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[imeric]

Playing files using my Dragonfly DAC using WASAPI is Hit & Miss if device is set to 48000 in Windows Mixer.

Used to work just fine and I can't figure out which version causes it... Went back to using .69, even .21 and issue is still there.  One thing is for sure this is a new issue.

Using WASAPI Foobar and MC26 on same laptop and everything is fine.  Somehow I feel this is related to this fiddling around to accommodate for 48KHz only devices...

[JimH]

Check DSP Studio > Output Settings.  Turn everything off.

[imeric]

Check DSP Studio > Output Settings.  Turn everything off.

DSP on or off same behaviour.
Tried with my ADL Stratos on same laptop everything is fine...

I tried on another PC on which never had the dragon fly plugged in and didn't get the issue. However it set all resampling rates to 48 KHz on first use!

In other words it didn't respect what's under Advanced see attached.. ie It shouldn't have changed anything under DSP and pop-up the window to ask for the change before resampling everything.

[RoderickGI]

Switch to using WASAPI Exclusive mode. YOu are probably using WASAPI in Shared Mode.

[imeric]

Switch to using WASAPI Exclusive mode. YOu are probably using WASAPI in Shared Mode.

Exclusive access is indeed checked.  But thx for stating the obvious since this issue is only on my laptop...

It behaves as if it is not able to take full exclusive control of the DAC and play music...(see 1st snapshot)

You can hear a sound for a few milliseconds right at the start but then silence.  MC acts as if music is played normally.  While this is happening playing with the Windows volume slider everything stays silent as expected when in exclusive mode (Slider pic)...

I unchecked Exclusive access to see what would happen and I get an error message as per the Error snapshot (so no problem there.)

BTW I can CONSISTENTLY reproduce this issue on the laptop ...


Anyone with a Dragonfly out there and an HP Elitebook laptop?

[RoderickGI]

Sometimes the obvious is overlooked.

The Speakers Properties dialogue you showed in Reply#2 is for Speakers. Shouldn't it be for the Dragonfly, or doesn't the Dragonfly show up as an Audio Device in Windows, as it does in MC?

Also, the Default Format setting on the Speaker Properties Advanced tab only applies when playing to the Speakers Windows Audio Device in Shared Mode. But I assume you are referring to the Exclusive Mode settings. Of course, you should be looking at the Dragonfly Windows Audio Device, as you are in the image in Reply#4 in MC Options.

But those are just the first things to recheck. There may be something actually wrong. It could be that the Dragonfly device is telling MC it is a 48KHz device only, or MC is getting that wrong, given that MC26 and Foobar WASAPI Exclusive is working. Does the Dragonfly require a driver, and if so, does it have any settings?

[dtc]

Nothing concrete to add - just some observations.

In Control Panel - Sound can you play 44.1 KHz as the test tone on the shared page? I assume that works OK.   I assume the Exclusive Mode boxes are both checked on that page.

This seems like it might be related to  your other thread that suggested that in some circumstances WASAPI Exclusive may not be working correctly. If the Windows Sound options let you play 44.1 KHz and MC wants to convert 44.1 to 48, then there is something wrong in how MC is picking up what sample rate is allowed.  Really seems like it may be a Windows issue, although not sure why it differs for different devices.

[imeric]

Nothing concrete to add - just some observations.

In Control Panel - Sound can you play 44.1 KHz as the test tone on the shared page? I assume that works OK.   I assume the Exclusive Mode boxes are both checked on that page.

This seems like it might be related to  your other thread that suggested that in some circumstances WASAPI Exclusive may not be working correctly. If the Windows Sound options let you play 44.1 KHz and MC wants to convert 44.1 to 48, then there is something wrong in how MC is picking up what sample rate is allowed.  Really seems like it may be a Windows issue, although not sure why it differs for different devices.

See pic attached to see supported sample rates of the dragon fly + everything checked for Exclusive mode.
Test tones will play fine when MC is not playing (or trying to play...) music for all sample rates.

When I'm having the issue, MC will behave as if music is playing but the Dragonfly will stay silent no matter what I do (ie try to play test tones in Windows Sound, move the Volume slider etc...) AS IT SHOULD WHEN EXCLUSIVE MODE IS WORKING AND PLAYING MUSIC BUT IN THIS CASE EVERYTHING IS SILENT.

