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Help! My USB Dac is driving me crazy.

post #1 of 16
11/24/05 at 12:31am
Thread Starter 
I bought the guzzler dac a while back. Then I blew out my motherboard on my computer--I don't think the events were related. So my laptop is in the shop. I have this loner laptop that I plugged my dac into and the sound is God awful. Hisses, pops, fizzles. Unlistenable. The headphone out on this thing is better than the dac. Anybody know what's up with this? Thanks!
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post #2 of 16
11/24/05 at 12:41am
Need to get ASIO working. I had the same problem with the Mini-DAC when I didn't have their ASIO drivers installed.
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post #3 of 16
11/24/05 at 12:59am
Thread Starter 
Can you explain that a bit? I use winamp and have heard of this asio plugin but I didn't need it with my other laptop. Where do I get it and what do I do with it?
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post #4 of 16
11/24/05 at 1:45am
Thread Starter 
Ok so I downloaded the asio plugin but it made no difference. I gotta say that with the directsound that comes with winamp I don't believe asio does anything. I could be wrong. Either way, I have an unlistenable dac that sang on my my last laptop. there is something with the way this beast is configured that is causing me to hear every mouse click. It's like I have a freaking stethascope attached to my laptop. I hear every whiz pop and fizzle.
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post #5 of 16
11/24/05 at 2:50am
Any chance that when the mobo blew that it sent a power surge and tosted the chip?

If not, it is probably just that the computer is under powered, so everytime it draws a little more power, it has a little less to give to the usb bus. The best thing you can do is hookup an external power supply to the soundcard. A battery would be ideal. You might also try getting a usb hub that has a power adapter as this might give you better power to the DAC.

Do you have the beta board, or the Rev a? Rev A has better noise rejection.
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post #6 of 16
11/24/05 at 10:51am
Thread Starter 
the guzzler is seperately powered with batteries so it's juice is pretty clean. I'm not sure what those other things you mentioned are. A power surge into the dac concerns me. On that I just don't know, except that it runs and powers up fine. When I turn up the volume the music plays ok except for this layer of computer noise underneath it. I've checked the volume settings on this laptop and the noise remains whether I set the computer volume up or down (has not impact on it). I've tried switching usb ports to no avail. Now, the ports on this are usb 2 and I think my other laptop was usb 1. does that make any difference for the dac?
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post #7 of 16
11/24/05 at 11:47am
Thread Starter 
Here's another clue to the puzzle. Even when I switch the dac off I hear exactly the same level of noise. Anybody?
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post #8 of 16
11/24/05 at 4:10pm
Unplug it from the laptop, same noise?

If not, its probably just a noisy USB bus, not really that uncommon for a laptop.

Nothing you can do really off the top of my head, other than get a better laptop. Another reason I'm not a fan of USB transport.
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post #9 of 16
11/24/05 at 4:52pm
Thread Starter 
I hope it's a noisy usb bus. Otherwise it's a problem with the dac. This is a bargain basement acer laptop. I guess I'm stuck with it till I get my pavillion fixed.
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post #10 of 16
11/24/05 at 11:28pm
Thread Starter 
I guess it's a noisy usb bus because when I unplug it it is totally silent. I'm surprized. I thought usb was the way to eliminate jitter and noise from the laptop. Now I wonder if some laptops are simply noisy. I just hope that when i get my laptop back with it's new motherboard that it won't turn into a noisy computer.
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post #11 of 16
11/25/05 at 12:16am
Sorry Norbert, I forgot to subscribe so I didn't see your posts. I have never needed ASIO working before my Apogee DAC. Basically ASIO drivers will reduce the latency of information delivery to the DAC. In terms of the noise...A well designed USB DAC is buffered on the DAC side. It is automatically buffered on the PC side. This means that information is guaranteed to get from point A to B correctly. This also means that noise should not be introduced by the USB bus as long as proper care in circuit design with respect to grounding has been performed. I am not familiar with your DAC, so I'm not sure if others had this problem or not. The reason I said to use the ASIO drivers is that I had a problem that sounds exactly like your issue before I installed the appropriate drivers for my DAC.
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post #12 of 16
11/25/05 at 12:25am
Thread Starter 
"This also means that noise should not be introduced by the USB bus as long as proper care in circuit design with respect to grounding has been performed"

I hear you. What do you think of a noisy usb hub? Mainly I'm worried that when my motherboard died that some power surge fried my dac. But, as much as a techno amatuer as I am, I doubt a power surge of significant magnitude can flow thru a usb port into my dac to damage it. But I'm still wondering...why is this thing so noisy even with the dac turned off?
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post #13 of 16
11/25/05 at 12:38am
You would be amazed at what surges can do or go through for that matter. I work with large scale AV systems for a living (own a Crestron/AMX programming firm). We deal with large scale spread out systems, and some how a surge can always get through. Most of the time it is really a ground current instead of a surge though. I would say try out the USB hub and see if it helps. I am not sure why you are hearing noise when the DAC is off. You should also try a different USB cable. There is a possibility you have a bad shield or shorted pins inside the cable.
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post #14 of 16
11/25/05 at 1:01am
Thread Starter 
I'll try switching the cable. And I'll hook this dac up to another computer to see what happens. But, it's thanksgiving and I'm not that ambitious right now. But, I'll report back tomorrow. Interesting, I'm listening thru the headphone jack of this cheap acer, and it's superior to my HP Pavillion (which caused me to buy the dac in the first place).
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post #15 of 16
11/27/05 at 1:46am
Thread Starter 
Here's an update for all 13 of you who tuned into this thread...Still having the same problem. But I have noticed that the sound is much more noticeable when I hook my headphones to the o ohm jack of my amp. When I plug into the 120 the noise is attenuated. I'm living with it until I get my other laptop back. I'm surprized that a laptop can have a noisy usb hub and I'm concerned that I may have damaged my dac when my motherboard died and bled it's power surge all over.
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