DSD128 playback with some 'clicks' sound not DSD64 [Solved]

We are working on it–we finally were able to produce the issue about a day before the recent release. That’s not enough time to put a fix through the level of testing that it deserves–we plan to visit this issue before the next release. I’m confident that we’ll fix anything that Roon is doing wrong here.

Thanks.Your support is tremendous.Loving Roon.

Hi Brian,

Thanks for your hard works, appreciated it😃

I think the “pop” at the end of playback that was described here is resolved.

This leaves the small clicks. We don’t have a Marantz DAC like yours here for testing, and we haven’t come across hardware that clicks in the way you describe recently, so it’s hard to definitively fix the issue.

You mentioned that playing with driver-level buffer size settings modulated the behavior. This points to a buffering problem.

The buffer in Roon that corresponds to JRiver’s 500ms buffer setting is 2000ms. We can afford to have a large buffer here because our playback infrastructure works a bit differently than JRiver’s. This is not a setting because it’s already very large, and there’s nothing to be gained by making it smaller.

If the 2000ms buffer were running out, you would be hearing sizeable dropouts, not small clicks, so I think it’s fairly safe to say that that’s not what’s happening here.

What we are missing is a setting that corresponds to JRiver’s “use large hardware buffers” setting. Currently Roon always sets the hardware buffer size to the driver’s “preferred” size.

For the next release, I’m adding a “Use Max Hardware Buffer Size” setting for ASIO devices in Roon. This should do the same thing as JRiver’s “use large hardware buffers”.

I’m hoping that this solves your problem. If not, we’ll have another go at it.

Hi Guy,
I’ll mark this thread [Solved] so the devs know its not a current issue when browsing the forum. If the issue persists after the next build please feel free to either post in this thread again or start a new one.

Thanks Brian and AndyBob. When will the next build be released? I’m more concern on the loud pop sound at the end of DSD track. Will this be fix in the next build? Thanks

Guy

This fix will be in the next release. When that will be is a natural question but since the answer includes “after stability is confirmed by testing” a firm date probably doesn’t exist. The most that can probably be said is that Brian had an expectation of a new feature release in November, and a release including this fix would be no later than than. If I were a betting man I would back another bugfix release before that new feature release, but that is rank speculation on my part.

That’s great! Just renew my trial to annual subscription! :smiley:

Great to have you on board Guy. Brian has confirmed a further bug fix release:

Agreed just downloaded my first DSD Album from HDTracks: Weather Report, Heavy Weather. Sounds greater, but like everyone else, there is a click when changing tracks.

The slight click after playing the next DSD track, in my opinion is okay. I heard this slight click in JRiver and on my AK240 portable digital player. If your next track is a stop (last track in the album) or a PCM file as in my case I will get a loud pop sound. It also depend on the type of DACs used here.

I just read on another thread that the click is caused by o.1 sec of digital silence. Roon will have a fix in the next release. The click isn’t loud, agreed, but just unnecessary and a fix is on it’s way. Roon at work, ya just gotta love these guys.

On other thing. It was the first time I was able to play a DSD file. I recently bought a Weiss INT204 so I was playing Weather Report via DoP. No critical listening done yet, just a test. It works, and now more music possibilities open up!

Yes, the fix is coming can’t wait to update… You mentioned you configured via DoP. Have you try Native via ASIO driver? Generally this is a more prefered setup. When streaming via DoP get interrupted, for instance if one fast forward the track you can hear annoying cracking sound.

Agreed, it would be, but I don’t have a Windows setup yet. I’ve order an Intel NUC and all the “fixens” but it hasn’t arrived yet. At the moment I’m using a repurposed Macbook Pro from 2009, but it’s on it’s last legs. I’ll give native DSD a try when I get Windows set up and running.

I’m also having clicks during playback (not between tracks and not at the end of the album), DSD64 for me.
It doesn’t happen with all DSD albums. For some reason it only happens with my Police albums and some of my Stevie Wonder albums.
The clicks are also not random. A click would normally sound when there’s a dynamic peak in the music, like a drum hit, or a strong bass hit.
If I convert these same tracks to PCM there are no clicks, so I’m not sure if these are clicks that were written into the DSF files during conversion. I used Sonore ISO2DSD to convert from ISO to DSF.

Hi Chikolad,

With ISO2DSD people have reported that clicks can occur if you convert directly to DSF. They say clicks don’t occur if you convert to DFF first and then to DSF. These were clicks between tracks, so may not be the same thing, but worth a try.

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Thanks @andybob, I will try that.

Tried converting to DFF and then to DSF (not a click of a button in Windows, unless anyone can recommend good software for it?) - still getting clicks :pensive:

I’m still getting small clicks in the middle of DSD128 playback. Nothing big, like what you’d hear with a mildly poor CD rip.

2015 Macbook Pro 15" (El Capitan 10.11.2) -> Grace M920 via USB

At first I blamed my 13-port USB 3.0 hub between the two (El Capitan was initially atrocious with USB 3.0 hubs) but even a direct USB connection between the MBP and the M920 still results in occasional clicks.