[Audioboxer]

Here is a conundrum to throw the cat in amongst the pigeons. The Kanto YU4 which I still have on my desktop as I'm quite enjoying them here for now started to display loud audio buzzing/humming when I booted up a game and my 2080Ti kicks in (high power draw card). This is with optical out from my PC, phono out from the Fostex.

In order to clean this up I tried running optical out from the Fostex to the Kanto YU4 as unlike my other powered speakers this has an optical in. Clean as a whistle, even with a game running and my 2080Ti buzzing away lol (I have a watercooled setup so next to no fan noise lets me hear the coil whine off my 2080Ti).

Is it possible to run optical in to a DAC but still end up with interference over the phono out if there is a grounding issue/something nearby causing interference? I was running phono out to my other speakers over optical and had no issues, but maybe these Kanto speakers are a bit more sensitive.

The interesting thing about this buzzing from the speakers is it stops if the game is quit. Suggesting it's my 2080Ti causing it when the PC is drawing a lot of power. Even more interesting is I can pull the optical cable from the Fostex and the buzzing remains! It goes away when the game is quit. This has me thinking is this because of my wall power adapter the PC and Fostex are plugged into???

Heading under the desk to do some plug management/testing.

edit: LOL, this was a grounding issue with the speakers alone because they were plugged into the same outlet as my monitor. Once my monitor was outputting at 144FPS (drawing more power), it got the speakers buzzing This is why using optical in on the back of them had no noise. That doesn't solve the Fostex speaker pops over USB, but it shows not to plug speakers into this outlet (these speakers are just normal kettle plug).

edit2: OK, Kanto Speakers plugged into another outlet in this room (it's own plug, not an extension or the same plug as PC is hooked up to), still get buzz when my monitor is running at 144Hz/FPS. This is with NO audio playing at all (USB/optical input disconnected from Fostex, only phono out cables connected between speakers and Fostex). If I turn my monitor off the buzz pretty much stops or goes super faint. I'm no electrician but this suggests to me this whole room the outlets are in will be on the same loop causing interference as and when my PC draws a lot of power (2080Ti running/monitor at 144hz). Going to take the Fostex out of here and experiment with my laptop and these Kanto speakers in another room. Out of the 3 powered pairs I have they are the only ones reacting like this when my monitor is on.

edit3: Bingo, isolated both the Fostex and Kanto speakers on their own outlets in this same room and that gets rid of the humming and buzzing when a game is loaded up. Just back to the issue I've always had, the loud pop noise out of one speaker when audio is stopped for a second and starts up again (easiest way to reproduce is the youtube slide).

 

[davehutch]

Here is a conundrum to throw the cat in amongst the pigeons. The Kanto YU4 which I still have on my desktop as I'm quite enjoying them here for now started to display loud audio buzzing/humming when I booted up a game and my 2080Ti kicks in (high power draw card). This is with optical out from my PC, phono out from the Fostex.

In order to clean this up I tried running optical out from the Fostex to the Kanto YU4 as unlike my other powered speakers this has an optical in. Clean as a whistle, even with a game running and my 2080Ti buzzing away lol (I have a watercooled setup so next to no fan noise lets me hear the coil whine off my 2080Ti).

Is it possible to run optical in to a DAC but still end up with interference over the phono out if there is a grounding issue/something nearby causing interference? I was running phono out to my other speakers over optical and had no issues, but maybe these Kanto speakers are a bit more sensitive.

The interesting thing about this buzzing from the speakers is it stops if the game is quit. Suggesting it's my 2080Ti causing it when the PC is drawing a lot of power. Even more interesting is I can pull the optical cable from the Fostex and the buzzing remains! It goes away when the game is quit. This has me thinking is this because of my wall power adapter the PC and Fostex are plugged into???

