Hi, I am using M23 ver 84 playing from my Rpi to my DAC via USB cable. Everything worked reasonably well when I had it on my secondary system. However when I moved it to my primary system I am getting occasional crackles and pops in the music playback. It is more noticeable in the high res music (192). The main difference between the two set ups is that the same DAC is now connected via balanced cables to a pre-amp which in turn is connected balanced to my Bryston amp feeding better speakers. In my secondary set-up the DAC was connected to a Denon receiver and then to speakers.
Any ideas on what may be the issue?
To eliminate the possibility that the change to balanced cables feeding the pre-amp from the Bryston BDA-W DAC, I swapped back in RCA cables. This made, to me, no perceptible difference. The crackling remains. The crackling is more prominent at the beginning of songs.
Turns out the solution was rather simple. It seems when I moved my rpi to the main floor I connected (wired) it to my primary network instead of my secondary network. This seems to mean that the music files were being transmitted by wifi instead of a wired connection. I changed the wired connection back to my secondary network and the crackles and pops are gone.