Good evening, this is my last post on this topic, here I summarized my thoughts (I won’t do it again)
Dear owners of the SE300, I ask for your help to figure out what is strange in my opinion (after all, it’s 2024) connecting the SE300 to a Wi-Fi wireless network.
Further point by point:
1) I won’t talk about playback quality, overall impression, etc., you can find all this in numerous reviews of this device. I listen mainly to Lossless and Hi-Res Lossless in Apple Music, headphones – Beyerdynamic Amiron Home and T1 Gen2 (depending on my mood). The sound impressions are excellent, otherwise I would write in a slightly different tone. But, as always, there is one nuance that you will not find in the reviews. I'm a network engineer by profession, so let's talk about how the SE300 connects to your/our wireless network.
2) Immediately after purchasing the device, I naturally tried to connect it to my Wi-Fi network (I have separate SSIDs for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz). The device was unable to connect to the network in the 2.4 GHz band; it only connected to the SSID in the 5 GHz band (this is preferable). Initially, I did not attach any importance to this, but later, due to the slow speed of Wi-Fi, I became interested in why the SE300 itself could not connect to the SSID in the 2.4 GHz band and why was everything so relatively slow? In the SSID settings for 2.4 GHz on the home Wi-Fi router it was “802.11n only”, changed it to “802.11g/n mixed” - the SE300 connected to the network. That is, the connection occurs in the 802.11g standard (Wi-Fi 3). Let me remind you that the maximum channel connection speed (Data Rates) in this standard is 54 Mbps. The suspicion immediately crept in that not everything was clean with the connection in the 5 GHz range. Unfortunately, the capabilities of the home router do not allow for detailed diagnostics; to do this, I connected the SE300 to the corporate network to make sure what standard the connection was using. My suspicions were justified - the SE300 does connect to Wi-Fi in the 2.4 GHz band in accordance with the 802.11g standard (Wi-Fi 3), in the 5 GHz band in accordance with the 802.11a standard (Wi-Fi 2). Let me remind you once again that the maximum channel connection speed (Data Rates) in these standards is 54 Mbps!
3) The actual data transfer rate will be approximately 2-3 times lower than the channel speed; in 802.11a/g standards, the maximum achievable actual transfer speed is approximately 20 Mbps (under ideal conditions). Basically, according to this article
How Much Speed Do I Need to Stream Music? this is enough for streaming Hi-Res Lossless music. I specifically downloaded the track “Bad” Michael Jackson from Apple Music (103.3 MB) on the SE300 and it took about 40 seconds, 103.3 MB multiplied by 8 = 826.4 Mb divided by 40 (download time) ~ 20.66 Mbps.
4) The specification listed on the website astellnkern.com states that the Wi-Fi standard of the SE300 is 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4/5 GHz) aka Wi-Fi 5. In reality, the connection occurs in accordance with the standards 802.11a (Wi-Fi 2) - the year the standard was adopted in 1999 and 802.11g (Wi-Fi 3) - the year the standard was adopted in 2003. Let me remind you that the device was released in 2023. Where Astell&Kern unearthed a wireless chip with such characteristics is a mystery to me these days; I still hope for a software error or a deliberate reduction in capabilities at the software level.
5) I scrolled through the forums and found the only message from user SE300 about a similar problem -
post from CharlyBrown
6) I decided to dig further and found messages from SE180 users, they also report that the maximum speed is 54 Mbps (I am sure that they report the Link Speed value, that is, the channel speed). The specification listed on the website astellnkern.com states that the SE180's Wi-Fi standard is 802.11b/g/n (2.4GHz) aka Wi-Fi 4. Of course, I cannot know the characteristics of the wireless chip and Wi-Fi routers of users (I doubt that they use a Wi-Fi router of the Wi-Fi 3 generation), but the maximum channel speed in the 802.11n standard is:
- 72 Mbps (20 Mhz, 1SS)
- 144 Mbps (20 Mhz, 2SS)
- 150 Mbps (40 Mhz, 1SS)
- 300 Mbps (40 Mhz, 2SS)
This means that the SE180 also connects to Wi-Fi in accordance with the 802.11g standard! I don’t want to make such a conclusion, but it turns out that this is not the first time that Astell&Kern “lies” (in quotes, because there may be problems with my device?) in a published specification?
post from peanutslab
post from Joebas
7) And finally, and most importantly, dear owners of SE300 and SE180, check the channel speed of the Wi-Fi connection (Link Speed). Does it exceed 54 Mbps?
8) I just want to figure it out:
- there is a problem with my device due to the fact that it not genuine? Or defective?
- the problem is that someone is specifying the specification incorrectly
9) For streaming in Apple Music, the specified speed (20 Mbps) should theoretically be enough, I don’t know if Apple Music has tracks with 32-bit/192kHz (24-bit/192kHz is available), let’s take the maximum (for 32-bit/192kHz 12 Mbps required). But here you need to take into account that 20 Mbps is at a channel speed of 54 Mbps. Radio broadcasting is a constantly changing environment, both in time and space; you shouldn’t rely too much on “theory” in terms of actual connection speed. In real conditions of noise, interference, distance from the Wi-Fi router, interference in the form of walls between you and the router, your channel speed in 802.11a/g standards may be lower - 48, 36, 24 Mbps (I will not indicate speeds lower than 12) , accordingly, the real speed will be less than 20 Mbps.
20 Mbps in ideal conditions is enough, but playback does not start immediately due to track caching. This is annoying, there is a fairly large delay, if the speed met the specifications it would be faster.
Device - Roon Ready, is this speed enough to play DSD256 (for example) from a NAS?
If I want to save a track to a device with Apple Music, I’m not satisfied with this speed in 2024.
10) I am attaching screenshots when connecting to a corporate network, the second device is an iPhone. So, you can see for yourself that the SE300 connects in accordance with 802.11a/g, the iPhone (as indicated in the specification) in accordance with 802.11ax standard.
