[moneypit]

Sharing in case others run into this.

When I updated the firmware for the USB MCU, I began to experiences cracking and popping that could almost be mistaken for clipping. The artifacts were present at all bitrates, software and file types. The artifacts were not present when using USB inputs of either a Grace m902 or RME ADI-2DAC. It also wasn't present when using another digital input to the Ares.

For reference, my setup is Windows 11>Audioquest Forest USB>Ares II> Mogami Gold Studio XLRs>Grace m902>headphones.

I reached out to Denafrips Support and we spent about a week back and forth troubleshooting. We tried lots of things and, when reverting back to legacy firmware (3.4.1), the problem seemed to have gone way. It returned, though.

Having exhausted everything Denafrips could help me with, I downloaded LatencyMon. The software pointed to high DPC latency spikes with both the CPU and network adapter. I changed power settings for both and the artifacts have finally gone away.

It is weird that only the Denafrips DAC was sensitive to the latency impacts and only after messing with the USB MCU driver.

 

[msing539]

I had a similar issue with the Iris, which is counterintuitive to its function. Cracking and popping only when using the Iris streaming Tidal.

Turned out to be network latency, despite being hardwired. A silent Windows driver update set my network adapter back to green ethernet, power save, etc.

Disabling those fixed my issues.