Solution For Clipping Like Sound With My USB DAC

Tinkering
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Was having intolerable clicking sound with my USB DAC only. I am using a Mini-PC as Roon Core. The clipping indicator was not activated, therefore I presume no clipping. Changed out all my cables. At first it was just with high resolution files, but became unbearable with all files.

Reducing Gain did not help.

Finally I took my USB DAC out of the Exclusive Only mode. Clipping/static sound cured.

Sounds wonderful now.

If you have the clipping or pseudo-clipping going on, try taking out of Exclusive Mode.

I actually had this same issue with the Qobuz app playing back on the same computer. The WASAPI mode when using the exclusive option caused distortion.

I would like to know why this would be the case. Since it happened with the Qobuz app (for PC using USB-DAC) and the Roon app using the same DAC I would like some smart people to explain why the Exclusive Mode could be causing problems.

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Hi @Derrick_Robinson

Welcome to the Roon community.

I’m just a fellow Roon user here.

What’s the make and model of your DAC?
Was it one particular song/album?
Did you attempt playing anything locally stored on a SSD etc?
Are you using auto volume levelling?
How are you controlling volume? Via Roons Remote app or is it fixed and the amp volume being used.

A screenshot of your signal path when the clipping sound occurs and a photo with exclusive mode off would be helpful.

Just a couple of questions to try and help.

There might already be a historic thread on it.

:innocent:

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Sounds like bad WASAPi driver or you need to play with buffer and resync delay settings or it’s faulty. You really don’t want to run without exclusive mode as the OS is then applying its audio layer audio on top, you will get notification sounds and will be limited to the systems set sample rate.

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DAC is a High Resolution Technologies Music Streamer Pro
It had particular problems with 88.2/176.2 files
Problems with Qobuz and files on NAS
Volume leveling or reducing Gain did not help

Since solution I am controlling volume with both Roon App and receiver

I am wondering if it is because I am using a mini PC that is not a NUC. It does have 16 GB RAM and an Intel(R) Celeron(R) N5095 @ 2.00GHz 2.00 GHz.

When using Qobuz I had same issue in WASAPI exclusive mode, so maybe it is the driver or simply my microprocessor cannot handle the exclusive mode.

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I’d agree with the CPU being a possible issue.

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Isn’t this a 12-year-old DAC? Maybe it needs newer firmware. USB audio has changed a lot in the past ten years.

Maybe turning off exclusive mode allowed the system to downsample the music bits to a rate the DAC could keep up with?

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Clicking doesn’t unusually indicate clipping. It’s most probably related to timing issues in WASAPI exclusive. I can’t check, but I remember there was a checkbox about using event mode with WASAPI, maybe changing that helps.

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i agree that this ia an old DAC. It sounds wonderful, not in WASAPI Exclusive mode. See no reason to get a new DAC. It is limited to 96/24 but has XLR outputs and got very good reviews .

I have a Yamaha RXA 3080 receiver and RBH stower speakers and am happy with current SQ.

Someday I will get a dedicated server, but am very happy where I am

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