[rlawli]

>I still haven't tried Toslink ...
 
I've found the Toslink to be very touchy. The connectors have to be carefully seated or else you get noticable pinging and other noise, at least w/ my headphones.

 

[borrego]

 
Quote:

Well... these changes didn't helped at all.... so I'm trying something else... under windows advanced settings, performance.. I've turned off all visual enhancements...
I'll report back if it works...
 

May be you should try this, it would improve sound quality as well: http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/500369/audio-gd-digital-interface/1425#post_7268395
 
Then create a batch file to run foobar in high priority: "cmd /c start /HIGH foobar2000.exe"
Then set foobar device buffer to 700ms to 900ms range
 
You will be "almost there" when you reach to the point that invoking Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del) does not cause any drop-out.
 
After the above 2 setting I don't experience any drop-out unless I am doing heavy BT download in the background or rocking my notebook (causing the hard drive anti-shock mechanism engaged)

 

[dacavalcante]

 
Quote:

 

May be you should try this, it would improve sound quality as well: http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/500369/audio-gd-digital-interface/1425#post_7268395
 
Then create a batch file to run foobar in high priority: "cmd /c start /HIGH foobar2000.exe"
Then set foobar device buffer to 700ms to 900ms range
 
You will be "almost there" when you reach to the point that invoking Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del) does not cause any drop-out.
 
After the above 2 setting I don't experience any drop-out unless I am doing heavy BT download in the background or rocking my notebook (causing the hard drive anti-shock mechanism engaged)

Thanks for the info, very useful.
It's really interesting one thing I realized....
When I turned visual effects off the drop stopped.... and I thought "well, solution".... but anyway... to prove that A -> B you have to prove ~A -> B.... which didn't come to be true...
When all effects were turned on to full again, guess what ? Still no drop..... PC restarted... no drop.....
My take on that ? It really might be a temperature matter... maybe nfb-11 just needs to get hot.... or maybe this is just a component burn in happening.... because it was just the same yesterday.... as day went by the drops went down...
I'm for almost 4.5 hours without any drop...
I'm still clueless on this one...
 

 

[borrego]

 
Quote:

Originally Posted by dacavalcante /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
Thanks for the info, very useful.
It's really interesting one thing I realized....
When I turned visual effects off the drop stopped.... and I thought "well, solution".... but anyway... to prove that A -> B you have to prove ~A -> B.... which didn't come to be true...
When all effects were turned on to full again, guess what ? Still no drop..... PC restarted... no drop.....
My take on that ? It really might be a temperature matter... maybe nfb-11 just needs to get hot.... or maybe this is just a component burn in happening.... because it was just the same yesterday.... as day went by the drops went down...
I'm for almost 4.5 hours without any drop...
I'm still clueless on this one...
 

 
I don't think anyone could fully understand what is happening at any given time. But I still believe the PC/Windows is the root of the cause. There are just so many background processes. May be the Windows has just finished indexing, or it just finished flushing the cache, or other 1001 possible reasons...
 
 

 

[dacavalcante]

 
Quote:

 
 
I don't think anyone could fully understand what is happening at any given time. But I still believe the PC/Windows is the root of the cause. There are just so many background processes. May be the Windows has just finished indexing, or it just finished flushing the cache, or other 1001 possible reasons...
 
 

Yes, I do agree with you that his might be as well the issue.
Well, I already did all configurations suggested by you and the guys....
There might be an interesting test...... 
1. Turn NFB-11 and DI on and after a couple of ours turn the PC on.... if there's no drop, it might be related with heat otherwise it's OS related.
If drops don't come back regarding fresh boot or cool or warm nfb-11, the steps taken on system configuration worked just right.
 
FYI, I'm using 50ms buffer on foobar right now and even so there's no drop out.... utorrent on, youtube playing, surfing the web...
When drop is occurring, even setting buffers to 1000ms didn't help.
I also can't see my cpu going beyond 1% with music playback, utorrent, chrome open. And opening task manager at this point isn't causing any drop in music.
 
