[hauntingtheholy]

  I think we have the same case, thou i use a Nuforce u-Dac before.
the clipping/popping sound happens almost every 10 seconds the music stop and starts again
it could be the USB port not giving enough power to your DAC since the original MODI is Usb powered.
you might try to buy this : http://schiit.com/products/wyrd (but no guarantee it could fix the clipping)
or better upgrade your dac with dedicated power supply not usb powered.

Hi.   
 
Yes, it clips/pops every 20 seconds or so for me.  What did you do to fix that problem for yourself?  Did you just replace the Nuforce Dac with something else?
 
As for the Wyrd product from Schiit, I'm not giving them a dime if this is really the modi's fault.  lol.  But I have yet to prove that, so we will see.  If did want to buy a "usb power isolator" I found one on Ebay for half the cost of the Wyrd.  I wonder what Head-fi'ers think of it?  Check it out:  http://www.ebay.com/itm/Full-speed-USB-2-0-isolator-with-build-in-power-transfer-2-/161448039898?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item25970d95da
 
I'd like to point out that I can watch HD YOUTUBE videos all day without having any Jitter/Popping whatsoever.  Does that make any sense?  Maybe the arugment being made that it's a "USB bandwidth" issue comes into play b/c my 320 mp3's are more intensive than youtube?  But how does one increase their USB bandwidth?

 

[heishiro]

^ I cannot fix it, no problem playing songs in youtube but i cannot play flac with foobar
I just purchase an Nuforce Icon Dac (amp/dac combo) solved the prob and sounds very sweet with the HD600.

 

[ToddTheMetalGod]

Hi.   

Yes, it clips/pops every 20 seconds or so for me.  What did you do to fix that problem for yourself?  Did you just replace the Nuforce Dac with something else?

As for the Wyrd product from Schiit, I'm not giving them a dime if this is really the modi's fault.  lol.  But I have yet to prove that, so we will see.  If did want to buy a "usb power isolator" I found one on Ebay for half the cost of the Wyrd.  I wonder what Head-fi'ers think of it?  Check it out:  http://www.ebay.com/itm/Full-speed-USB-2-0-isolator-with-build-in-power-transfer-2-/161448039898?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item25970d95da

I'd like to point out that I can watch HD YOUTUBE videos all day without having any Jitter/Popping whatsoever.  Does that make any sense?  Maybe the arugment being made that it's a "USB bandwidth" issue comes into play b/c my 320 mp3's are more intensive than youtube?  But how does one increase their USB bandwidth?

Hmm, weird. It may be a problem with the media player you're using, maybe it's configured wrong. Is it your recordings perhaps? I don't think it's a hardware issue if Youtube is working perfectly fine.

 

[buldogge]

   
Just to be clear:  You've got the Music Hall 25.3 hooked up to your macbook Pro and it works without "Jitter" - yes?  I'm unfamiliar with this but I assume it's a DAC/amp combo.  This is some evidence that it is indeed the Modi, no?

In my case it is not an USB issue.  I'm running optical from the Macbook....it's a hardware/driver compatability issue.  The jitter/bandwith issue is basically the same thing though...the computer is doing all kinds of tasks and doesn't "keep up" with the task of streaming the music file...specifiy a lower rate and it works (in my case).  The conflict does not exist with the Music Hall hardware, only with the Little Dot.  
 
I use the LD off my iMac now, thru USB...44/16, no issues.
 
Since you have a PC..I would try different drivers/software...
 
I don't have an answer unfortunately, just hoped my issue could open an avenue to explore for yours.
 
-Mark

 

[hypersonic]

I have the exact same issue, and I am pretty sure there's nothing wrong with the dac. It is a computer issue. I have audio dropouts(hard to describe, like from time to time the audio get stuck for 0.1 sec and continue) too. And that's since I have asynchronous usb dac. It happens to me with both two async dac i have. You can investigate on latency level of your pc. (google audio+latency) I did but yet to find a solution.

 

[hauntingtheholy]

I have the exact same issue, and I am pretty sure there's nothing wrong with the dac. It is a computer issue. I have audio dropouts(hard to describe, like from time to time the audio get stuck for 0.1 sec and continue) too. And that's since I have asynchronous usb dac. It happens to me with both two async dac i have. You can investigate on latency level of your pc. (google audio+latency) I did but yet to find a solution.

Interesting.  Obviously, that fits my problem as well since I just got the new laptop.  I switched form GOM to FOOBAR audio player, and this had no effect on the "Jitter" - we'll call it.   Please let us know what you discover moving forward and I'll of course be doing the same.  I have a 90-day warranty.  I wonder if this is something I can claim for repair and have it work? It just seems like it ought to be fixable myself, though.... 

 

[hauntingtheholy]

 
In my case it is not an USB issue.  I'm running optical from the Macbook....it's a hardware/driver compatability issue.  The jitter/bandwith issue is basically the same thing though...the computer is doing all kinds of tasks and doesn't "keep up" with the task of streaming the music file...specifiy a lower rate and it works (in my case).  The conflict does not exist with the Music Hall hardware, only with the Little Dot.  
 
I use the LD off my iMac now, thru USB...44/16, no issues.
 
Since you have a PC..I would try different drivers/software...
 
I don't have an answer unfortunately, just hoped my issue could open an avenue to explore for yours.
 
-Mark

Yes, thanks for the suggestions, though!  Switching to FooBar didn't help.  Different drivers?  The modi auto-DLs it's own driver, as far as I know.  

