[ddlo]

Just stumbled into an annoying situation when i upgraded my old nuc8i7hvk to nuc12dcmi9 last week.

everything runs without issue and i got the latest topping driver v5.30 installed. but when i enjoyed music via either tidal or spotify or even youtube on browser, there is low level intermittent minor popping sounds (occurring quite frequently like every 10s or so) with my @TOPPING d90 as output. i tried different usb ports and even moved to a usb hub but the problem still persists. using tidal, i can see the sampling rate was changing or jumping between MQA/PCM modes when playing MQA songs and when the popping occurs. i hence believe it's a problem associated with sync/timing issue of usb? more strange, there is no popping if i switch to my schiit jotunheim R w/multidac setup which use generic MS usb audio driver!

i did some search on the web and seems this is a quite common issue. changing the sampling rate or buffer size in the topping driver didnt help. I saw many analysis but could not identify a definite solution so far (except a suggestion to disable PCIe 4.0).

Just wonder if anyone could offer some help and idea how to solve this? Thanks!

update1: i just plugged in my usb dongle dchifi tc44c. again no pooping sound issue at all! so it seems it's more like a driver issue with my d90? i've tried swapping the usb cable of jot R and d90 to eliminate the possibility of cable problem and it's not cable dependent.

 

[dunring]

You could check for conflicts in Autoruns from Microsoft which in the startup section shows everything that's loading. Good way to see if anything you don't use is loading or some driver that didn't completely uninstall.
With some topping dacs I had to install the older specific driver for them, and then upgrade to the universal 5.3 for it to identify it correctly. It's unlikely the cause but I'd do it anyway, go to device manager and disable the power management check box for all your USB hubs and ports. For audio, reducing power to USB is the last headache you need.

 

[gregorio]

using tidal, i can see the sampling rate was changing or jumping between MQA/PCM modes when playing MQA songs and when the popping occurs. i hence believe it's a problem associated with sync/timing issue of usb?

Sorry, but that makes no sense to me. If you can see the unit jumping between MQA/PCM when the popping occurs, why would you “hence believe” it’s a sync/timing issue of USB rather than an issue of your D90 jumping between MQA and PCM?

What you’ve described indicates that either the data being sent to your DAC is incorrect or your DAC is reading the data incorrectly. If it were the latter, there would probably be a lot of complaints from other owners and probably a firmware upgrade to fix it. It’s worth checking but I’m not sure there are lots of complaints, so most likely it’s the data being sent to the DAC that’s the issue and as mentioned by dunring, probably the first place to look would be the driver version/installation and if that’s not it, some MS setting.

G

 

[ddlo]

Sorry, but that makes no sense to me. If you can see the unit jumping between MQA/PCM when the popping occurs, why would you “hence believe” it’s a sync/timing issue of USB rather than an issue of your D90 jumping between MQA and PCM?

What you’ve described indicates that either the data being sent to your DAC is incorrect or your DAC is reading the data incorrectly. If it were the latter, there would probably be a lot of complaints from other owners and probably a firmware upgrade to fix it. It’s worth checking but I’m not sure there are lots of complaints, so most likely it’s the data being sent to the DAC that’s the issue and as mentioned by dunring, probably the first place to look would be the driver version/installation and if that’s not it, some MS setting.

G

i guess that way because before upgrading my desktop, everything works smoothly without issue (and even now i have no popping with Jot R and usb dongles L&P W2 and ddHifi tc4C). I'm not saying that would be a firmware issue but suspect that might be just another compatibility issue of computer components (just all too often!). i saw one reddit thread on similar issue suggesting that disabling pcie 4.0 will help and i'm trying to figuring out how i can do that too to try.

btw, i chose to shoot the video clip using mqa title because the display clearly shown the problematic moments. if i chose other pcm sources, even the sampling rate is locked perfectly, the popping still occurs. so my guess it's a data syncing/timing issue here.

for driver version, i tried topping's 5.30 (latest) and 4.82 (both works without a hitch with my old desktop). sadly both versions have the same popping problem.

Update - problem solved! on the D90 thread, i got the advice to attempt removing the driver altogether. in short, this works!

 

[gregorio]

If it were a USB sync/timing issue then you would most likely have the same problem with your other USB DACs. As your problem is only with the D90, that indicates it’s not a problem with USB but a problem specific to the D90, the D90 itself or it’s driver.

Update - problem solved! on the D90 thread, i got the advice to attempt removing the driver altogether. in short, this works!

So a driver then. Glad you got it sorted!

G