Gruesome Artifacts with D/IO and C02

[scrypt]

Not having heard reasons to avoid doing so, I procured an M-Audio CO2 optical-coaxial converter the other day to use with an Art D/IO and any of my optical-out-ready PCDPs. Imagine my horror when I discovered the combination's unusable: horrendous artifacts plague any attempt to listen through this combination. What sounds like violent digital clipping occurs at every possible resolution, though the meter doesn't indicate this. I've changed optical connections, players and everything else. Since the errors don't occur with direct coaxial connections to home players, it seems the problem occurs on the optical/converter side and is not the D/IO's fault. Does anyone have any experience with this problem? In a phrase, what gives?

[zoboomofo]

I've never had this problem with my DI/O fed through either the Manarchy DIP 24/96 (past), or the DIP 48/96 (present). I've also used the Fostex COP unit without problems, if you'd like suggestions for alternative adapter boxes. Yes, the Monarchy units both accept optical IN. Good luck with the troubleshooting.

btw, I've inserted the optical cable incompletely and found only a mushy quality to the sound, but not clipping. Dunno what gives.

[tanfenton]

Scrypt:

If you'd like, my Monarchy DIP 24/96 could stay a spell with you. As the poster above me wrote, it converts light to electricity just as the CO2 supposedly does. I could lend it sometime next month.

NGF

[scrypt]

Why, that's a right lurvely orfer, TF. I'd like to take you up on that next month.

For now, I'd like to know why no one has mentioned the CO2's incompetence as a converter on this site (or at least known issues with the D/IO, if others have experienced my angst). If there is a cure, I[']d love to know what it is.

[Hirsch]

How do you have the sync set on the DI/O? The artifact sounds like something that might happen if the DI/O were set to 48 KHz and the source was outputting 44.1. Do you get the same clipping using external sync?

[scrypt]

Thanks, Hirsch, and I do appreciate your help, but I'm a studio musician -- I know about incorrect subdivisions of sampling rates. You're right in the sense that clicks and pops do occur if the sampling rate is set incorrectly. But this is actually worse than *that* sound, if you can conjure such an atrocitone.

I've tried every rate just for the hell of it, with special nods to 44.1, 88.2 and external sync. None of them prevent that wretched sound from occurring.

[NotoriousBIG_PJ]

Try something other then the Zwan album.

Biggie.

[lan]

That's truly strange. I use M-Audio CO3 and DI/O without any problems. Maybe the CO2 is broken?

[TravelLite]

scrypt, did you get the M-Audio CO2 online or OTC? If OTC perhaps you could take it back and try another sample at the vendor's business premises.

As a quick troubleshooting step only, I'm tempted to suggest trying RadioShack's cheapie format converter if you can find it locally. I'm guessing you'd have no problem returning it for a full refund.

Toslink/coaxial (2-way) Converter:
http://www.radioshack.com/searchsku.asp?find=15-1228

BTW, didn't your ART DI/O have some sort of meltdown event a while back? Perhaps I'm thinking of someone else though.

TravelLite

[scrypt]

Originally posted by TravelLite
scrypt, did you get the M-Audio CO2 online or OTC? If OTC perhaps you could take it back and try another sample at the vendor's business premises. . . . BTW, didn't your ART DI/O have some sort of meltdown event a while back? Perhaps I'm thinking of someone else though.

No, you're thinking of me. I was sent another D/IO which exhibited none of the smoking and exploding tendencies mentioned long ago by your grandnutrias, and has functioned fine thus forehead: I doubt the D/IO is at fault. However, t'would appear I've harvested another defective squickbox from the cessbarrel's sewghole. Back it goes, I ken, Lord Ernie, to J&R.

I need to buy a new keyboard stand, new speakers, a 5.1 receiver for mixing in surround, a new mike pre and no doubt a second computer for running Gigastudio, yet here I am squandering dollarage on tiny boxes that behave as if they're being squicked vigorously. The Gaseous Vertebrate is telling me to stop sating my side-intelligencers and get back to the thrust-and-grind of composing and recording.

[lan]

Sucks but J&R is good for returns.

Have you tested this device with any other equipment?

[zoboomofo]

Hey scrypt, I just remembered an old post here that suggested a cheap opt->coax box ($16). Here's the link.

[scrypt]

Originally posted by lan
Sucks but J&R is good for returns.

Have you tested this device with any other equipment?

I checked it with an analog mike going into my Lucid ADC -- toslink -- and then into an MD -- optical. Hardly a scientific test; but the Lucid, unlike the D/IO, is absolutely free of jitter and its signal sounds fine. I can't test DAC without going into my computer via my 2408 card, which I can't get to without unpatching a medusan bay of cords.

And thanks for the link, zoboomofo. I thought about picking up that device but didn't. I'm going to try another CO2 before moving on to anything else.

[scrypt]

A half hour ago, utterly at random, the UPS gent delivered a Stancor STA-5790 power cord I'd bought and forgotten about. Just in case it made a difference, I plugged it into my D/IO and voila -- it now performs with the CO2 and PCDP exactly as it did with my DVD player. How could changing the power cord on the D/IO possibly make the transfer free of glitches?

For the past week, every setting, including external sync, allowed a kind of clipped sound to pass through the D/IO. Today, I'm not able to get any sound through external sync; the only settings that work are 44.1 and 88.2, but they work perfectly -- which is as it should be.

I'm now wondering whether I should take the CO2 back to J&R or simply continue testing the setup as is with the Stancor cord. I have no idea why everything suddenly works, but it's high time I had a bit of luck with dinky boxes.

[minya]

Ahh, yes... the ART DI/O. Bastion of reliability.

I'd say give it a week or two as it is now to see if it keeps working properly. If it chokes, then send that damned converter right back to the Stygian depths whence it came.

- Chris