[Najki]

Hello,

I would like to wirelessly stream music from my Macbook to my amplifier instead of laptop speakers for quality and comfort reasons. My current workflow for this is like:
- Macbook Pro (OSX 10.10.5) sends the sound via airplay (through 100 Mbit wifi running on a TP-Link WR1043ND)
- Airplay is running on Kodi 14.2 installed on Raspberry Pi B with OpenELEC 5.0.8 (wired 1 Gbit ethernet connection)
- Kodi passes the sound through to my Sony TV by HDMI
- TV is connected to my amplifier (old school Rotel RA-985) by RCA (chinch)

The problem is that the sound freezes for 0,5-1 seconds now and then. And I'm not talking about the 3 second lag, but times when You listen to Your favourite music when suddenly it stops for 0,5-1 sec and then it starts playing again. I like the get the most of the sound quality which my stereo set gives me and these freezes stop me from enjoying the sound and keep me going back to my CD player and juggling with CDs.

I know, sound takes a quite long journey from my laptop to the amplifier, but I always make sure not to overuse ethernet or internet while streaming through airplay and still it doesn't help. But when I do use internet while streaming (browsing websites or watching youtube) then the problem occurs more often, like every 10-30 seconds there are up to 4 following 0,5-1 sec breaks.

I've been searching this forum and the whole internet for a solution but couldn't find one or anyone reporting a similar issue. It's not like this problem started to occur lately. It's been here since first trying to stream audio like this (2+ years), but only now I decided to ask You guys for help.

What do You think is the cause of my issue and do You have an idea how to make sure of it and improve it? Is it my wifi router, Kodi or OS X settings or the workflow itself is too complicated?

[popcornmix]

Might be worth trying buffermode=1 from HOW-TO:Modify_the_video_cache (wiki)
(despite the section being about video cache it is also generally used by audio, although I'm not certain about airplay).

[Najki]

Thanks for Your reply.

I've tried as You suggested. First settings buffermode=1, then buffermode=1, cachemembuffer=31457280 and lastly with buffermode=1, cachemembuffer=52428800, readbufferfactor=1. I've restarted RPi each time just to make sure it reads the current file version. Unfortunately, none of these settings did help

[Memphiz]

Are you running the original firmware on the TP-Link WR1043ND? Its most likely the router causing this ... i have 2 TP-Link WR1043ND linked via wifi bridging and have not issue to stream audio from my hackbook (wifi -> tp-link->100mbit ethernet->amp)

I am running openwrt on my tp-link routers though ...

[Najki]

Yes, I'm running the stock firmware. I've updated it to the latest version some time ago, but it didn't help. And the latest version is stil from 2014.

So You're saying that openwrt performs better? I was thinking about trying it out some time ago.

[Memphiz]

No i am just saying that its no general issue and might(!) depend on used network components ...

[Najki]

Maybe I will try that too, but this will need more time. BTW fun fact: USA announced that they will force router manufacturers to prevent users form changing firmware to unofficial versions like OpenWRT. Seems like NSA wants even more control

Any other ideas maybe?

[speedwell68]

Thanks for Your reply.

I've tried as You suggested. First settings buffermode=1, then buffermode=1, cachemembuffer=31457280 and lastly with buffermode=1, cachemembuffer=52428800, readbufferfactor=1. I've restarted RPi each time just to make sure it reads the current file version. Unfortunately, none of these settings did help

What powersupply are you using? I was running my Pi 2 with a 2.1amp Samsung PSU and would experience odd behaviour when using Airplay it would freeze for a second and flash up the little coloured power warning square. But only with Airplay content. I got a 3 amp PSU and the problem stopped.