- Issue will only occur if Sample Rates chosen in Windows mixer are anything but 44100.
- Issue is really easy to reproduce, it's actually a lot harder to get it to work properly (I need to hit stop then hit play after 1-2 seconds but even this is hit&miss)...

Maybe I should have posted this on the main Forum page there has to be other folks experiencing this...

I did another test with my other Dragonfly (Black) and no problem there.:
 - It does take about half a second before it starts playing but no silence (I assume it's the time it needs to properly change the sample rate of the device...).
 - Behaves the exact same way with MC26.

Problem is with the Red version
No special drivers are required for these 2 devices.
This is with WASAPI no ASIO drivers for these devices.

[dtc]

It is curious that the Red and Black act differently. That makes no sense. Have you asked AudioQuest to test this with MC? Maybe they can figure out the problem.  It really seems like a Windows problem with exclusive mode, although Foobar seems to work, which means they are doing something different than MC is doing.

[imeric]

It is curious that the Red and Black act differently. That makes no sense. Have you asked AudioQuest to test this with MC? Maybe they can figure out the problem.  It really seems like a Windows problem with exclusive mode, although Foobar seems to work, which means they are doing something different than MC is doing.

If it’s a non-issue with MC26 and Foobar + all the changes made in MC27 for some audio devices recently the problem is not with Audioquest but elsewhere. Hopefully someone else with the same gear can test and reproduce.

[Hendrik]

Can you post a log of the failure case?

[JimH]

If it’s a non-issue with MC26 and Foobar + all the changes made in MC27 for some audio devices recently the problem is not with Audioquest but elsewhere. Hopefully someone else with the same gear can test and reproduce.

Compare settings carefully.

Try the 32 bit version of MC.

Configure Windows Defender.

I think you already tried it on another machine.  Did that work?

It's possible there's a problem with the device.

[imeric]

Can you post a log of the failure case?

Hi Hendrik,

Logs sent to support at jriver dot com.

During the log I hit play three times then stop each time for about a second or 2.
The first 2 there's no sound and sound came back on the 3rd one.

If you need another log or sequence etc...Let me know...
Thx

[Hendrik]

Logs sent to support at jriver dot com.

Not sure where that goes. Can you send again to logs at jriver dot com?

[imeric]

Not sure where that goes. Can you send again to logs at jriver dot com?

Done thx

[marlopa]

I have the Cobalt version now, but I used to have the red one and the update with Audioquest's App solved a few issues  with the volume. Have you tried it? https://www.audioquest.com/page/aq-digitalupdates.html

[imeric]

I have the Cobalt version now, but I used to have the red one and the update with Audioquest's App solved a few issues  with the volume. Have you tried it? https://www.audioquest.com/page/aq-digitalupdates.html

Firmware was @ 1.06, I upgraded to 1.07.  Issue is still present.

[Hendrik]

Hi Hendrik,

Logs sent to support at jriver dot com.

During the log I hit play three times then stop each time for about a second or 2.
The first 2 there's no sound and sound came back on the 3rd one.

If you need another log or sequence etc...Let me know...
Thx

The log seems fine to me. It opens the device at 44.1kHz in exclusive mode as expected, successfully in all 3 cases. No indication why some attempts may not have any audible output. Puzzling.

[imeric]

The log seems fine to me. It opens the device at 44.1kHz in exclusive mode as expected, successfully in all 3 cases. No indication why some attempts may not have any audible output. Puzzling.

Puzzling indeed as it is only happening with MC27 and it is very annoying.

[JimH]

Puzzling indeed as it is only happening with MC27 and it is very annoying.

Power?  Defective device? 

Didn't you say it works on another machine?

[Hendrik]

Puzzling indeed as it is only happening with MC27 and it is very annoying.

When this happens, did you ever check the audio analyzer in DSP studio, if its showing as expected? That might help to tell us if the audio is getting lost somewhere before that, because right after that is only the audio output.

[imeric]

When this happens, did you ever check the audio analyzer in DSP studio, if its showing as expected? That might help to tell us if the audio is getting lost somewhere before that, because right after that is only the audio output.

I'll check this out later on today thx.

Jim as per my posts above nothing wrong with the device and it worked as expected on another PC with MC27 latest version.  However on the work laptop it is not working correctly and this is where I use the Dragonfly.
Never was problematic before the recent changes to WASAPI or might be related to something else introduced in MC27...
Which is why I keep saying it is a non-issue with MC26 and Foobar Wasapi on that same laptop.

