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[cantara256]

Every time I power on my Chord Hugo TT 2, the first song I play through MC is distortion/static/noise; I have to quickly click Stop, but then if I Play again, it's fine.

It's reproducible every time by power cycling the TT 2 (or rebooting my Mac). Once I've done Stop/Play, and MC plays fine, I can restart MC and it continues playing fine, it's only if I power cycle the TT 2 or Mac OS.

This doesn't happen with Roon. It happened with my old Mac mini; just got a brand new one and the same thing still happens. It's not related to Roon, it was happening before I even installed Roon, and MC is the only music application on my computer. And again, Roon plays just fine.

What could be going on? I'm connecting via USB, and I have exclusive access checked off in device settings.

[JimH]

MC can play a few seconds of silence. 

[cantara256]

MC can play a few seconds of silence.

If you mean "Play silence at startup" I tried up to 5 seconds and unfortunately it makes no difference.

[JimH]

Yes. 

You can use MC's DSP Studio > Output Settings to convert to whatever the DAC supports.  You could try the manufacturer's support.

[cantara256]

Yes. 

You can use MC's DSP Studio > Output Settings to convert to whatever the DAC supports.  You could try the manufacturer's support.

I don't have to do anything like this in Roon. If I stop/play it works, the issue is the first time I play anything. The DAC supports up to 32 bit/768 kHz. Shouldn't MC be able to just play my files? All my files are supported by my DAC.

[JimH]

I have no idea what Roon is doing, but if the players are set the same, they will perform the same.

Some DAC's have different capabilities on different connections.

[cantara256]

It's USB for both. And the issue is only the first time playing. I don't get why I should have to change anything in DSP Studio if simply Stop/Play "fixes" the issue; if there was a configuration problem wouldn't the issue remain after Stop/Play?

This sounds like a bug with MC.

[JimH]

Will you ask the manufacturer?

[cantara256]

I did, they're in UK so I'll hear in a day or two.

[blgentry]

It sounds like your sequence is:

Open MC
Turn off DAC
Turn on DAC
Play in MC:  Gets noise.
Presss MC stop, MC play:  Plays normally.

This sequence of events resets the DAC but does NOT reset MC.  MC doesn't know the DAC was reset and probably does not set the sampling rate and depth (eg: 24 bits 96kHz).  Thus the DAC produces "noise" until you tell MC to explicitly reset.

Why are you turning off your DAC, but not stopping MC or stopping the computer?  If you turn off your DAC, I recommend you also shut down MC.  After you turn the DAC back on, start MC again and it should work properly.

All of this assuming that my above sequence is correct.  If that's not the correct sequence of events, please detail exactly what you are doing.

Good luck and take care.
Brian.

[cantara256]

My Mac mini is a headless music server without keyboard or mouse so MC is always running; I use JRemote on Android when needed.

I turn the TT2 on/off as needed with its remote. But MC is always running.

This is exactly how I used MC with my old Hugo TT for years without issue. I don't know why this is a problem with the TT2.

[blgentry]

I'm not sure exactly why the new one does this, but as I said, you are starting the Hugo "from scratch" every time you power cycle it.  It likely has a default sample rate (for example 352kHz).  Since MC thinks the DAC is set to something else (like 44.1kHz for example), "noise" comes out.  I'm guessing the old DAC defaulted to a different sample rate.  But that's a guess.

I would suggest that maybe turning off the DAC doesn't gain you anything.  In fact, some people think that keeping their DAC on all the time improves the sound.  I don't really have an opinion either way.  I keep my DACs all powered up all the time because they consume virtually no power and there is startup time associated with all of them.  It doesn't really cost me anything to keep them on.  Plus, keeping electronics powered up improves service life.

Brian.

[HS12]

My experience with different DAC's on USB audio from MAC OS and Linux sources that need no drivers is that things got messed up if the DAC wasn't up and running before starting my MAC or Linux source so perhaps try shutting down the source and restart it with the DAC fully up and running.

[cantara256]

My experience with different DAC's on USB audio from MAC OS and Linux sources that need no drivers is that things got messed up if the DAC wasn't up and running before starting my MAC or Linux source so perhaps try shutting down the source and restart it with the DAC fully up and running.

That defeats the entire point of running MC on a headless/keyboardless/mouseless server. At that point, it'd just be easier to plugin my phone into the TT2 directly and use USB Audio Player Pro (which is now possible since my phone has 1TB of internal storage and can hold my entire library).

Unless of course if there's a way to remotely start/stop MC using JRemote... Is there?

[blgentry]

Why are you turning your DAC off?  What would happen if you left it on all the time?  That seems like a fairly simple way to get around your issue.

Brian.

[bob]

Perhaps the device driver output is still open because you are pausing not stopping?
If that's the case, MC will not re-choose the output device sample rate (done only on open) it will just send more data to the device.

There is a feature in MC's options called "Stop after Long Pause" (search for that at the bottom search bar in options).
Turn it on and see if that solves your issue.

(note that starting in 29.0.30 the sample rate should be checked on un-pause so perhaps this is simply a state issue which also would be solved by Stop after Long Pause).

[cantara256]

Why are you turning your DAC off?  What would happen if you left it on all the time?  That seems like a fairly simple way to get around your issue.

I asked, and the manufacturer recommends NOT keeping the DAC on all the time.

[cantara256]

Perhaps the device driver output is still open because you are pausing not stopping?
If that's the case, MC will not re-choose the output device sample rate (done only on open) it will just send more data to the device.

There is a feature in MC's options called "Stop after Long Pause" (search for that at the bottom search bar in options).
Turn it on and see if that solves your issue.

(note that starting in 29.0.30 the sample rate should be checked on un-pause so perhaps this is simply a state issue which also would be solved by Stop after Long Pause).

That seems to have fixed the issue, thank you! Any idea how long a "Long Pause" is? A few seconds it seems? At least as long as it takes to power cycle the TT2 apparently...