DX90. 2X Sabre,1st page: Downloads, info&inst. . ! Lurker0 FW Mod link 1st page !!. .NEW FW! 2.3.0 . . . . .

I think it's pretty clear he prefers the DX90, but the AKs with an external amp just are a level up in the end. No?

nc8000 said:

 

lurker0 said:

Could you please explain me what is it and how to reporduce it? I never understood its mentions in the DX90 bugs thread.

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In the middle of a song the volume fades to silent and then a few seconds later fades back in. If you replay the song it usually don't happen again. I experienced this a few times many months ago and only with aac files, never with flac

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I experience it with hi-res flacs (the only format that I listen to), but not so often. This is not a software bug, but a feature of SD-cards. The "fade in/out" is indeed a sound buffer underrun which is caused by is a slow read from SD-card for a moment, which, in turn, is caused by wear leveling process of NAND flash, which happens when the card is sure that the power will not be interrupted, i.e. exactly at read requests, and almost never in idle state.
 
With small cluster size (less than NAND flash block size) with often writes, there are more chances to meet the situation. If you don't change files on your flash card often, but regularly experience such a problem, I'd suggest:

• copy all the files from SD-card to a computer,
• delete all on the SD-card,
• safely remove the SD-card and insert it back (this causes power off and on for the card, resetting its state),
• copy your files back (this time they should occupy continuous chains of clusters and continuous chains of physical flash blocks, if possible), but don't copy back .audio_data folder!
• Safely remove the flash.

 
Then:

• Insert the SD-card into the turned off DX90.
• Turn the player off. Deny the advice to scan the flash, if there is one.
• Go to Settings->Advanced->Rescan Library.
• Wait for rescan to complete. Don't leave it alone and let it power off by a timeout!
• Manually turn the DX90 off. This ensures that changes in the file system, caused by the library rebuld, are flushed to the SD-card. Auto-power off sometimes does not do it!

 
OK, now your SD-card is in good condition, ready for use, and the subsequent use of it by DX90 will be read-only.
 
It is also good to keep SD-card formatted with the cluster size that was set initially by manufacturer.
 
Anyway, don't expect a fix of this problem from iBasso.
 
Thanks for reading so far  

maricius said:

I've experience these before back on Lurker's 2.1.0 firmware. I've yet to encounter these on any 2.1.5 firmware.

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I experienced myself today morning, after I updated my SD-card content yesterday evening.
 
Even increased gapless playback buffer (if you use gapless, like I do) won't help much, because wear leveling may take much more than 200 ms.

lurker0 said:

 
I experience it with hi-res flacs (the only format that I listen to), but not so often. This is not a software bug, but a feature of SD-cards. The "fade in/out" is indeed a sound buffer underrun which is caused by is a slow read from SD-card for a moment, which, in turn, is caused by wear leveling process of NAND flash, which happens when the card is sure that the power will not be interrupted, i.e. exactly at read requests, and almost never in idle state.
 
With small cluster size (less than NAND flash block size) with often writes, there are more chances to meet the situation. If you don't change files on your flash card often, but regularly experience such a problem, I'd suggest:

• copy all the files from SD-card to a computer,
• delete all on the SD-card,
• safely remove the SD-card and insert it back (this causes power off and on for the card, resetting its state),
• copy your files back (this time they should occupy continuous chains of clusters and continuous chains of physical flash blocks, if possible),
• safely remove the flash.

 
Then:

• Insert the SD-card into the turned off DX90.
• Turn the player off. Deny the advice to scan the flash, if there is one.
• Go to Settings->Advanced->Rescan Library.
• Wait for rescan to complete. Don't leave it alone and let it power off by a timeout!
• Manually turn the DX90 off. This ensures that changes in the file system, caused by the library rebuld, are flushed to the SD-card. Auto-power off sometimes does not do it!

 
OK, now your SD-card is in good condition, ready for use, and the subsequent use of it by DX90 will be read-only.
 
It is also good to keep SD-card formatted with the cluster size that was set initially by manufacturer.
 
Anyway, don't expect a fix of this problem from iBasso.
 
Thanks for reading so far

 

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This is solid advice. Everyone should give this a shot if they keep having fade in and fade out issues.

Hmm... interesting finding. Would wear leveling happen more often on a 95% full card compare to a 50% full card?

But I do think some more intelligent read ahead algorithm should overcome the data read underrun timeout. I mean when I watch 1080p movie with my Android phone, which is a several GB file on external microSD card, I sure do not experience and read underrun. I think the data rate of a 1080p movie playback is sure higher than 16/44 flac playback?

m-13 said:

  This is solid advice. Everyone should give this a shot if they keep having fade in and fade out issues.

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This is what I recomment to my customers for past several years, when they complain that the software (car navigation) starts to run slowly, and they never return back.
 

borrego said:

Hmm... interesting finding. Would wear leveling happen more often on a 95% full card compare to a 50% full card?

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It depends more on frequency of small writes. Manual library rescan with subsequent power off (flush) is better than scans of each folder one by one. It also works around the DX90 firmware bug with folder playback order. One shot - two kills
 
By the way, when I delete old and put new music to my SD-card, I also delete the .audio_data folder manually before I put new files. This helps big music files to be continuous.
 
Also, I've updated the instruction with "don't copy back .audio_data folder".

borrego said:

But I do think some more intelligent read ahead algorithm should overcome the data read underrun timeout. I mean when I watch 1080p movie with my Android phone, which is a several GB file on external microSD card, I sure do not experience and read underrun. I think the data rate of a 1080p movie playback is sure higher than 16/44 flac playback?

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And how often you write a lot of small files to this card? Take a look into .audio_data to see what I mean.

lurker0 said:

And how often you write a lot of small files to this card? Take a look into .audio_data to see what I mean.

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What if I try just copying the .audio_data to computer/back to microSD card to "align" the small files?

borrego said:

 

lurker0 said:

And how often you write a lot of small files to this card? Take a look into .audio_data to see what I mean.

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What if I try just copying the .audio_data to computer/back to microSD card to "align" the small files?

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I don't know That instruction, as I mentioned, was written several years agoo as a general solution for SD card performance degradation, and it works for me with DX90. Having one working solution I don't seek for another.

For those who prefer default fonts by iBasso, I just uploaded v2.1.5-L3 to the same storage.
 
Did anybody try to check whether the sound signature depends on fonts?  

Hello to All

Yesterday evening I listened to ...And Justice For All on 2.1.5L2. Utilizing my Shures 846 alongside with sharp roll-off filter, the results went beyond my wildest expectations. Plain staggering :-D The expression "minute details unveiled" would still be drastically underrated :-D

lurker0 said:

  For those who prefer default fonts by iBasso, I just uploaded v2.1.5-L3 to the same storage.
 
Did anybody try to check whether the sound signature depends on fonts?

 

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Now that you ask. Wait until someone does.

Let's not mistake something here.The tonality has changed,more musical,smoother,added sparkle but on a technical level it is the same.If the ak120ii or ak240 had bigger soundstage,more clarity or details before the firmware update they will continue to do so after the lurkers update.

caruryn said:

Let's not mistake something here.The tonality has changed,more musical,smoother,added sparkle but on a technical level it is the same.If the ak120ii or ak240 had bigger soundstage,more clarity or details before the firmware update they will continue to do so after the lurkers update.

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I dont agree, the firmware is changing the sound quality on a technical level as it is lowering sound distortions. This is making the sound smoother, increasing detail, naturalness, transparency, texture, timbre, separation, everything is improved, there is no way I would call it a tonality change, its a sound quality upgrade, no other way to put it, and enough of a difference to change its rankings among other DAPs.