Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ksalno]

I have a DAC that is able to upgrade its firmware by sending a WAV file via a USB link from a PC or Mac. I recently downloaded the newest version of DAC fw and used JRiver on a Macbook to "play" it to my DAC. Everything went fine until it got to the very end of the file. JRiver completed transmitting the file but the DAC has a segment counter and it downloaded 191 out of 192 segments of the file but then hung. JRiver was set for exclusive access and no DSP or Bitstreaming was turned on. I attempted this several times with the same result. I think switched to a PC with JRiver and got the same result. I talked to the DAC support people and they had no clue what could be causing the DAC to hang on the last file segment in the transfer process.

In desperation I downloaded a trial version of Audirvana and used it to "play" the same WAV file on my Mac to the DAC. It worked perfectly the first time.

So there is something about what JRiver is doing at the end of a file that is creating problems with the DAC. The only thing I could think of was if JRiver is doing something weird in order to support gapless playback. Any thoughts or ideas? I don't really want to pay for a copy of Audirvana just to do a once a year fw upgrade, so I'd like to figure out how to do this with JRiver.

TIA

[Matt]

Sorry, but we don't do anything weird.

You could try playing with different audio output modes in Options > Audio.

[ksalno]

Which parameters would you suggest I experiment with? Stop or Switch Tracks seem like the most obvious but when I play the WAV file it is the only thing in the queue/playlist so I'm not sure if Switch Tracks would have any effect.

[Matt]

Switch between WASAPI / DirectSound / ASIO.

It's the first choice at the top of Options > Audio.

[ksalno]

Switch between WASAPI / DirectSound / ASIO.

It's the first choice at the top of Options > Audio.

Matt, I think you are referring to a Windows PC. I was mostly using a Mac in this exercise, those options for trying different drivers aren't available on a Mac. When I successfully used Audirvana to transmit the file to the DAC, it was on a Mac and Audirvana was configured to use the same driver as JRiver. So I don't think that was the problem, at least on a Mac.

[JimH]

Please post Mac questions and problems on the Mac board.

[ksalno]

Please post Mac questions and problems on the Mac board.

It's not a MAC issue, the problem is the same with JRiver on a Mac or a PC. I was simply pointing out that the suggestion to switch between ASIO and WASPI drivers isn't likely to solve the problem since the same behavior presents itself on a Mac which doesn't use all the different driver types. However, I will move my question to the Mac board, as you suggest.

[adamt]

Try unchecking "Do not play silence (leading and trailing)".  I'd be willing to bet that a little silence on each end would fix it.

[glynor]

Well... Two things:

1. That is an absolutely insane way to update firmware on a DAC.  I don't even.

2. There is a bug in the current version of MC (fixed in the betas) where:

Fixed: The 'Stop After Current File' command wouldn't always play out the very end of the track.

So, if you had Repeat mode set to Stop after Current File, then it may have been truncating the last bit of the file on playback.  This should not have impacted you if you had any other playback mode enabled.

[glynor]

Try unchecking "Do not play silence (leading and trailing)".  I'd be willing to bet that a little silence on each end would fix it.

That too.

[ksalno]

Thanks, I'll give these a try and report back. I agree with you about updating the DAC by playing a WAV file to it. It's a dCS Vivaldi DAC and I assume they designed it to work with their CD Transport. I think their primary approach to distributing new software is to send it out on CDs and just tell customer who have their whole stack to put the CD in the Transport and then hit Update on the DAC. But of course for people like me who don't have their Transport, they needed another option, so this is what they came up with.