nyc_paramedic
Head-Fier
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2008
- Posts
- 97
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- 1
I am need of some serious help with audio dropouts.
I recently started to rip my entire collection to FLAC. I had also ordered a HagUSB USB to S/PDIF converter. The HagUSB was connected to an older Dell P3 (700Mhz and 384MB RAM) that was setup as a headless server running MPD (music player daemon, with and witout 100% buffer to RAM options). The DAC is my trusty 8 year old Adcom GDA-700 which has been reliably paired to a Theta Data Basic transport. The Linux server is properly setup so that the USB audio driver bypasses all ALSA mixing and/or upsampling.
Music sounds really good this way. Better than using the Theta transport, which is something I was not expecting at all.
My problem is this: The Adcom loses lock sporadically. No rhyme or reason. Sometimes three to four times in one song. Sometimes not for an hour on end. But invariably I lose lock which results in audio dropouts. I can tell it's "lock loss" because you can hear the relay in the DAC click. Sometimes one really quick click, sometime three to four in a row. The same relay click I hear when the DAC is changing digital inputs or sampling frequencies.
I emailed Jim Hagerman of HagTech and we did these experiments:
Use foobar under Windows on my desktop (with a really good UPS) machine.
Use my Linux laptop with several music players.
No change.
Jim did ask me to use the headphone output with phones or connected to preamp thus bypassing the Adcom DAC. Using the internal PCM DAC of the HagUSB there was not one dropout after several hours listening. Jim did mention that a very small percentage of his customers had "power issues", but he did not elaborate. Thinking that maybe the HagUSB was deficient because of the 5v it pulls from the USb port...
I went ahead and ordered a Trends Audio UD-10 USB-S/PDIF converter which can be externally powered. Short story: Using the USB's 5V, a wall wart, or the battery pack I get the same loss of lock.
Not once in 8 years have I ever had this happen using the Theta transport.
So, can anyone here make any suggestions? Am I missing something? I will eventually go to a true USB DAC, but I did want to use my trusty Adcom for the time being.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
P.S. I did recently acquire a Meridian 518 (basically a re clocker/jitter reducer) digital processor (for a great price!!!) and still have the dropouts.
I recently started to rip my entire collection to FLAC. I had also ordered a HagUSB USB to S/PDIF converter. The HagUSB was connected to an older Dell P3 (700Mhz and 384MB RAM) that was setup as a headless server running MPD (music player daemon, with and witout 100% buffer to RAM options). The DAC is my trusty 8 year old Adcom GDA-700 which has been reliably paired to a Theta Data Basic transport. The Linux server is properly setup so that the USB audio driver bypasses all ALSA mixing and/or upsampling.
Music sounds really good this way. Better than using the Theta transport, which is something I was not expecting at all.
My problem is this: The Adcom loses lock sporadically. No rhyme or reason. Sometimes three to four times in one song. Sometimes not for an hour on end. But invariably I lose lock which results in audio dropouts. I can tell it's "lock loss" because you can hear the relay in the DAC click. Sometimes one really quick click, sometime three to four in a row. The same relay click I hear when the DAC is changing digital inputs or sampling frequencies.
I emailed Jim Hagerman of HagTech and we did these experiments:
Use foobar under Windows on my desktop (with a really good UPS) machine.
Use my Linux laptop with several music players.
No change.
Jim did ask me to use the headphone output with phones or connected to preamp thus bypassing the Adcom DAC. Using the internal PCM DAC of the HagUSB there was not one dropout after several hours listening. Jim did mention that a very small percentage of his customers had "power issues", but he did not elaborate. Thinking that maybe the HagUSB was deficient because of the 5v it pulls from the USb port...
I went ahead and ordered a Trends Audio UD-10 USB-S/PDIF converter which can be externally powered. Short story: Using the USB's 5V, a wall wart, or the battery pack I get the same loss of lock.
Not once in 8 years have I ever had this happen using the Theta transport.
So, can anyone here make any suggestions? Am I missing something? I will eventually go to a true USB DAC, but I did want to use my trusty Adcom for the time being.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
P.S. I did recently acquire a Meridian 518 (basically a re clocker/jitter reducer) digital processor (for a great price!!!) and still have the dropouts.
