I have a version of a problem that seemingly many have: I am running Roon Core (on a very powerful Mac mini), Meridian 218 to Meridian DSP8000SE, the latter two of which I purchased new last year after lurking on this forum for several months. My first Meridian system.

Roon Core is rock solid. The entire network (Ubiquiti) is rock solid. Core never drops, Sonos never drops, Sonos Port to 218 SPDIF always works. The 218 never malfunctions at the power or audio level.

It does however malfunction -- all the time -- on the network level.

Every time I have a listening session, I will fire up Roon client, play some music to Meridian 218, and at some point Meridian 218 will drop from the devices Roon Core can see, and therefore music will stop. (I can immediately fire audio into 218 SPDIF through Sonos Port and it will work fine.) Roon will continue to not see the 218 until about 15-20 minutes.

No amount of power cycling the 218 fixes this.

I have already tried static IP, DHCP assigned IP, and enabling and disabling multicast on the network. The 218 is connected with commercial grade Cat6 that has been fully Fluke tested and within spec.

Meridian Device Manager tells me my 218 is running Version 1.1 Build 248.

I'm disappointed, of course, with what seems like an easily avoidable/diagnosable/recallable network chipset DPPM issue. But maybe there is some trick or setting I am neglecting? Or maybe a new build of the firmware addresses the issue? I think ARCAM actually makes the 218. I may reach out to them to ask for help.