He built these IP addressable boxes that contained a small amp, and an MP3 decoder and sent audio via IP address over one common network. He used the MP3 to limit the amount of data each room took to send audio, he sent it over the network compressed to lower load. Worked very well, I wonder why anyone would send it in a bulkier format?

I've had discussions with a friend about wireless previously, he's an IT manager for a college. The horror stories he tells of various wireless problems, many stemming from "standards" that are taken more as "suggestions" by various vendors, are legion. And for a college he has to deal with about every combination of device you can imagine, myriad PC vendors, tablets, Apple products, etc.