Heading under the desk to do some plug management/testing.

edit: LOL, this was a grounding issue with the speakers alone because they were plugged into the same outlet as my monitor. Once my monitor was outputting at 144FPS (drawing more power), it got the speakers buzzing This is why using optical in on the back of them had no noise. That doesn't solve the Fostex speaker pops over USB, but it shows not to plug speakers into this outlet (these speakers are just normal kettle plug).

edit2: OK, Kanto Speakers plugged into another outlet in this room (it's own plug, not an extension or the same plug as PC is hooked up to), still get buzz when my monitor is running at 144Hz/FPS. This is with NO audio playing at all (USB/optical input disconnected from Fostex, only phono out cables connected between speakers and Fostex). If I turn my monitor off the buzz pretty much stops or goes super faint. I'm no electrician but this suggests to me this whole room the outlets are in will be on the same loop causing interference as and when my PC draws a lot of power (2080Ti running/monitor at 144hz). Going to take the Fostex out of here and experiment with my laptop and these Kanto speakers in another room. Out of the 3 powered pairs I have they are the only ones reacting like this when my monitor is on.

Have you done the usual check for the fridge switching on and off on the same circuit? Anything with a thermostat basically

 

[Audioboxer]

Have you done the usual check for the fridge switching on and off on the same circuit? Anything with a thermostat basically

I just added in a quick third edit above, I totally got rid of the interference from my monitor/GPU by isolating the Fostex and Kanto speakers away from the outlet the PC uses whilst still having both USB and optical cable running to my PC for input. Leaves me back at square 1 though, I still have that same loud pop noise when a USB input goes to my Fostex and I do something like seek through a YouTube video.

I can't answer for why its only the Kanto speakers that are having this hum off the monitor/GPU, but who cares, fixed it lol.

To put all of this to bed I think I'm just going to be happy with optical in from my PC and I'll stick with phono out and have the Fostex/whatever powered speakers I leave in here isolated. I've got a few outlets I can quite easily work with.

I only bought this DAC because of a friend constantly saying I should use a DAC for headphones rather than put up with motherboard audio. They were right, my headphone use has been amazing since. But I also bought this dac because it could do PC speakers, and that has caused all the headaches lol. Something I wasn't even primarily buying them for!

 

[Audioboxer]

Okay here is something else to chew on, USB from my PC to Fostex but optical out from the Fostex to Kanto YU4. I think the optical out on the Fostex is some sort of passthrough though as volume knob on the Fostex doesn't really work right when using optical out. No speaker popping when seeking videos on YouTube.

Using optical out means if you switch to headphones on the Fostex you get audio on the headphones and audio still plays out of the speakers lol. My other two pairs of powered speakers don't have optical in so I couldn't test this configuration till now.

Tempted to buy this and use it between the phono out on the Fostex and the phono in on the speakers https://www.amazon.co.uk/Behringer-...000KUD2G4/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 See if it gets rid of the pop.

 

[Audioboxer]

Woohoo, finally fixed my issue. The Behringer MICROHD Hum Destroyer HD400 worked. The most important thing is the piercing pop noise is away when skipping youtube videos and so on. This is with USB input and RCA output. No more need for optical.

But as a second added benefit I can even have the speakers/Fostex on the same power outlet as my PC/Monitor and there is no humming or buzzing.

Apart from the HD400 just had to pickup 2 packs of these https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07ZNHQ8LX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 With all the audio cables I have lying around surprisingly I had none of these lol.

Another question for the knowledgeable, one of my friends said the speaker popping could also be clipping? As in because these are powered speakers and have an amp in them they were turned up too high and the Fostex too low. DAC overdriving the amplifier if not configured properly? I do have to say even without the HD400 if I lowered the speaker volume but increased the Fostex volume knob the popping was reduced. I guess this is where a separate DAC/AMP combo would have suited me seeing as I'm trying to run speakers and headphones.

Everything is crystal clear just now though so I'm not touching anything, I'm not buying anything else and I'm happy

 

[davehutch]

Woohoo, finally fixed my issue. The Behringer MICROHD Hum Destroyer HD400 worked. The most important thing is the piercing pop noise is away when skipping youtube videos and so on. This is with USB input and RCA output. No more need for optical.

But as a second added benefit I can even have the speakers/Fostex on the same power outlet as my PC/Monitor and there is no humming or buzzing.

Apart from the HD400 just had to pickup 2 packs of these https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07ZNHQ8LX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 With all the audio cables I have lying around surprisingly I had none of these lol.

Another question for the knowledgeable, one of my friends said the speaker popping could also be clipping? As in because these are powered speakers and have an amp in them they were turned up too high and the Fostex too low. DAC overdriving the amplifier if not configured properly? I do have to say even without the HD400 if I lowered the speaker volume but increased the Fostex volume knob the popping was reduced. I guess this is where a separate DAC/AMP combo would have suited me seeing as I'm trying to run speakers and headphones.