I'll keep posting....
 

 

[dacavalcante]

Well.... a new update on the issue.... I really can't find a way to relate it to anything....
 
Everything was going normal when it began to drop again...
Well... the computer was idle with only foobar open...
So I started to check....
- Disabled w7 visual effects... nothing
- Disabled and stopped file search indexing service... nothing...
- Raised foobar buffers to 1000ms... nothing...
- checked all cables conection... nothing...
- Stopped and resumed playback... nothing...
 
The problem then slowly went away and stopped again...
 
- I tried to lower foobar buffers to 50ms
- Turned all visual effects on again...
- Played youtube flash video on full hd
- Turned pc fans down so I would heat it and check if it was a overheat pc problem or throttling... all temps went up a lot...
- But nothing.... no drop out at all...
 
 
The problem always starts only with a few drops and increases over time... then after sometime it starts to go away... it gets sparse more and more until there is no more drop again for a long time.....
 
I'm clueless... what about you guys ?

 

[Poetik]

I don't really get drop outs but have you thought about it being because your machine is too old? I have one of the older quad core intel chips in mine and it works fine. Pair that with at least 4gb's of ram and you should be good to go man.  What's your computer specs?

 

[dacavalcante]

Quote:

I don't really get drop outs but have you thought about it being because your machine is too old? I have one of the older quad core intel chips in mine and it works fine. Pair that with at least 4gb's of ram and you should be good to go man.  What's your computer specs?

Now I'm with a i5-750 / 2x2gb ddr3-1600 cl7 / DFI p55 mini-itx mobo / hd4850 512 / Seven team 550w power supply.

 

[dacavalcante]

More update on the drop out issue
 
The last time drop out occurred it was quick solved by turning DI off and on again.
 
Well... I was having another problem later... both bass and midrange were crap as hell.... I tried to turn off the nfb-11 to and let it cool down... turned it on and the problem persisted...
Turned off DI and on again... problem solved.....
I decided to open the DI to take a look.... the clock socket was full of a kind of shoes glue.... even 2 legs from the clock were very impregnated...
 
I don't use upsample, does anyone knows if this clock is used if not upsampling... ? I know audio-gd site says the clock upgrade is used only for upsampling... but if not upsampling, does it do a thing ?
 
Anyway, I cleaned it and as much as I could the socket hole and reseated it...
 
I'm asking about the function of this clock on the DI, because I really don't know if it's a placebo effect but the music seems much better now.... (probably it's a placebo effect, or maybe the DI just needed a little shutdown).

 

[borrego]

I suppose the glue is there to keep the XO from falling off during shipment. You can just try pulling off the XO and see if the DI would still function with the non-upsampling setting.
 
Some more Windows 7 settings you can try.
 
1. Uncheck the "USB power managment" under the "Advanced" portion of the Windows Power Scheme setting
2. Remove the DI in the "Record" tab from the Windows sound device to avoid any program try to use the DI for recording (it sounds stupid but it is how the default driver installation goes).
3. Set to "Do nothing" in the "Communication" tab option where Windows would try to lower volume when it detects incoming call.
4. Don't set the DI as the default sound device so other process won't try to use it (although in WASAPI mode it suppose to run in exclusive mode anyway, but worth a try)
 
On my lowly 3 years old setup Dell Latitude D520 (Centrino 1.6GHz, Intel 945 chipset, 2GB RAM, Windows 7 Ultimate),  I found setting the foobar buffer to minimum 50ms would make it very sensitive to other processes and have dropout. (e.g. drop-out when you hit "Ctrl-Alt-Del" invoking the task manager). People are saying for WASAPI the lower the buffer the better but I don't notice. So I set the buffer to 900ms. This would make it no drop-out even I hit "Ctrl-Alt-Del"
 
There has been some people reporting overheating issue with the NFB-11 on this thread. You may PM them and also send email to Audio-gd asking. May be they should change to use a top cover with ventilation holes.
 
