[LWPS]

Question: is there a fuse somehere under the hood? If yes, what are the specs? Anyone tried replacing it?

From Kingwa - no fuse to replace, the protection is built-in in the transformer design.

My DI-20 is also at around 250 hours, same tiny glitch.

 

[bodiebill2]

From Kingwa - no fuse to replace, the protection is built-in in the transformer design.

My DI-20 is also at around 250 hours, same tiny glitch.

Thanks for the info and good to compare notes!

Today I received two Moshou hdmi cables, 0,5 and 2m respectively.
Comparison was quick and easy: the short one is a keeper with good soundstage and smoothness. The 2m one does not sound right at all: soundstage collapses and listening becomes a ping-pong game, meaning that at any time I have to decide whether to concentrate on the left or the right channel. With the short cable there is one coherent soundstage spread evenly between the speakers.

 

[DecentLevi]

Hi again guys,

My DI-20 has been a LOVE/HATE lately. Unbelievably good sound with huge soundstage especially with good USB decrapifiers and ferrite chokes on my USB cable - BUT it's developed a horrendous hiss almost every time I use it. Especially on power-up when I play direct to the Amanero / Wasapi method I get a loud white noise hiss over the audio signal. I used to be able to remedy it with an occasional toggling of the bit / sample rate to something like 16/44 and back again to 24/88, which had the off effect of making it disappear. But now I have to do that like 27 times every time I power it up until it finally wants to have a black background like a good boy!!!

Any suggestions on this? I have one of the newer firmwares for the DI-20 but I thought to try updating the Amanero / Wasapi firmware. Is this the best link?
https://www.amanero.com/drivers.htm

 

[sajunky]

Any suggestions on this? I have one of the newer firmwares for the DI-20 but I thought to try updating the Amanero / Wasapi firmware. Is this the best link?
https://www.amanero.com/drivers.htm

It can be a problem on the connection between DI-20 and a DAC. Can you be more specific on a device and an interface? Do it change behaviour if you switch by example from HDMI to coax?

Question on drivers can be eliminated by switching from WASAPI to ASIO or using a native UAC 2.0 Windows drivers (uninstalling Amanero drivers).

 

[DecentLevi]

It can be a problem on the connection between DI-20 and a DAC. Can you be more specific on a device and an interface? Do it change behaviour if you switch by example from HDMI to coax?

Question on drivers can be eliminated by switching from WASAPI to ASIO or using a native UAC 2.0 Windows drivers (uninstalling Amanero drivers).

Thanks for your input. I switched to ASIO instead of Wasapi and so far it's working, without static hiss even after resetting the whole system. This issue has manifested itself in multiple ways and configurations with the DI-20 so time will tell on this solution. I'm using digital RCA coax which is the only compatible connection between the DDC and DAC.

All this time I've had ASIO laying around for other audio purposes but never used it for hi-fi audio. I was under the impression the ASIO protocol may involve packet loss of some sort due to going through some sort of multiple back & forth relays or multiple conversions in its processes, or let me know if I'm wrong on that?

 

[PeterCraig]

I only use ASIO as it works best for a multi user PC on my setup (you can switch users in Windows and the music playback won't be interrupted). No discernible sound difference between ASIO and Wasapi.

 

[PeterCraig]

BTW I'm burning in a very reasonably priced pure silver HDMI cable recommended by Fred. I'm passing the 200 hour mark and I feel it is going to slay my current trusty cable. Many more hours to go still though.

 

[sajunky]

Thanks for your input. I switched to ASIO instead of Wasapi and so far it's working, without static hiss even after resetting the whole system. This issue has manifested itself in multiple ways and configurations with the DI-20 so time will tell on this solution. I'm using digital RCA coax which is the only compatible connection between the DDC and DAC.

All this time I've had ASIO laying around for other audio purposes but never used it for hi-fi audio. I was under the impression the ASIO protocol may involve packet loss of some sort due to going through some sort of multiple back & forth relays or multiple conversions in its processes, or let me know if I'm wrong on that?

