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[tvr2500m]

I am making the move to computer-served audio. I got a Halide DAC HD. Just to give it a quick try, I hooked it up to my everyday laptop PC; a Dell XPS 17 running Win 10, i7 processor, lots of RAM (14GB), lots of available hard disc space (about 500GB of 1TB free).

The DAC works just fine. My initial sense it that it doesn't better what I've got, which is a very pure Kusunoki-san filterless, non-oversampling DAC. I arrived at this DAC after listening to a broad range of DACs. I was curious to how it would compare with the MUCH later and more current technology of the Halide. I haven't tried yet feeding the filterless/NOS DAC from a computer yet, it's still fed from a transport.

The Halide can be VERY good, and it's easy - just plug it in. NOW, I haven't done anything to optimize the PC, which is my everyday use PC, in anyway for music playback. I've used J River, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, and Spotify. I've tried all kinds of music formats. I plan on using J River as my primary media center.

So, I'm ready to dig in and tweak and tune. I do have a good desktop machine currently collecting dust I plan to use as a music-only server. I get that ideally I want the music server to only be doing the duties required to serve music.

ONE thing is a bit concerning. Every once in a while a I get a crackle or pop from the speakers. It's sometimes quite loud. It's noise generated by the PC, but is there something can do to eliminate this right now on the Dell XPS laptop so I can begin to enjoy and learn about this using this machine?

Thanks!

[glynor]

Every once in a while a I get a crackle or pop from the speakers. It's sometimes quite loud. It's noise generated by the PC,

This is extremely unlikely to be noise from the PC (unless your Power Supply is badly damaged and shunting current into the motherboard at random, which I would expect to make it also not boot and maybe smoke a bit).

This is likely an issue specific to that DAC, and you may need specific settings for it (or a driver from the manufacturer). See:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Audio_Troubleshooting_Guide

[Zhillsguy]

I am making the move to computer-served audio. I got a Halide DAC HD. Just to give it a quick try, I hooked it up to my everyday laptop PC; a Dell XPS 17 running Win 10, i7 processor, lots of RAM (14GB), lots of available hard disc space (about 500GB of 1TB free).

The DAC works just fine. My initial sense it that it doesn't better what I've got, which is a very pure Kusunoki-san filterless, non-oversampling DAC. I arrived at this DAC after listening to a broad range of DACs. I was curious to how it would compare with the MUCH later and more current technology of the Halide. I haven't tried yet feeding the filterless/NOS DAC from a computer yet, it's still fed from a transport.

The Halide can be VERY good, and it's easy - just plug it in. NOW, I haven't done anything to optimize the PC, which is my everyday use PC, in anyway for music playback. I've used J River, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, and Spotify. I've tried all kinds of music formats. I plan on using J River as my primary media center.

So, I'm ready to dig in and tweak and tune. I do have a good desktop machine currently collecting dust I plan to use as a music-only server. I get that ideally I want the music server to only be doing the duties required to serve music.

ONE thing is a bit concerning. Every once in a while a I get a crackle or pop from the speakers. It's sometimes quite loud. It's noise generated by the PC, but is there something can do to eliminate this right now on the Dell XPS laptop so I can begin to enjoy and learn about this using this machine?

Thanks!

Something worth a try if glynor's recommendation doesn't work... use a two-prong AC adapter for your laptop power supply. This is the ONLY application I would ever recommend using one. I use one on my laptop to reduce ground loop generated noise at my house (washer/dryer, light switches, etc.). An easy check.... unplug the power supply.....if it helps, the adapter will. YMMV of course.....

[fooze]

So, I'm ready to dig in and tweak and tune. I do have a good desktop machine currently collecting dust I plan to use as a music-only server. I get that ideally I want the music server to only be doing the duties required to serve music.

That's a strange idea. Serving music takes very few resources, it seems wasteful to set aside a whole computer exclusively for this purpose.

Why not try your DAC on this machine and see if the popping continues?

[glynor]

use a two-prong AC adapter for your laptop power supply. This is the ONLY application I would ever recommend using one. I use one on my laptop to reduce ground loop generated noise at my house (washer/dryer, light switches, etc.).

Going through to an external DAC?

From the description, we're not even talking audiophile-land "it might be impacting the playback airy quality" or whatever. These are, as described, loud audible cracks and pops.

If it is caused by power supply, voltage is dumping across the USB bus, which means it is running rampant across the motherboard traces. It might be possible, sure, but... I'd think you'd be pretty likely to fry your DAC right after plugging it in. Or the CPU, which contains the USB controller of course!

If we were talking about onboard audio from Realtek, or the built-in speakers on the laptop, sure. Anything with analog circuits. But, USB isn't analog. If power supply is corrupting the data on the USB bus, and it is uncorrectable, then things are going very, very badly on that machine, and you can't trust the RAM or the CPU or the chipset or any of it. You should be having all sorts of problems. Or, if the USB bus on the PC is operating within spec, and the DAC is still flipping out because of power fluctuations, then the DAC is busted (maybe you got a bad sample), not the PC's power supply.

I'd suspect the power supply on the DAC itself to be faulty first, for sure, if it is power supply. But it probably isn't. Cracks and Pops are a thing that happens with touchy boutique DACs, if you don't get them set up right. It is probably fixable with some settings tweaks (probably one of the buffer settings), or a proper driver.

[tvr2500m]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I've worked through some of the settings and things seem to have been cleared up.

Thanks, again.