[Zmey69]

Hey guys. I confirm the problem. On 5GHz Wi-Fi regardless of the CN or CM firmware region. The speed is shown at 54mbps. The firmware is the latest. SE300 titanium or aluminum does not matter. We need the developers to fix this problem.

 

[pippen99]

Since it is a Wifi problem do not hold your breath. Astell & Kern still has not announced a fix for the Kann Ultra's Wifi issues.

 

[lenarfa]

Since it is a Wifi problem do not hold your breath. Astell & Kern still has not announced a fix for the Kann Ultra's Wifi issues.

Could you please be more detailed? What a problem with Kann Ultra?

 

[pippen99]

For certain Wifi users the Ultra will not hold the Wifi channel. It will sign on and then drop Wifi. One has to sign out of Wifi and then sign back on. Then the whole thing repeats. It is why I have a SE300. My dealer traded me to a SE300 because a fix from A&K was undetermined. Apparently since there has been no announcement the development team has been unable to program a fix.

 

[lenarfa]

For certain Wifi users the Ultra will not hold the Wifi channel. It will sign on and then drop Wifi. One has to sign out of Wifi and then sign back on. Then the whole thing repeats. It is why I have a SE300. My dealer traded me to a SE300 because a fix from A&K was undetermined. Apparently since there has been no announcement the development team has been unable to program a fix.

Thanks for the clarification, and yours SE300 also connect to Wi-Fi with low speed (54 Mbps) as mine?

 

[pippen99]

I have seen all kinds of results. From 451/354/127/54/24. Since you asked I just now turned it on and got 325mbps. At least it connects and stays connected unlike the Ultra. I have even walked outside more than 75 ft from my router and it stayed connected. I still would prefer the Ultra for its superior processor and power. The R2R thing is not important to me. I accepted the SE300 because it works.

 

[123peter]

I have seen all kinds of results. From 451/354/127/54/24. Since you asked I just now turned it on and got 325mbps. At least it connects and stays connected unlike the Ultra. I have even walked outside more than 75 ft from my router and it stayed connected. I still would prefer the Ultra for its superior processor and power. The R2R thing is not important to me. I accepted the SE300 because it works.

I have had A&K Kann Ultra since its release on November 11, 2023
and on both firmware versions I had no problem with WiFi
2.4GHZ - 72Mbps, 5GHz-150Mbps (I can't get more, it's because of my not the newest AP) - measurement about 5-10m from the router.
I know 2 people who also have Ultra and after checking, they also do not have this problem with WiFi.

Try switching the channels in your Access Point from "auto" to manual selection, select channels that are less busy in the area where you live.
You can check the occupancy of channels in your environment using an application on your phone, e.g. WiFiman
Of course, it cannot be ruled out that your DAP did not require warranty service.

Connection to Ultra via BT 5.3 with Sennheiser Momentum 2 TWS headphones- it's amazing,
about 10m through 2 really thick walls - I've never had such a good device with such a signal.

 

[pippen99]

I did not have that option. If I continued to wait on A&K development team to provide a solution I would now be nearing 10 weeks without a DAP. That is why I have the SE300.

 

[bden59]

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.

Time zone bug. Try to set your time zone to Denver -7 GMT.

 

[lenarfa]

Time zone bug. Try to set your time zone to Denver -7 GMT.

You are my hero! How the hell did you find this trick?
Сonfirm, I changed the time zone to Los Angeles GMT-08:00 (my previous time zone was Moscow GMT+03:00) and connected to corporate network to check in accordance with which standard the connection is made to.
802.11ac, aka Wi-Fi 5, as specified in the specification!
p.s. 1-st and 2-nd screenshots when connecting to a corporate network, 3-rd screenshot when connecting to a home router.

 

[bden59]

You are my hero! How the hell did you find this trick?
Сonfirm, I changed the time zone to Los Angeles GMT-08:00 and connected to corporate network to check in accordance with which standard the connection is made to.
802.11ac!

A 2nd person from the US confirmed that they get fast connection with 5g. When you change the time zone, se300 changes persist.sys.country parameter to "US". I think it will be easy to fix in next update.

 

[lenarfa]

A 2nd person from the US confirmed that they get fast connection with 5g. When you change the time zone, se300 changes persist.sys.country parameter to "US". I think it will be easy to fix in next update.

...my previous time zone was Moscow GMT+03:00
I hope that in the next software release notes we will not see some words from popular joke:
- old bugs fixed
- new ones added

 

[bden59]

BTW, I found some more bugs. If you change the time zone to Tokyo(persist.sys.country=JP), then wifi 5G stops being visible at all. There is a way to change persist.sys.country to "CN", then 5G wifi will be limited to 150Mbps. Most time zones will set persist.sys.country to "KR" with 54Mbps speed limit. Everything was tested on fw 1.06.

 

[npatrix]

Time zone bug. Try to set your time zone to Denver -7 GMT.

Great solution for a very crazy bug, now I get much faster speeds (even at 2.4Ghz and at 5Ghz can get 433Mbps) and streaming apps are much more fluid to operate.

 

[Angidelsur]

Time zone bug. Try to set your time zone to Denver -7 GMT.

Thanks so much !!! How did you find this ? It’s unbelivable ! It’s working !