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[LP Audiophile]

I wonder if anyone has any ideas here.

When I change tracks, start a new track or pause, I generally hear a split-second electrical pop sound. The music plays fine, there are no extraneous sounds during the music, just when I transition, let's call it, between tracks or between playing and not playing.

My CDs have been ripped to a NAS (QNAP). I store MC 26's library on my laptop. So from my laptop I direct the NAS to play to a DLNA streamer (SOTM) and then through USB to a DAC and on to a preamp etc.

I have in the past used minim server with an Android device as well as ROON with my same streamer/setup without any electrical snap sounds, so I am pretty sure the cause is not from the streamer on. It just seems to happen with MC (and all versions from 22 to 26).

I think in my setup all the buffers and so on are disengaged, so I don't think there is anything I can do there.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[JimH]

Try using MC's DSP Studio > Output Settings to force everything to one bitrate and sample rate.  The sound is probably coming fro the DAC when the formats change.

[LP Audiophile]

When I try DSP Studio I get the message "DSP Studio is only available for local zones".

When the formats change, I hear a (louder) mechanical sounding click directly from my DAC (a Schitt Yggydrasil) rather than an electrical sort of snap through my speakers.

The electrical snap is not nearly as pronounced when I hit "pause". So maybe I just need to hit pause before changing tracks rather than going from one track that is playing to double clicking on another track(?)

The electrical snap is not so loud as to have my worried I am going to blow my speakers or anything, but it is a bit annoying and seems to suggest something is not right.

Any other thoughts?

Thanks!

[Awesome Donkey]

Pretty sure this is caused by the DAC like Jim said, it usually happens when changing formats (e.g. switching between different bit-depths and sample rates, etc.).

The only way around it if this is indeed the case is to dither/resample everything to the same bit-depth and sample rate. You can try it as a test and see if the pop/snap goes away and if it does, it's most definitely the DAC and there's probably nothing you can do about it except dithering/resampling.

[blgentry]

I would be quite surprised if a Schiit Yggydrasil "popped" when switching sample rates.  My far less expensive Schiit DACs do not do this.

Tomcurrie, you have a LOT of things in your chain.  It's kinda hard to troubleshoot with so many devices.

First are you connecting MC to your NAS as a file share?  Or are you using DLNA?  You should be using it as a pure file share and NOT using is as a DLNA device so that MC actually plays the audio, as opposed to the operating system inside the NAS playing the audio.

You might consider, as a test, bypassing your SOTM device and directly connecting your laptop to the USB input on your Yggydrasil.  That should eliminate quite a few connections and tell you if there's some fundamental problem.  A direct connection would also allow you to use DSP Studio if you wanted to try isolating to a single sample rate as the others have suggested.

Good luck.

Brian.

[LP Audiophile]

Thanks for your thoughts everyone.

Bigentry:

When you ask if I am connecting MC to my NAS as a file share, I am not sure what that means.

I have selected tools/options/media network/use media network to share this library and enable DLNA. I then selected the audiophile 24-bit DAC server choice. So MC stores the library but I understood (or guessed) that MC is telling the NAS what to direct to the streamer (SOTM device). Doesn't that mean I am using DLNA? Is there are better way to set this up?

I used to have minimum server on my NAS and that was definitely not the way to go as MC was very sluggish. So the NAS is not using either minumserver or any media software, to my knowledge

But I will try your direct USB to DAC idea and try to zero in on the link in the chain that is causing the problem. To be sure, it isn't a huge problem, but it seems to me it is less than optimal.

In the meantime, if I should set up my NAS as a file share, rather than DLNA, please advise and if you can direct me where I can learn about that setup.

Thanks!

[blgentry]

The question about the NAS is about how MC has imported your files.  Do you have a drive letter mapped from your NAS so MC can see it?  Like the M: drive or something?  Or did you give auto import a path like:

\\my-nas\music

Either of these are fine; they mean that MC sees your files as regular files.  If instead you browsed to your NAS using DNLA, then that would mean that MC is importing your files via DLNA, which is an extra step and a different less direct way of seeing your files.

Good luck.

Brian.

[LP Audiophile]

Thanks Brian.

I think I am good on this file import question. I imported the library using something like //mynas/music. Previously, I had minimserver on my NAS which I think operates by reading the files through DLNA (your second option). That's when I found things to be very sluggish. But someone on the forum advised me against that, as you just did. Sorry for belabouring this; I am a bit confounded by the nomenclature sometimes. 

