MMA Professional versus Dayton Audio WFA02

[rmu]

A recently purchased a Dayton Audio WFA02 "WiFi multi-room audio adaptor" isn't cooperating with MMA Professional, and I'm hoping someone here has a clue about the cause.

Here's a link to the WFA02's description: http://www.daytonaudio.com/index.php/wf ... -dlna.html . A link to its operating instructions is on this page.

My setup is as follows. My DLNA server is a Raspberry Pi 2 running Arch Linux ARM, with a pair of 128 GB flash drives containing roughly 7000 FLAC files arranged in the standard artist/album name directory structure. A third drive handles videos and movies. The RPi2 is connected with a cable directly to my router. I use two Samsung tablets (a GTP-3113 and an SMT-320, each running MMA Professional) to bridge the gap between the media server and the WFA02.

Here's the problem. MMA hooks up to the WFA02 without a problem via the "Renderer" menu item. (MMA seems to be one of the few media players able to connect to the WFA02.) Unfortunately, it's all downhill after that. Let's say I'm playing an album with a dozen cuts. Perhaps three random cuts will be played in their entirety. The remainder won't play at all. At the minimum, the cut's title will appear. Usually, the play progress bar appears, too. But the bar zooms across the tablet's screen in a fraction of a second, sometimes halting before the 100% mark, then the next track tries to play. And I can expect frequent mid-album halts. Either MMA or the WFA02 simply stops working. The album art folder.jpg always arrives, and is displayed properly.

I would point an annoyed finger firmly in the WFA02's direction, except for one thing. Another media player handles the WFA02 flawlessly, with zero glitches in dozens of hours. Alas, the Plan B media player has a UI that appears to have devised by chimps. MediaMonkey's UI is part of its appeal. Its obvious that someone gave it great thought. But Plan B it will be until MediaMonkey plays nice with WFA02s.

If I can supply additional useful information, let me know.

[Peke]

Hi,
Can you do same test with bunch of MP3s? I'm thinking that maybe there is bandwidth overhead and stream packets are lost in process.

If you play same files in MMA and not thru WFA02 do you have same issues?
Have you tried to use MMW on PC as DLNA server for testing?
Have you tried to play tracks directly from tablets and not using DLNA as Source?

This is interesting setup and WFA02 as Device especially as it looks it uses extensively their own app and commands to control device, so narrowing what is going on will be bit tricky.

[Guest]

Peke, thank you for your prompt response.

The WFA02's predecessor was a Logitech Bluetooth adaptor. MM Android and the free version of MediaMonkey 4.1.9 running on a seldom-used Windows 8.1 installation both performed flawlessly with this setup. The problem was Bluetooth itself. Frequent dropouts and patches of static were so annoying that I searched for an alternative.

I could do no further testing with MM for Windows because it lacks a "select renderer" menu item. Perhaps it only appears in the non-free version.

I tried my only MP3 album with no better results than I had with FLAC files. Moving to the other end of the spectrum. I tried my only hi-res (96/24) FLAC album. It was awful. I suspect the WFA02 may be equipped with a 48/16 DAC. It played roughly 200 milliseconds of music, followed by 200 milliseconds of silence, etc. Tracks were skipped or truncated just as they were with 44/16 FLACs and MP3s.

I've left voicemail at Dayton Audio's retail outlet, Parts Express, asking to talk to someone in their technical support area. I have several questions for them. Today is Sunday, and tomorrow is a national holiday, so Tuesday is the earliest I'm likely to have additional information.

It might be a good idea to mention that while the transition from one track to the next often fails when using the WFA02, transitions within a track work flawlessly. I can tap the track time progress bar at random locations every second or two, and the music immediately starts at the new location.

[rmu]

My discussion with the Parts Express person was fruitless. As of this morning, I'm just about certain I know more about the WFA02 than he does. I finally noticed that the Plan B media player displayed a blurry icon next to the name of each DLNA renderer I tapped the WFA02's, revealing what's below.



("WiHiFi1" is the name I assigned to the WFA02.)

So what we have is a repackaged Muzo Cobblestone, "enhanced" with a USB port that's absolutely useless. Can someone tell me how well original Muzo Cobblestones work with Media Monkey?

I've now tested four different media players with the WFA02. Only one performs adequately. And it isn't Muzo's.