NFB-11 issues? Or am I using it wrong?

[Doku]

I guess it could be my speakers turning on and off all the time... I'll plug in some headphones and see if that's the case. It was a common complaint about the Alpha 65s. 
 
But to be clear, they weren't doing this connected straight to the onboard audio. 

 

[cel4145]

What I would suggest is take a step back in your reasoning. So far, you have been attributing your problems to the NFB-11. If you bias yourself that way, it will make it harder to figure out problems you have, like with the USB 3.0, which is an issue with many DACs and some computers (I understand USB 3.0 hardware is often not quite perfectly implemented). Many people have NO problems with the NFB-11. There were problems with the older drivers in previous models back before May 2014. You don't have that model.

I just looked it up. Your speakers have auto on/off for power saving. So it's by design. Maybe there's a way to turn that off. Maybe if you turn up the gain on the back of the speakers, they'll be more sensitive to the signal they are getting from the NFB-11 and stay on. Maybe they were staying on plugged into your computer because of some very low level noise that pushed their auto on/off threshold, whereas the NFB-11 puts out a cleaner output. But it's your speakers that are the problem.

 

[Doku]

So I started using the Optical output on my computer's sound card for normal day to day computer sound needs and letting JRiver take control of the DAC directly via USB when I want to listen to just music. This avoids all the aforementioned problems. I set the optical to 24-bit / 96khz which is great. 
 
However, I do want to say that even through headphones, the initial few seconds of sound are very muted and the DAC makes an audible click when music starts playing before you can actually hear it. This, again, doesn't happen with the optical input. 
 
As I said way earlier, I am running Windows 10 Preview, so any number of factors could cause this. 
 
I booted into Mac OS X on my PC (Hackintosh) and OS X doesn't recognize the device over USB cause it's missing some kext that my laptop has. Still tracing that down, but Optical works great in Mac OS X as well. So no worries. 

 

[cel4145]

However, I do want to say that even through headphones, the initial few seconds of sound are very muted and the DAC makes an audible click when music starts playing before you can actually hear it. This, again, doesn't happen with the optical input. 

As I said way earlier, I am running Windows 10 Preview, so any number of factors could cause this. 

I didn't realize you were using Windows 10 Preview. I'm guessing it's better than Windows 8/8.1 (although perhaps not as stable yet). I'm sure you know the rumor of the two team development cycle at MS: Windows 98 (good)/Windows ME(bad)/Windows XP(good)/Windows Vista (bad)/Windows 7 (good)/Windows 8/8.1 (bad). So the good team should be up now

 

[Doku]

I have no idea what happened, but the Audio-gd started showing up in Mac OS X on my Hackintosh. All good at 32-bit 384k. :O Optical as a backup still works fine too. 

 

[cel4145]

Your Mac must be mad at you because you've been playing with Windows 10 :etysmile:

 

[Doku]

Your Mac must be mad at you because you've been playing with Windows 10

Ha!
 
Well, even on Mac OS X, when I play through USB the DAC seems to click off when there is no sound. Really strange, but the good thing is I can just use the Optical for the system sounds and when I open up JRiver or whatever I can tell it to use the USB device directly. There is no popping or any audio issues at all in Mac OS X other than that issue. I can take a video of it but it basically makes the USB unusable for system audio cause every time there is a email notification or whatever, the system will DAC audibly click on play nothing (cause the sound was so short) then click back off. If I constantly have something playing it works fine though. I'm certain it isn't the speakers because it happens over plugged in headphones as well. 
 
Anyway, not a huge deal cause the optical works flawlessly. But I would love to turn off the onboard sound entirely and just use the USB.

 

[cel4145]

You should try asking in the NFB-11 thread. Share your MAC configuration setup, and see if anyone can explain what causes that: http://www.head-fi.org/t/624517/audio-gd-nfb-11-32-nfb-11-2014-delivery-impression-thread

I always go to the owners threads with a situation like this

 

[Doku]

So, all of my problems were related to the Active Mute switch on the back. This was set to "active mute" design. It was actively muting the sound when there was no audio. This was to avoid a popping sound between DSD tracks. The first few seconds of sound would be muted until it came on. Now that I turned off the Active Mute it's great. In Mac OS X I used the Audio MIDI setup to set the output format to 32-bit 384Khz.
 
Now I'm super happy!