I use ~3 x Raspberry pi4 with Hifiberry Amp2’s for a multiroom-solution and they work really great!
That said, they are sadly not crazy impressive amplifiers, so I would like to move over the a DAC-solution + external amplifier (still using Pi’s as streamers)
Tried out a couple of different ones and with those I’ve tried (Hifiberry Dac Pro, Dac+, HD) I get a problem where I get a quite loud annoying “pop sound” every time I switch track in roon or bit rate changes…
Does anyone have any good advice on this? I have tried to get response from Hifiberry… but they seems to just ignore this and basically ignore that this is happening… Anyone have a similar experience and found a solution? I also bought an Hifiberry AMP100 to test it out, and that amp show exactly the same issue as the dacs…
It’s not a pleasant audio-experience to have pops going on all the time…
Am I stuck with the Amp2’s… what is going on
Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
4
The DAC is dropping a packet or ten as it recognizes and internally switches to the new bit rate or sample size. This is sometimes caused by firmware insufficiencies on the DAC side. I recall that XMOS sent out an engineering note a few years ago which had a code sample which didn’t properly adjust for bit rate changes – perhaps it wasn’t what the sample was illustrating – and some designers just copied that wholesale into their DAC designs.
I tried the up-sample settings earlier but I never got it to a fully working state…
Will need to play around a bit more I guess. Very annoying with this. Seems like something that should be possible to fix somehow through software or firmware for the DAC?
I am confused that Hifiberry support seems to just ignore… it’s super easy to re-produce… I’ve tried with multiple different pi’s (2,3,4) and also get this behaviour from many of the different DAC-solutions… I guess if it’s a hardware issue it’s going to be expensive for them to adress.
Sometimes it’s caused by an analog output DC offset when the muting relay (dis)engages.
Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
8
I think it’s sometimes that companies building electronics don’t have access to, or maybe don’t think they need, experienced software people. Hardware device drivers and firmware for controllers like the U208 chip is tricky to get right. Often they copy sample code sent out by the chip manufacturer verbatim, even though those samples are only meant as examples of how it might be done. Don’t know if that applies to HiFiBerry, though.
I have a multitude of Pi’s in various shapes and sizes and cannot say that i have ever experienced this?
I also have a Hifiberry Digi+ Pro HAT and that one doesn’t do this either.
What OS are you using on the Pi’s? I use Dietpi mainly, but also Ropieee and VitOS.
I think @Bill_Janssen is bang on the money about the Dac probably being the issue - if I’ve understood him correctly because I must admit that when it comes to terms like “dropping packets” and the such I’m lost . My experience is with a Rpi4 and an Allo Digione Hat as an endpoint to stream to a Dac. I get “popping” when playing certain tracks (usually higher res tracks via Tidal) when streaming to a Primare I35 Prisma’s Dac and no “popping” when using a Chord Mojo (1). Hope it helps the discussion.
. My experience is with a Rpi4 and an Allo Digione Hat as an endpoint to stream to a Dac. I get “popping” when playing certain tracks (usually higher res tracks via Tidal) when streaming to a Primare I35 Prisma’s Dac and no “popping” when using a Chord Mojo (1). Hope it helps the discussion.