 

[hypersonic]

  Interesting.  Obviously, that fits my problem as well since I just got the new laptop.  I switched form GOM to FOOBAR audio player, and this had no effect on the "Jitter" - we'll call it.   Please let us know what you discover moving forward and I'll of course be doing the same.  I have a 90-day warranty.  I wonder if this is something I can claim for repair and have it work? It just seems like it ought to be fixable myself, though.... 

ok, maybe I'll talk in detail.
Player: foobar ASIO
My issue is not as severe as yours. The stuttering only happens like every 10 mins or so, but not in a regular interval. Sometimes it happens after half an hour. At that time, I just bought a new DAC, and thought it was the culprit. But after some googling I found many people have the same issue. My old DAC has no asynchronous transfer so this never happened to me. What I've tried:
 
1. Buffer setting
The dedicated driver has various buffer setting. Sadly no matter large or small buffer the same issue happens from time to time. Did the same on foobar but no good. 
 
2. USB port
I plug the DAC directly to the laptop, no hub was used. Tried different ports but nope.
 
3. USB power issue
My DAC has it's own power supply. So it's not the case
 
4. Computer not fast enough/high load
Definitely no. It happens even when foobar is the only thing running. My laptop has quad-core i7, 16 GB of RAM and sports 2 SSD in RAID 0 (also tried single SSD), so data throughput is not the cause
 
5. "Optimizing" windows
Tried basically all the suggestions I could find. Disabling all other audio devices, exclusive mode on and off, priority setting, energy profiles, hard drive(SSD though) never sleeps, CPU keeps 100%, disabling turbo boost, playing music from another SSD (not boot drive)......basically everything. No use.
 
6. Latency monitor
Used latency mon to find out latency. Now it's interesting. I did find some other drivers running in background caused latency spikes. But they are all crucial drivers like the display or USB driver, so I can't uninstall them just for audio. And also, aren't asynchronous USB is supposed to tackle latency issue? On the web, people having this problem aren't necessarily using async. transfer.
 
7. Using another computer. I tried a macbook with ANOTHER dac with async usb. The other DAC doesn't seem to have this issue. But I spotted a stutter once. Really once only. So is it hardware problem of the DAC? I don't think so. See below the last thing
 
8. The manufacturer of my trouble DAC has two version of drivers. I have been using the older version since it was suggested as the stable one. But after trying the newer one instead, the issue happens much, much less frequently. From this, my guess of the reason would be a driver issue. Of course the computer can contribute to the problem in some way, but since the stutter doesn't happen a lot it's hard to investigate. 
 
Conclusion:
My problem doesn't happen regularly. So it can be related to random background processes running in the computer. But most of the case these processes are important so there is no solution. A good driver seems to relieve the problem but it depends to the manufacturer, unless you can write your own driver. I've stopped looking up for this.
THERE ARE STILL MANY THINGS TO EXPERIMENT.
Something like uninstalling USB3 driver, fiddling with display driver (someone said it is related)....
If you find anything please let everyone know so poor people like us don't have to suffer. 

 

[hauntingtheholy]

@hypersonic - Thanks for that post, you've brought a couple things to my attention.  I'm gonna have to retest my Modi with another system.  I satisfy most of your points, brand new laptop, etc.  Modi does not have it's own powersource, but who cares??  It should work!  heh.  I'm a bit irritated with it at this point.  Amazingly, the problem seems to be occurring less often now, and I don't think I made any changes.  But each time I hear it, which is often enough, it just ruins everything.  I have a 90-day warranty of laptop, return period on groupon just ended.  I am thinking of just Lemon-Lawing the damn thing.  I don't even know how that works, and it'd be another research project.  I just wanna hear clean music.  *pukes*
 
Best of luck and keep us posted

 

[hauntingtheholy]

My problem has been 95% solved, and it's sort of embarassing as to how:  I simply had utorrent running in the background uploading 1.1MB per second.  I've listened to three 320 mp3s on Foobar thus far and only had ONE skip/jitter and I am using the comp the whole time, not just sitting here.  So to all of you who said "Make sure the comp is doing as little as possible" - I think you got it.  Seems crazy, though, as I did not have this problem on my 2008 PC but my new laptop, with superior specs.  *shrug*  I'll post another update if anything goes wrong, but I think I have solved my problem.
 
I don't guess you made a similar oversight, @hypersonic?

 

[heishiro]

  My problem has been 95% solved, and it's sort of embarassing as to how:  I simply had utorrent running in the background uploading 1.1MB per second.

 
 
O.M.G

 

[ToddTheMetalGod]

My problem has been 95% solved, and it's sort of embarassing as to how:  I simply had utorrent running in the background uploading 1.1MB per second.  I've listened to three 320 mp3s on Foobar thus far and only had ONE skip/jitter and I am using the comp the whole time, not just sitting here.  So to all of you who said "Make sure the comp is doing as little as possible" - I think you got it.  Seems crazy, though, as I did not have this problem on my 2008 PC but my new laptop, with superior specs.  *shrug*  I'll post another update if anything goes wrong, but I think I have solved my problem.

I don't guess you made a similar oversight, @hypersonic
?

New versions of UTorrent has been found to have a Crypto-currency miner in it, I'd suggest uninstalling it and replacing it with Deluge or qBittorrent. https://torrentfreak.com/utorrent-quietly-installs-riskware-bitcoin-miner-users-report-150306/

That's likely why you were getting jitter, it may have been using your CPU to mine (assuming you have a newly updated version). Or maybe you were seeding, either way I felt compelled to warn you .

 

[hypersonic]

Congrats for having the problem solved!
My tests were done without any internet connection(even the wlan card is disabled), so it wasn't the case.
Anyway thanks for sharing your findings