iFi Diablo skips when playing MQA

Support
1

Roon Core Machine

MacBook Pro 16" M1 Max 32Gb

Networking Gear & Setup Details

Wi-Fi

Connected Audio Devices

iFi Diablo with USB-C>USB A adapter.

Number of Tracks in Library

253k

Description of Issue

It seems there’s an issue playing MQA on the iFi Diablo, with very frequent skips. I have also noticed that Roon switches between MQA and non-MQA while playing the song, and the iFi light goes from the standard yellow (for 16/44) to green (MQA). The light flickers in time with the skips, and so does the Signal path information in Roon.
I’ve captured a video of Roon playing an MQA song off Tidal, to give a better idea of what’s going on, here’s the link:

https://youtu.be/hKNZ31Zektw
thanks,
Alex

2

First thought here is can you try to connect by Ethernet cable instead of WiFi and see if any changes?

3

No, I can’t. But I’m sitting literally in front of the Wi-Fi router. Bandwidth’s no issue.

I’m doing some further testing now, as it seems the skips mostly happen on MQA 44.1kHz files. MQA 48/96/192 seem to play fine.

Edit: spoke too soon, just got an MQA 192 to skip just now, multiple times :frowning:

Also noticed there was a firmware 7.4 for it, dated 3/14, so did that update, which didn’t do anything for this issue…

4

I’ve began to notice skips in non-MQA material as well…

Tried to follow the log file to see if anything different shows when Roon skips, but nothing… Though the log is full of entries like this:

03/30 22:17:11 Warn: frame took 64.10ms! 15.81ms preframe, 0.00ms safe queue, 0.44ms timers, 0.00ms frame calls, 56.83ms update, 6.75ms render
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