Have you tried playing an CD/DVD ISO image through a POWERISO mounted virtual drive? This is the setup which I never had any drop-out no matter how busy my computer is, even when playing 24bit/96kHz DVD audio. So you may want to try that just to verify it is the Windows setup causing the problem and not the NFB-11 or DI being defective.
 
Actually the newer chipsets with more "power management" features would causes more drop-out. I had a 6 years old IBM T41 notebook running single core centrino, 1G RAM and Windows XP. It never has a single drop-out using ASIO. It was my ultimate PC for audio until its PATA drive died and I counld not find any economical replacement  (i.e. non SSD).

 

[dacavalcante]

 
Quote:

I suppose the glue is there to keep the XO from falling off during shipment. You can just try pulling off the XO and see if the DI would still function with the non-upsampling setting.
 
Some more Windows 7 settings you can try.
 
1. Uncheck the "USB power managment" under the "Advanced" portion of the Windows Power Scheme setting
2. Remove the DI in the "Record" tab from the Windows sound device to avoid any program try to use the DI for recording (it sounds stupid but it is how the default driver installation goes).
3. Set to "Do nothing" in the "Communication" tab option where Windows would try to lower volume when it detects incoming call.
4. Don't set the DI as the default sound device so other process won't try to use it (although in WASAPI mode it suppose to run in exclusive mode anyway, but worth a try)
 
On my lowly 3 years old setup Dell Latitude D520 (Centrino 1.6GHz, Intel 945 chipset, 2GB RAM, Windows 7 Ultimate),  I found setting the foobar buffer to minimum 50ms would make it very sensitive to other processes and have dropout. (e.g. drop-out when you hit "Ctrl-Alt-Del" invoking the task manager). People are saying for WASAPI the lower the buffer the better but I don't notice. So I set the buffer to 900ms. This would make it no drop-out even I hit "Ctrl-Alt-Del"
 
There has been some people reporting overheating issue with the NFB-11 on this thread. You may PM them and also send email to Audio-gd asking. May be they should change to use a top cover with ventilation holes.
 
Have you tried playing an CD/DVD ISO image through a POWERISO mounted virtual drive? This is the setup which I never had any drop-out no matter how busy my computer is, even when playing 24bit/96kHz DVD audio. So you may want to try that just to verify it is the Windows setup causing the problem and not the NFB-11 or DI being defective.
 
Actually the newer chipsets with more "power management" features would causes more drop-out. I had a 6 years old IBM T41 notebook running single core centrino, 1G RAM and Windows XP. It never has a single drop-out using ASIO. It was my ultimate PC for audio until its PATA drive died and I counld not find any economical replacement  (i.e. non SSD).

Yeah.. it was placed... it does work without the clock.
I might do something to make the NFB-11 cool all the time... while working with the case open it doesn't get very warm... just a "normal" warm... but with the case closed it gets really warm... First I'll take the DI out from the top of it.
I just did the extra config, lets see what happens.
I haven't tried to mount a virtual dvd and check yet, but I'll give it a try.
I know what you mean on power management... I had this killer Gigabyte 775 board GA-EP45-UD3P...... but one time I started to have a loooot of drop out with a fresh install on it... then I realized it was the motherboard software for windows to control power consumption that was causing it...
 
I really think the NFB-11 needs something to cool down... I don't want to let it open because it will gather dust... just like my zero did... =]
 
My first try will be to let a computer fan over it... maybe this will help as I think the case does a good job taking the heat out, but needs an extra help.
 
But this is not my first issue with this motherboard... my USB M-audio Transit doesn't work over it in 24/96.... a lot of noise is produced.... too much jitter probably... on my ION D330 on the other hand, it works without any trouble with 24/96.
But as this drop out issue with the audio-gd is present on both computers I'm assuming it's not a fault from this DFI motherboard USB.
 