Glad to hear that it works well on ASIO. It confirms my guess that a problem is with PC configuration or a system is heavily loaded. ASIO is bypassing Windows sound setting, giving application more control over device, it is one things. I suggest to test bit-perfect Windows configuration, to see whether system-wide mixer is bypassed or not. A good test is playing DSD files. If you get a noise and a DAC/DDC is reporting DSD, it is not bit-perfect path. The other one (more complicated issue) is that current Amanero Windows drivers chose bulk transfer mode (like with hard drives). It works bit-perfect till USB hub is heavy loaded, as there is no bandwidth reservation that audio streaming modes acquire from the system. It is why I suggested uninstalling Amanero drivers for testing. Windows built-in UAC 2.0 drivers use asynchronous transfer mode that feature bandwidth reservation, possibly the same mode your DAC use when connected directly. If switching to the Windows drivers fixes the issue (like ASIO did), then with bulk transfers (Amanero WASAPI drivers ) you should chose a different USB port which is served by a different root hub.

I think you are wrong about ASIO. There is no conversion, no packet loss. The same with WASAPI exclusive mode. Both should deliver the same performance, but with WASAPI an additional configuration for exclusive mode is required in Windows Sound control panel.

 

[LWPS]

Glad to hear that it works well on ASIO. It confirms my guess that a problem is with PC configuration or a system is heavily loaded. ASIO is bypassing Windows sound setting, giving application more control over device, it is one things. I suggest to test bit-perfect Windows configuration, to see whether system-wide mixer is bypassed or not. A good test is playing DSD files. If you get a noise and a DAC/DDC is reporting DSD, it is not bit-perfect path. The other one (more complicated issue) is that current Amanero Windows drivers chose bulk transfer mode (like with hard drives). It works bit-perfect till USB hub is heavy loaded, as there is no bandwidth reservation that audio streaming modes acquire from the system. It is why I suggested uninstalling Amanero drivers for testing. Windows built-in UAC 2.0 drivers use asynchronous transfer mode that feature bandwidth reservation, possibly the same mode your DAC use when connected directly. If switching to the Windows drivers fixes the issue (like ASIO did), then with bulk transfers (Amanero WASAPI drivers ) you should chose a different USB port which is served by a different root hub.

I think you are wrong about ASIO. There is no conversion, no packet loss. The same with WASAPI exclusive mode. Both should deliver the same performance, but with WASAPI an additional configuration for exclusive mode is required in Windows Sound control panel.

Great learning there's a solution.

I don't know much on settings, my music source is from a Mac Mini, and Amanero is showed in Audirvana Studio without choice of WASAPI /ASIO, think it's different from Windows. Anything I can do when I'm experiencing the same problem that DecentLevi had. @DecentLevi, hope you've got the final right solution.

 

[sajunky]

Great learning there's a solution.

I don't know much on settings, my music source is from a Mac Mini, and Amanero is showed in Audirvana Studio without choice of WASAPI /ASIO, think it's different from Windows. Anything I can do when I'm experiencing the same problem that DecentLevi had. @DecentLevi, hope you've got the final right solution.

Mac OS mixer output gives less SQ loss than in Windows, as sound system use 32-bit floating point format (like linux kernel for the last 15 years), so bypassing mixer is less important. However there is some settings in the MIDI applet and I am suspect that Mac Audirvana has setting for exclusive mode, check it out. There is also a workaround for Apple repetitively breaking the official exclusive mode with new OS updates, called Integer Mode. It use a known feature that Mac OS do not convert integer audio to the floating format, but sending it out directly bit-perfect, effectively bypassing mixer. Also worth to investigate.

 

[DecentLevi]

Thanks again folks for trying to help. Actually what I tried to say was that when I tried the other output type it worked (that once), but since this is a randomly occurring issue with the DI-20 I just got lucky. The next few days have shown the true face of using ASIO with DI-20 on my system that the overlaid static is a bit quieter but occurs more often; after unpausing music rather than jus on boot-up. ASIO is definitely smoother on play/pause than WASAPI, that's for sure. Actually both methods bypass Windows sound, I think they just have a very different protocol of doing it.

Don't worry about my issue folks I'll try to troubleshoot it. Could be down to a faulty DI-20 or old laptop. I only have 2 working USB ports and only one to choose from for audio since the cable doesn't reach to the other side of my laptop; BTW the non-audio USB port is split to 7 components such as external HDD, chargers, webcam, mouse, keyboard, etc. Likely it will take an upgrade from standard to HE version DI-20 and/or a new laptop, unless I go that entirely different previously discussed protocol with an Ethernet adapter box. I hadn't tried uninstalling WASAPI yet though, just switched over to my existing ASIO instead.

