Thoughts on Mac software with 'Qute

quote:

unfortunately you may find that the construction of the property may hinder decent wireless coverage in itself - one of the downsides of WiFi unfortunately

Phil,

I do not disagree and it is a problem. Fortunately my house was built before they started to use wire mesh lathe, but nevertheless, plaster and wifi is a problem.

Thanks for the suggestion wrt Pakedge. I will lokk into that.

-Larry

quote:

Posted Thu 23 December 2010 11:51 Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by badlyread:
Larry the Airport Extreme is very good and would do better than lots of Expresses on my opinion.

Neil


Hi Neil,

The Airport Extreme is definitely better than the Express but also still definitely "consumer grade"...

Take a look at a company called "Pakedge" - their WAP-W3 is *EXCELLENT* and they also do a proper flush-ceiling-mountable version that has the correct dispersion pattern on the antennae. Not cheap but if they fix the problem then...?

Phil

Terrific company. We use them and their products are rock solid and truly high performance. If you want a good network you have to pay a bit.

Just a note on WIFI that I have come to know as a true in my situation. When it rains and humidity levels rise WIFI in my house becomes less reliable. Anyone else notice this?

I can only think to blame it on the old walls soaking up humidity and becoming a greater barrier to the signal.

Adam

The microwave and range cooker seem to nobble the wifi for me

Tog

quote:

Originally posted by Tog:
The microwave and range cooker seem to nobble the wifi for me

Tog

Try to setup your WiFi using the 5 GHz band instead of the 2.4 GHz band. Bridges and routers are available for this 5 GHz band, which is not troubled by microwaves and DECT phones and neigbours WiFi, etc.

Products with inbuilt WiFi usually use 2.4 GHz band, e.g. iPod.

I use a combination of 5 GHz band for network connection between mediaplayer (connected by bridge to router) and NAS, and 2.4 GHz for connecting my iPod as remote control.

No problems whatsoever.

-
aleg

I live in an average sized house in the UK which lets face it is not very big so I get very good coverage throughout the house.

One issue still presents though.

On mac OSX there is an issue in some circumstances on how it deals with packets of data, frankly I cannot explain exactly but something to do with 4 bits of data on the end of the packet.
Its only an OSX thing and for some of use can really balls things up.

You need to open terminal and stick this in:

sudo sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=0
net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack: 3 -> 0

This sorts some serious issues out, i.e. transfer of 1 gig of data from 20 mins down to 30 seconds.

Probably not an issue for most, but if you are attempting to stream from your mac book wirelessly this could be an issue.

OK been listening to what Phil was talking about regarding reducing the range of one's network to reduce interference from other networks and been experimenting.....

The setup: Dual band Apple Extreme with the following clients (at various times):

Apple iMac
Mini Mac (music server)
MacBook (alu)
PowerBook
2 Squeezebox Booms
Squeezebox Radio
2 iPhones
UnitiQute

I have experienced some dropout in the past which is really annoying when listening to music but even more so if listening to an already broadcast play as it starts from the beginning again!!

Using Airport Utility I have set the Radio Mode to 802.11a/n - 802.11b/g and manually set the 2.4GHz and 5GHz Radio Channels (rather than having them on Automatic) which gives a Qute signal of -66 to -70dBm, noise -86 and rate of 24 Kb/s (I presume) which can drop to 12! This is the best I can get wirelessly.

An Apple Airport Express arrived this morning and I have wired the Qute to it and it has joined my network (Bridge) and I have kept the Extreme setting the same. Now getting Qute signal of -62dBm, noise -85 and 54Kb/s and the reading are rock solid. Switching back to Automatic on the Radio Mode increases the Rate to 115 to 130Kb/s!

The source for this test was Radio Paradise on the iRadio (128Kb/s AAC 44.1KHz). Have yet to try streaming. Will report back if I have time.

Think the Express will be staying despite my reluctance to add another 'box' (even a small one!).

Hope this might be useful and have a play around yourselves.

Merry Christmas

Neil

I use 2 dual band Airport Extremes using n and both wavelengths. The dropout rate has been largely cured by rebooting the second Extreme about once a month and by manually changing the radio channels - which made a big difference to the Uniti.

Tog

quote:

Originally posted by LD Haber:

WRT ripping. I sort of like XLD but then do a redundant FLAC to FLAC rip with Max to get the music into nice neat iTunes-like directories. I am having difficulties getting metadata loaded in my first generation Max rips. Basically because I haven't spent the time understanding the software. But I have nearly 2k CDs to rips and I think/know Naim has a nice solution there.

-Larry

Hi Larry,
You don't need to move your XLD rips to MAX to set your iTunes like directories as XLD can do this for you. Go to Preferences/General and specify the format of the filename. I set mine up as follows: "%A/%T/%n-%t" This means that a folder will be created for the album artist (%A), in this folder will be another folder with the album's title (%T) and the FLACs will be named with the track number first (%n) followed by the track name itself (%t). This is similar to the way iTunes organises its folder structure.

XLD allows you to specify your folder structure pretty much as you want. Hold the mouse cursor over the input field and a little disclosure box will pop-up showing you the full range of choices available to you. This screenshot should explain what I mean:


Hope this helps. Good luck with the 2k rips!

Matthew

Matt,

Extreme thanks. I didn't realize there was that pop up there and am most grateful for the help.

-Larry