H390 streaming - question

Z

ZeeW

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Hi,

After looking at so many options to stream Tidal I think I'm coming to the conclusion that the H390 maybe my perfect solution. However, I'm still unclear about how best to stream to it.

As I understand the H390 prefers to be hardwired to a network via ethernet. Here lies a problem for me. My listening room is three floors away from my router. I do, however, have the Netgear Nighthawk wifi 6 mesh with two satellite extenders. I could place one of the extenders that have an ethernet port on it in the listening room.

Do you think this is a suitable and reliable solution to being hard-wired and is there a way to test to see if it is?

Thanks
 
Have you ever streamed Tidal or Qobuz before - prior to getting the H390? If your network system was OK with your previous streamer, it will be OK with the new one - Hegel isn't more greedy than any other streamer. Even if you used wi-fi before (never ideal) and it suffered few if any dropouts, the Hegel should perform similarly. I guess the Hegel has a wi-fi ability. Otherwise you could use your house wiring to carry the signal from your router (all effectively hard wired) using a pair of Powerline Extenders.

This may be worth a read - WiFi Extenders vs Powerline Adapters – Which is the Best?
 
Tell me if i'm wrong. My h360 max rez is 24/96 so wifi didn't cost but the new 390 has higher resolution that you wouldn't get with wifi anywhere in the chain no?
 
I don't know the spec of wi-fi or the different damands (if any) of a streamer that offers hi-res streaming, or H390 vs H360. If you're concerned, all the more reason for looking into Powerline Extenders. They cost £50 per pair or so and extra receivers are available so you can hard wire other things around your house as well as your streamer, that may need a better link than your wi-fi can offer.
 
You can get one of those WiFi adapter/extenders with an Ethernet jack that’ll plug into your H390. From there you can use mConnect to steam into the H390 via uPnP. You get the full unfolding of mqa and it’ll show up on the screen of the amp at the bit rate of the stream.

When you stream ‘hires’ files, keep in mind they are much larger files than say Spotify at 320kbps. So if you like to jump around or scrub through music files your (mConnect or other) app may crash and you have to restart the app - no big deal, but quite annoying for me. I had my H390 hard wired so this is just the robustness of the app…the Tidal app couldn’t natively stream MQA into the Hegel so you have to use uPnP to get those “benefits”
 
I'd say any wifi router or access point could pick up the mesh network and go cabled to any streamer. I'd prefer it over a power line adaptor. Make sure to use 5GHz network as this has more bandwidth and less issues with band overlaps/interference than the 2.4GhZ
Hegel streaming option is just an endpoint though. Note that every upnp player app may have its quirks. I noted with Audiostation on Synology that each time I launched the app that it would lower the volume setting by -5. Other players could not browse throughout the song nor pause.

Just some thoughts to further investigate, regardless nice amp!
 
While hegel claims eazypezy when I tried streaming directly from tidal as explained in the owners manual and the constant crashing had me shopping for a dedicated music server pretty quick.
 
Don’t use the extenders, they are more trouble than they are worth! Mine’s siting on a shelf. What I then got works through the wiring in your home. Netgear, Powerline 2000+Extra outlet. Bought it from Crutchfield, but it’s on Amazon as well. Works great and I haven’t lost signal since I plugged them in.

All the best

JD
 
Powerline! Easy setup and no drops!
I am using the Netgear Powerline 2000+ extra outlet. Works great!
I bought from Crutchfield but they’re on Amazon also.

All the best.

JD
 
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