 

[borrego]

Does your NFB-11 have the 1ppm 80Mhz TCXO upgrade. Before I did the 1ppm TCXO upgrade to my NFB-1, it would have drop-out in the first 5 min if "cold start" below 10C degree. It works fine in other temperature range, or when completely warmed up.

Do you have another cd/dvd player with coaxle out to try playback without the DI?

For the USB, if all thing does not work then try to buy a USB 3.0 add-on card to use so you can isolate the driver/share usage. USB's problem is it is so "univeral" that every program tries to poll the port regularly.

Oh... if you have photo software installed, try to disable those auto external drive detecting/photo import function as well.


This is indeed tiring.

 

[dinkoy]

I had mine checked by Kingwa. But at 65C its was rated by him as normal. Should be solved by opening the top lid though.

 

[dacavalcante]

 
Quote:

Does your NFB-11 have the 1ppm 80Mhz TCXO upgrade. Before I did the 1ppm TCXO upgrade to my NFB-1, it would have drop-out in the first 5 min if "cold start" below 10C degree. It works fine in other temperature range, or when completely warmed up.

Yes, mine was out already with the upgrade. But the DI did not.
Edwin told me even without upsampling the TCXO upgrade would make difference in the DI. Strange, because it works even without the clock on the socket.... anyway... there must be a reason then.

 
Quote:

Do you have another cd/dvd player with coaxle out to try playback without the DI?

Only my cable TV receiver... but I don't know if it's a good reference....
 
Quote:

For the USB, if all thing does not work then try to buy a USB 3.0 add-on card to use so you can isolate the driver/share usage. USB's problem is it is so "univeral" that every program tries to poll the port regularly.

 
Well... I might wanna try that... in fact I really want to try that.... the problem is: I don't have any PCI-Ex slot left.... my mobo is a Mini-ITX... and it only got one PCI-Ex which is used by my video card.
 

Oh... if you have photo software installed, try to disable those auto external drive detecting/photo import function as well.

 
No, I don't use any o this. Anyway... I'll try a fresh install from windows 7 next weekend if I can't get it right until then.
 
Quote:

This is indeed tiring.

Yeah, it really is. But I'm sure all info produced in this matter will be very useful for future reference....
 
Quote:

I had mine checked by Kingwa. But at 65C its was rated by him as normal. Should be solved by opening the top lid though.

Good to know 65C is fine... mine is for sure not over it.... must be around 40-50 judging that I can keep my hand over it.
To address this issue better I moved both DI and NFB-11 away from my tube amplifiers.... there was a LD MKII in one side, and a mini-watt on the other... these guys are small but really get hot.
I also put 2 small pieces of foam to act as a feet for the NFB-11, taking it about a inch high from the contact surface.....
And took the DI to the side of the NFB-11 instead on the top of it....
 
I'll report back if it does makes any difference in temperature and drop out issue....
 

 

[gebeege1]

Greetings all - I'm new here - drawn to the thread as I've narrowed down the NFB-11 as my preferred next DAC. I'm particularly keen on the Sabre chip and can't find any other product that is close to the price of the Audio-GD - mind you, they aren't taking orders and don't know if they will again

 Has anyone here got any info regarding the situation with new orders - Edwin and I seem to spend a great deal of time mis-communicating...  
 
If I can't get a new one, I wonder if anyone knows of a second-hand one that's available?  I'd also consider a NFB-3, but have not been able to get a real sense as to the difference in sound between it and the NFB-11 - anyone have an opinion?  What I'm looking for is an articulate extended top-end - I lost this changing my speakers from FocalJMLabs 705s to Polks.  The Polks have better bass but loose out to the 705s in their ability to resolve ambience.  This is probably due to the 705s metal inverse-dome tweeters.
 
Another consideration is the Emotiva XDA-1 - again any opinions or other recommendations would be welcome.
 
Cheers! 
 
PS: Can anyone point me to any discussion as to the reason Kingwa is considering dropping the NFB-11?