 

[sajunky]

Don't worry about my issue folks I'll try to troubleshoot it. Could be down to a faulty DI-20 or old laptop. I only have 2 working USB ports and only one to choose from for audio since the cable doesn't reach to the other side of my laptop; BTW the non-audio USB port is split to 7 components such as external HDD, chargers, webcam, mouse, keyboard, etc.

I have a suggestion to plug DI-20 directly and all other devices connect to a hub on the remaining port. You have multiple devices, some high speed, other like mouse keyboard or mouse are low-speed other full-speed and you need a high-speed for your DI-20, your hub should have MTT (multiple transaction translator). Not all hubs have such feature, bandwidth on the uplink is wasted when the slowest device speaks to the host. It could be in your case. Get a good 2.0 hub with MTT for these devices, you can move the current hub to the DI-20 link (if cable length is an issue), but with only DI-20 attached to this hub. I don’t think you need a new laptop, any Core 2 Duo (even Celeron M) based laptop is good for the job.

 

[DecentLevi]

I have a suggestion to plug DI-20 directly and all other devices connect to a hub on the remaining port. You have multiple devices, some high speed, other like mouse keyboard or mouse are low-speed and you need a super speed for your DI-20, your hub should have MTT (multiple transaction translator). Not all hubs have such feature, bandwidth on the uplink is wasted when the slowest device speaks to the host. It could be in your case. Get a good 2.0 hub with MTT for these devices, you can move the current hub to the DI-20 link (if cable length is an issue), but with only DI-20 attached to this hub. I don’t think you need a new laptop, any Core 2 Duo (even Celeron M) based laptop is good for the job.

Oh yes this is what I've been doing since day one. Never mix pro-audio with other USB devices, and all others on a hub. Thanks for looking out. I'll post if I get it sorted out sometime.

 

[myshark]

Hi there,
After changing to the new fw and amereno linux usb, my spotify connect cannot connect.
Tidal connect have no such problem.
Is there anybody that have this problem. The spdif input ok. Only when using usb input in the di20.
Is this due to the new amereno linux?

Thanks for any input.

 

[bodiebill2]

My DI-20HE was delivered with the 075 firmware. Partly out of curiosity and partly because I still experience glitches when playing (coax in, I2S out), I would like to try a different firmware. But which one?

Below are some impressions from different users in this thread. As people have had more time to listen since the latest fw (075 and 076) came out, any further views on fw SQ, character and functionality?

Sundry impressions from this thread (different authors):

• Friday I upgraded my DI-20 from v. 3.9 to v. 4.07 and had the same feeling: it has been better.
• By a sudden impulse I shifted back to firmware v. 3.32 and found this was much better - my set-up played with an effortless ease and natural sound that was wonderfull to listen to.
• 4.07, treble seems to sound different...but this is just a first impulse and i will keep 4.07, to be sure...no issues with any firmware of the DI20HE.
• Q: I'm running 3.933 firmware and I would like to try a smoother one. Was it 4.075 or 4.076 the smoother one?
  A: The 3.93Beta2
• I love the beautiful analogue musicality of the new 4.075 and 4.076- but no question to my ears it is more smeared than earlier versions. I have flipped FW's many times to compare and have easily confirmed this. For now my favorite FW is 4.07b4 as the detail and dynamics are stunning and there is plenty of analogue flavor even though it is not as much as the new 75 and 76 versions.
• As of the current firmware v4.075 and v4.076 I have no beautifying tweaks in use. The HE7 is not even running in TDA mode. And the DI20HE is in parallel mode. But still, very smoothed over... not enough definition going on. Specially microdynamics are suffering. Not as defined like with a friends Rega RP3 vinyl rig.
• 4.075/parallel/usb in, hdmi out/ external clock with external clock on R-7HE as well is the most analogue, musical, 3D sound I have heard on my system. R-7HE in NOS has more detail, in 8X upsample is more full and smooth, Same set-up with 4.076 has better detail, more forward, one step less musical but still extraordinarily musical.
• Wow. 75 and 76 are the best versions yet IMHO. They do not sound like b3 and b4 with bug fixes to me. They are more musical, sweeter, more natural than any I have heard. Resolution is still excellent- but stresses the whole rather than hyper focus on micro plankton. JUST BEAUTIFUL-- is the best way to describe them.
• This was my initial impression. b3 and 75 with the more 3D smooth sound and b4 along with 76 more forward, dynamic, clear. But both 75 and 76 are noticeably more honey glazed than their predecessors- gorgeous tonality..