[Soundwave]

EDIT: Nevermind I didn't look at the images properly. You actually have all the sample rates being displayed. No idea what your problem could be then.. Other than the fact none of your sample rates in the Windows Menu show the possibility of 16-bit support. Try playing a 24-bit file, and if that doesn't work, then you got some real issue that would need quite a deep dive by Audioquest as to why they're disabling 16-bit support in the Windows Sound Settings.

I think the same happens to me. I was just wondering. For your issue, if you try to a play a file that matches any of the sample rates found in the Windows Sound setting at the time (looking at the prior images you provided, you tried to run a 44.1 file, but the only options available are 48kHz) it fails. So what I want you to try, is to attempt to run a file, that matches the sample rates possible at the time in the Windows Sound Settings.

For me, I am able to play the file. But if the sample rate doesn't match whatever is in Windows Sound settings, then it fails no matter what.

The reason for this seems simply, when I installed the ASIO driver, the WDM default driver seems to be overridden entirely when using USB input on my DAC. For whatever reason RME split up the entire way sample rates are handled, and the ASIO control panel can be used to change sample rates to desired ones, and when running music through MC while having the ASIO driver engaged, there is no issue, and the sample rate is switchable by MC to whatever is required.

For whatever reason, this has basically poisoned the way WASAPI works, and because Windows Sound Settings will only display 4 options in the sample rate option screen, it fails to playback anything not found within those 4 configurations.

So if you have something like a 96kHz sample rate in the sound settings, you only get:

1 Channel, 96kHz, 16 bit
1 Channel, 96kHz, 24 bit
2 Channel, 96kHz, 16 bit
2 Channel, 96kHz, 24 bit

The only way to change these four, into another four, for me would be to use the ASIO interface. But with the installation of the RME driver, you lose the typical sample rates between 44.1 and 192kHz options for some reason usually found in the Windows Sound settings (seems idiotic to me). It seems like like every sample rate, acts as it's own "device".

But yeah, the issue simply seems to be that WASAPI doesn't have access or "knowledge" to access the hidden sample rates that have been disabled by the ASIO driver (which are now treated as separate devices that only ASIO has awareness of how to swap between). The only way to get this sort of functionality back for me, would be to uninstall all RME driver software, and have the default Windows driver with the normally expected options, be the ones that are on display in the Windows Sound settings menu for sample rates.

So, if you can, try to get rid of all the driver/app software for your DAC, and then see if the sample rate options return the the standard function of displaying all the sample rates possible all on one screen in the drop down menu. If so, and WASAPI still doesn't work.. Then I have no idea what the issue could be (should be an MC issue by that point).

[imeric]

When this happens, did you ever check the audio analyzer in DSP studio, if its showing as expected? That might help to tell us if the audio is getting lost somewhere before that, because right after that is only the audio output.

it's showing audio being played even though it's silence. as per my posts above it really behaves as if sound is played.  It's really like MC hasnt't taken full exclusive control of the Dragonfly Red...

When music is fully stopped and I hit play the Dragonfly Black takes about half a second sometimes before sound is played but it will ALWAYS play...

For lack of a better word has there been any "handshake" change in MC27 in how it takes take control of exclusive mode and when music is played? 

[imeric]

EDIT: Nevermind I didn't look at the images properly. You actually have all the sample rates being displayed. No idea what your problem could be then.. Other than the fact none of your sample rates in the Windows Menu show the possibility of 16-bit support. Try playing a 24-bit file, and if that doesn't work, then you got some real issue that would need quite a deep dive by Audioquest as to why they're disabling 16-bit support in the Windows Sound Settings.

I don't really see why 16bit would be necessary though...Just padding being added so it doesn't impact the sound like resampling (not saying resampling is bad don't want to get into this discussion :-) )

BTW I found my issue! (And should have done this test sooner...)

Looks like the Dragonfly Red doesn't like the 50ms buffer... I tried all the other ones and all is fine (except the 5ms one).  I had 100ms set in MC26 (which is why I didn't get the issue there).  I set 50ms in MC26 and I get the same issue. SO behaviour is the same between the 2 so nothing wrong with MC.

Still very strange why this particular buffer setting is problematic... Anyway as far as I'm concerned this is resolved!!!

[dtc]

Glad you figured it out. Very weird.