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[terrys999]

Could anyone tell me why playing sacd produces slight background hiss?

Setup.
I am playing sacd ISO contents from laptop using jriver.
I am streaming dsd, to my arcam irdac 2, USB
Cables used:

high speed usb.

CHORD COMPANY
C-LINE 0.5M

The chord c line is from arcam to Cambridge cxa 80.
I have noticed a slight background hiss,
I have checked the settings in jriver, dsd stream is on, native dac on,
JRiver tells me no processing.

Now the hiss is very faint.  Could this be from the mastering??
Arcam support verified that the irdac 2 plays dsd 64-128 native, no dop is needed.

Would appreciate any feed back.
Thank you in advance.

[Spike1000]

How does it compare to playback from the original disc?

Spike

[terrys999]

I really don't know.
A friends gave me copies from his sacd rips.
I am opening sacd isos with jriver.

If i play the contents of sacd (dsf) from external hard drive to my Cambridge cxn, hiss has gone. I have a feeling that USB is to blame.
I suspect interference from my laptop.

Going to have a rethink.

[kr4]

How old is the source material?  Perhaps the hiss is in the original.

[terri ball]

If you can pin it down to USB (as was the case in my setup) you might want to have a look at this gadget:
http://hifimediy.com/high-speed-usb-isolator-480Mbps

I've ordered one, but it's still on backorder, so I can't tell you first-hand how it performs yet.

[Awesome Donkey]

For that price, I'd just add $20 more and go for the Schiit Wyrd.

[terrys999]

Hi all
I have done more tests.
I thought it may be the USB causing the hiss,  but I think it is the laptop power brick.
I noticed when I remover the charger,  hiss has gone. There are a few exceptions.

I noticed that old recordings still have the hiss, others have played ok.

Does it need a ferrite core fitted?

The charged battery lasts around 2 hrs, on low power etc.. (it's a new battery).

[JimH]

You might be able to use Windows Control Panel > Power to set up a lower power mode.  Lowering the brightness of the screen will help a lot.  Turning the screen off after 30 seconds, etc.

Sometimes background processes like Skype can use power.

Most laptops should get 5 or 6 hours on a charge.

[terrys999]

I have changed windows settings,
Screen off 1 min.
I have even lowered the cpu usage to 60%.
Then opened task manager and ended all tasks that are using more than 1% cpu.

Basically it's a fresh install of win 8.1.

I build computers has an hobby, so iam sure there's nothing draining the battery,

It is something to do with streaming dsd from jriver.
JRiver while running is using 28% cpu.

I tried foobar but I cannot get it to stream dsd to irdac, using arcam driver, it refuses to play.

But your right ,  battery should last a lot longer.
Tried another battery, same thing.

[Awesome Donkey]

Is the 28% while playing DSD, or while idle? If while idle try disabling auto-import, analyze audio, build thumbnails, get cover art, etc. and see if the battery improves then.

You can also see what tasks are running in the background by going to Help > System Info... and looking under Background Tools Running.

[dtc]

As an experiment, you might convert one of the iso files to dsf using iso2dsd and see if that makes any difference.

[syndromeofadown]

Maybe unrelated, but years ago I had all sorts of humming and pops coming through my stereo.
Problem was cheap devices all through my system. One culprit was my 400 dollar Toshiba laptop with dinky little power supply. Typically having a DAC with its own power supply will eliminate laptop power noise. I didn't have one. My stereo also emitted a hum while my fridge was running, and a pop when it started and stopped. These noises happened whether music was playing or not. After upgrading all parts of my system I haven't had any hums, even while running my system off a cheap inverter. I still witness similar hums when visiting friends with cheap stereos. None of my upgrades were crazy expensive, just to decent equipment. All have high quality power supplies.

So in short, one cheap component could be causing you trouble (Like a wall wart for a DAC, or a puny laptop charger, or a cheap amp).

[terri ball]

Slightly off topic by now...

For that price, I'd just add $20 more and go for the Schiit Wyrd.

That was on my shortlist (I owe a Shiit Loki), but over here in Europe the price difference is more like $50. Have you been able to compare both units?