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clicks right before start of new track from .ISO (SACD)

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AGAWA:
no further activity here?

SACD HW (spinners) players have this problem sorted out. They play from ISO structure and do not allow clicks and pops to arrive at their outputs.
it must have been a design goal, (to fight "the known quirk"), otherwise SACD players wouldn't be sellable.

One can expect similar approach to SW players.

Awesome Donkey:
Well, you're converting DSD to PCM, so there's bound to be quirks and issues, one of which being random pops and clicks at the beginning of tracks, depending on the DAC. SACD discs players are a completely different thing here. For one, they actually support DSD and can play it without converting it to PCM. What you're currently doing is different since you have to convert it so your Duet can play it.

I'll try to explain all of this stuff better with a follow up post...

Awesome Donkey:
Okay, I'll try to explain it the best I can.

Your Apogee Duet doesn't support DSD, it supports PCM up to 24-bit/192kHz. Because of that, all DSD content (including SACD ISOs) need to be converted to PCM to play them back on the Duet but there's a couple things to consider and keep in mind here;

1) DSD to PCM is a lossy conversion, as is PCM to DSD. Both are digital audio formats, but they're different from each other. So any conversion involving DSD goes through PCM and there's data loss involved. This is unavoidable unfortunately, other than obtaining a DSD-capable DAC so no conversion is necessary.

2) Pops and clicks at the beginning of playback can and do happen with many DACs and with some are considered normal, depending on the DAC. This can happen when a DAC changes sample rates (going from 44.1 kHz to 192 kHz). You may be thinking that's it's not switching sample rates here but that's not true. First, it's converting DSD to PCM at the highest sample rate your DAC can handle, which is 192 kHz. Second, it's switching sample rates from whatever the sample rate your system uses by default (which you can check and verify via the Audio MIDI Setup app in macOS) to the max sample rate to playback the DSD to PCM converted file. You can also look at Media Center's audio path (furthest right icon of the three to the right of the seekbar) to verify this. Like for example if you have your macOS default output in the Audio MIDI Setup app set to 2 channel 24-bit 48 kHz that means at idle it'll switch the sample rate (to the highest one available) to playback the converted DSD to PCM content. One thing you could try is setting the Audio MIDI Setup app (and thus your macOS system default) to the max sample rate of your Duet, which is 192kHz, and see if that helps any. The only other potential workaround for this is obtaining a DSD-capable DAC but even then there's no guarantee that'll make the pops and clicks go away, as DACs when switching from PCM to DSD will also pop/click, including mine.

3) Also if you're converting stereo content to multichannel or vice versa, this too can also cause the DAC to pop/click at the beginning, again, depending on the DAC and setup.

4) If pops, clicks and/or playback stops during playback of DSD to PCM content (and not at the beginning), this usually means the hardware isn't powerful enough to handle the DSD to PCM conversion. Media Center converts DSD to PCM on-the-fly, which requires a decently powerful enough PC/Mac to handle it. DSD to PCM conversions, especially multichannel conversions, are some of the most resource intensive tasks Media Center can do, requiring fast enough hardware to handle it. Depending on the Mac and how old it is, you may run into this issue. The only ways around this issue are a) obtaining and using a DSD-capable DAC and avoiding the conversion by DSD bitstreaming or b) pre-convert the music of your SACD ISOs to a format like FLAC, Apple Lossless, APE, etc. and play only the pre-converted files back (and not the SACD ISO itself). Of course, this is a lossy conversion (as mentioned before) but you'll avoid the on-the-fly conversion. And of course, this may not avoid the pops/clicks either, so it's something that'd need tested with your setup.

5) Operating system doesn't matter. It'll happen on Windows, macOS and Linux. And the pops/clicks may not happen all the time either, it can be random. Like if I set Media Center to convert DSD to PCM (instead of bitstreaming it) and I playback the Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon DSF files I have, it'll pop/click at the beginning of playback on the first track, but when letting it play without manually switching tracks it doesn't pop/click when the first track segues into the second track and it's perfectly seamless without any pop/click. But if I manually change tracks to another one, it'll pop/click then. In comparison when DSD bitstreaming it'll pop/click at the beginning of DSD playback (when it switches from PCM to DSD) but unlike when doing the DSD to PCM conversion it doesn't pop/click when manually switching tracks as long as the tracks I'm manually switching to are DSD and not PCM content.