Everything is crystal clear just now though so I'm not touching anything, I'm not buying anything else and I'm happy

Excellent news. Well done for getting to the bottom of it

 

[Audioboxer]

Excellent news. Well done for getting to the bottom of it

lol, I'll be damned if I know what exactly my multitude of issues were, but between a powered USB hub, grounded power supply for the Fostex and a Hum Destroyer HD400 I've got a working setup on this PC between speakers/headphones with all my powered speakers. So the YU4s can go elsewhere now where they can take advantage of bluetooth.

I've learned a bit along the way even if I'm still a total noob to understanding digital and analog audio. I think in regards to the Fostex I've learned it's a top headphone amp (in its price range), but speakers YMMV depending on what you're hooking up. Might be better with a separate DAC/amp if you're wanting to service speakers and headphones.

As I said way back I'm primarily using headphones at the PC but when something isn't working right I get a bit obsessed to find out why and now I've got some decent speaker output at the PC for when the headphones are off

edit - For what it's worth other people seem to be having the popping issue I described with Windows 10 with a range of DACs, motherboards and soundcards https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...-or-clicking-windows-sound-icon.265858/page-2 So who knows if the current builds of Windows 10 are also introducing issues for some if they have other issues that contribute to it (badly wired electrics/etc). One of these days I'll give Linux a punt off USB or something to test what sound defects I can reproduce.

 

[tinkererGCH]

I just got the Fostex HP-A4BL (initially they send me the HP-A4, which I was able to use with USB and Toslink on Arch based Linux). Now I have the Burson Audio Conductor 160D and that works out of the box with the USB.
The Problem with both Fostex is, when plugged in (BL giving power and powered USB) the 44.1 LED is red flashing. Both have the lastest Firmware V1.1. Annoyingly with Windows 11 they work, but I hate Windows. Both Fostex are being detected by Linux and I can choose between USB and Optical (currently not usable for me). When I do the audio test (left, right speaker) those are being done but no sound.
I am using pulseaudio and alsa. in Alsamixer it shows for the Fostex ("This sound cevice does not have any controls"). but that would mean it cannot being controlled, the buttons and volume itself are physically there and can work with. Also that means no playback, because the 44.1 LED is flashing red. DMESG shows also the devices when plugged in.

Any ideas on what to check is appreciated. I will get next analog RCA converter to optical and will see if that works.

 

[Deleeh]

I believe that the Hb 4 does not need a driver and is powered by USB.
The Hp 4 BL comes with a power supply and needs a driver, I think, but the Hb 4 does not.
The question is whether it is Linux capable at all.

The Hp 3,4,4BL devices are relatively old.
I think from 2012, the technology in headphone amplifiers was not as far as today's and also not fully friendly to different operating systems.

Have a look at the manual.
If necessary, contact Fostex customer support, even if they are sometimes strange.

I had the Hp 3 A and it worked without problems and was the best of the 3 headphone amplifiers.

I also had both units from the 4 series and they sounded strange and I also had problems with one unit under Windows although it was compatible.

Does Linux actually recognise the Hp4 Bl or not?
Sometimes you have to be able to select the device somewhere in the system that it should do the sound output, maybe that helps under the audio settings.

 

[tinkererGCH]

Fostex HP-4A worked with USB and optical before getting the Burson Audio Conductor. now Fostex HP-4A( and BL) are being deteced by Linux correctly as USB (currently do not have othe ptical option). Now the moment they have power the 44.1Khz LED is flashing and keeps flashing, even when detected by Linux and selecting the USB Audio. But noaudio is coming out. In Windows 11 they work out of the box unfortunately

 

[tinkererGCH]

I solved the issues for both Fostex HP-A4 units. I was looking into using pipewire and replacing pulseaudio. Found some good videos ArcoLinux : 2515 How to switch from pulseaudio to pipewire and back - sound server .
running inxi -F I saw that Sound API: ALSA, Sound Server: pulseaudio AND also pipewire were running. So I uninstall everything related to pulseaudio, did a reboot and VIOLA both Fostex HP-A4 are now working with USB.