Back to my electrical snap sound. I ran a USB cable from my laptop (which is Windows 10 by the way) to my DAC and I still get the electrical sound. So at least I know my SOTM streamer is not the cause. I will keep trying to isolate the part in the chain that is causing this. It isn't at all serious, so maybe it is normal in some sense, but I know that when I did a trial of Roon it didn't happen. But I much prefer the JRiver interface and the possibility of putting the controller on Windows, so i didn't bother with Roon. And it ain't cheap either.

Thanks again for your help. I will keep playing around with this and see if I can pinpoint things a bit better.

Tom

[blgentry]

Good to hear you are using the NAS in file share mode. 

When you ran the USB cable did you configure the audio to use it?  Tools > Options > Audio > Audio > Audio Device

I believe there are several ways to do this on Windows with WASAPI and ASIO being the most "pure".  It might be worth trying both.  You almost certainly need the driver also, unless you have the brand new Unison USB card in yours.

https://www.schiit.com/drivers


Brian.

[LP Audiophile]

I loaded the Yggdrasil driver and selected that. Is there more to configuration than just selecting the right driver?

I haven't yet tried the DSP studio onebitrate suggestion that others had earlier. But I will try that.

I have the ability to play around with buffers on my SOTM streamer, so I thought I would try that too.

And on a slightly different question, is it true that whether I play files from my NAS to the streamer or whether I play them directly to the DAC from a USB cable on my laptop, that the music file is played by MC on my laptop? If so, I guess in the streamer option, the file goes wirelessly from my NAS to MC on my laptop, but then what is the point of the ethernet cable between the NAS and my streamer? I guess I am confused by what it means to say MC "plays" the file, when I thought it was just a controller.

The whole reason I set things up this way is because my audiophile friends told me USB from my laptop was evil (because of the power interference) and so a NAS with a stream was the way to go. They all use bubbleup and UPnP which I don't like - I much prefer MC on my laptop over a tablet.

Anyway, thanks for your patience and I have some more things to try.

[LP Audiophile]

I am adding to this same thread since I am addressing the same problem, but I am going to describe the situation from scratch as the prior posts may be confusing. Here goes.

I have two ways of playing music through my stereo (Method A and Method B described below). Both work well, but there is a tiny difference with Method B in that it doesn't have small electrical snap problem when pausing or changing tracks that Method A has. This suggests to me that Method A is not set optimally and there might be a buffer or a setting somewhere (probably at the streamer level) that would be more optimal.

For both Methods A and B, I have a NAS which stores my FLAC files. The DLNA is disabled on the NAS. I have J River 26 loaded onto a pretty decent i7 chip laptop that runs Windows 10. I have imported a library into J River from the NAS. At the other end I have a DAC (Schiit Yggdrasil) that feeds into a preamp and power amp then speakers.

Here are the differences in the two setups.

Method A

Here the NAS is connected by ethernet cable to a streamer (and external clock, each with their own power supply) made by SOTM which is connected by USB cable to the DAC. J River is set for network audio with the player being my streamer.

Method B

Here I do not use the streamer. My laptop gets connected to the DAC directly with a USB cable. I am not using network audio here; I guess the way to describe it is that J River on my laptop is the player.

So here now is the issue. When I change tracks or hit pause using Method A, I often hear a small electrical pop sound for a split second. With Method B, however, there is never any such noise. Another way to describe it would be to say the Method B has a gentle fade-out when pausing the music (or changing tracks, which starts with a pause) over perhaps an eighth of a second. Method A has no fade-out, there is an abrupt shut-down of the music with a (small) electrical discharge sort of sound.

So I am wondering how I duplicate the "Method B gentle fade-out" in Method A. From a J River point of view, is J River doing something as the player (renderer?) that I can somehow duplicate by adjusting buffers or something else in the streamer.

The options to adjust are "Audio Buffer Size" (default is 4 MB), "Buffer Time" (default is 0.1 sec), "Buffer Before Play" (default is 0%) and "Period Time" (default is 4 ms). I have only the roughest idea what these mean and what I would really like to see is a "fade-out on pause" time option, but no such option exists (!).

SOTM documentation is weak but I have asked them the same question (with no response yet). I thought that since J River is doing something different in each of my two Methods, you might have an idea of how Method A doesn't cause the problem (i.e. permits a gentle fade-out), which information I might use to address the electrical snap sound with Method B.

All thoughts are welcome! Thanks for your patience.

Tom
 

[LP Audiophile]

My question below was on the long side so I will try to shorten it in the hopes of getting a response.

If the default player is chosen (e.g. computer using USB cable to a DAC) there is a default setting for fadeout at the end of the track which would be normal speed.

When MC is a controller, rather than the player, is there a way to direct this same normal speed stop track fadeout to a DLNA streamer which is fed music files from a NAS? I don't see a fadeout option under media network, but there are lots of MC functions I don't know about I am sure!

Thanks!