Ultimately, if the pops and clicks, like I suspect, are caused by your DAC switching sample rates, it's not a Media Center issue. In fact all the points above are not Media Center issues at all, so there isn't really anything for JRiver to look at. The easiest way to avoid pops/clicks from DSD to PCM conversions is either avoiding the playback of SACD ISOs completely and finding and playing back only PCM content or getting a DAC that supports DSD so you can enable DSD bitstreaming but even then like I said there's no guarantees as even with my Topping DAC switching from PCM to bitstreamed DSD also results in a pop/click when it's switching modes (just when switching from PCM to DSD, not when manually switching tracks as long as I don't switch back to PCM).

I really hope this helps. :)

AGAWA:
thank you for extensive explanation.
I'm more than aware of everything you are raising here.

As I mentioned before, I was surprised to hear one album - Bach Piano Concertos, Perahia, Sony - 2ch only to have clicks a moment before the new track starts and another one , Vivaldi 4.0 without any clicks onside the album.
No changes to the standard happen during playback in both cases, once set to 352.8 stays for the duration of play.
Hence Vivaldi, I suspect authored correctly, plays without clicks, and Bach, that is much older clicks with every track.

Nothing to do with DSD to PCM conversion, no switching happening, nothing to do with my external DAC.

To prove the point I did the same tests without Apogee, only straight to plain audio in both Mac and Windows  with exactly same results. Bach clicks, Vivaldi doesn't.

I appreciate your help with regard how should I play, what formats etc., already know what and how to do. I use somewhat tricky setup  - 4.0 to get splendid sound at reasonable cost. JRiver is the only, as far as I know player that does all I need . And playing from SACD ISO files without the need to make any conversions beforehand is wonderful achievement. With my close to thousand SACDs I would have to build monstrous NAS. I want to avoid this and play  directly from ISO structure, just how SACD spinners do.
I'm afraid that soon there will be no decent multichannel player available and the only way will be to use universal player with HT processor. This will not guarantee the quality I expect from SACD playback. This is why I decided to move to files stored on NAS and played by software player , like JRiver MC.
It is hard to substitute my aging MCH SACD player with excellent converters. Nothing, at reasonable price comes close. You will not believe how this very small Apogee Duet (and other Apogee stuff) sounds and at what cost. I have tested many DACs, also in rather expensive range, and no luck so far in finding the one I like. With MCH DACs it is more difficult, almost nothing to choose from for DSD MCH.
Apogee was recommended to me by recording engineer whom I value very much, he hears music like me. Some people here say that they listen to DSD or whatever. I'm listening to music, being myself trained violinst and electronics , computer engineer. One of forum members also gently suggested that many people download illegal ISO and not know how to play the, really kind of this person. Rather than supporting me they for I do not know what reason , try to convince me that I am wrong and should not meddle.
My only idea was to share my finding with the goal of improving the product -  MC for the benefit of all.

Just wanted to advise you with my findings (quite unusual) hoping that this will get attention and maybe something can be fixed here. I also suggested how fix could be applied. SACD spinners software corrects this problem, probably by muting audio in transition periods. The same could be built into software player like JRiver MC to the benefit of listeners and JRiver.
This would serve with all formats that are supported by MC.

Don't get me wrong, MC is a great achievement and I will be happy to use it, also as it is.
But removing some quirks would make it even better.

AGAWA:
Awesome Donkey,

Decided to further investigate.
My rips were from about 2 years ago.
So this time I used fork SACD extract.
Problem stays with ISO, but this fork does magic, no clicks inside the album.
Only silent click when starting to buffer, several second before actual play.

At this stage I want to backup my collection of SACDs. Just in case there are no decent MCH players (at reasonable cost) available anymore.
My SACD player beats everything I know and when it dies I will consider converting ISO to DSF.
Did not want to build monstrous NAS to store everything if I do not need it now.

Unless JRiver will mute transitions. Easy to implement.

Finished my investigation, at least I know where I stand.

Cheers

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