Thank you Peter, this is much appreciated. It is a relief to have someone with your qualifications offer an idea of cause and a possible way forward toward fixing this. I should mention that Alvin, the Denafrips distributor has also sent me a firmware update to try but I have not yet been successful in uploading it.
As suggested by Alvin, I did try SPDIF out from the streamer for about a month and the problem did not happen during that time. But the problem will often not occur for weeks at a time anyway, so I did not see that as definitive. So I went back to I2S. You might ask why. The answer is I would simply connect via SPDIF and move on, but I hear a significant improvement in SQ when using I2S.
Then, the incident yesterday seemed to indicate a possible trigger is a shift from 44/48 to hi-rez source material. So last night I left the DSP function running, but set to downsample any hi-rez source material to 44 or 48k. The incident last night also gave me some source material to pinpoint on. So when I have some uninterrupted time I will try putting the “trigger” material on repeat and see if I can make the problem happen with everything coming to the DAC in low-rez.
If this solves the problem, I might be OK with living with it as a permanent solution as I am not fully sold on the SQ advantage of hi-rez. I think earlier on I tried turning the DSP off yet the problem still persisted, but if my low-rez experiment does not work, I will be happy to try again.
Your idea of moving the Core to connect direct to streamer is something I will also definitely try. You have me now wondering if this problem may have started after I moved the Core to be near the router. My Core runs ROCK on a Nuc. Is it possible to use a different OS? What would you suggest?
I’m not surprised low-res works, especially with I2S.
How long is your HDMI cable? It needs to be short. I think most people use between 0.3m to 1m.
Then you should upgrade the firmware first. See if this solves the problem. What you have is clearly a hardware issue instead of a problem caused by Roon.
If the firmware upgrade does not solve the i2s problem, and you already found SPDIF to be working, please test Hi-Res over USB, either from streamer USB output or ROCK USB output.
Only after you found that both USB output tests both fail, then you may try Windows 10.
Hi Peter – Yes, the HDMI cable for I2S is long @ 1.5M. But that cable is a fairly recent addition. The problem was happening with a 50cm cable I was using previously.
I will upload that new Denafrips firmware as soon as I can borrow a Windows computer that will do it. If/when I have another occurrence of the dreaded static, I will post again here.
Was there ever a solution for this? I’m having a very similar problem with a Denafrips Terminator Plus and Gaia. Crackle snap pops at the begging or ends of tracks intermittently. It’s not related to format changing, and it happens only when the track naturaly ends or begins (not after pressing next track, etc.)
I do have the Gaia set to sync with the T+ clock out. And roon set to have a delay.
I did not have this problem with the Terminator (1). I just upgraded to the plus and installed it today.
I saw a YouTube video on this static noise issue and was hoping that my newly acquired Denafrips Pontus II would not have this static noise issue. To my horror, I had the same issue!
View the video here:
I doubt its a ROON issue because I was playing a SACD through i2S when it first occurred. Because I also had my MacMini & Mytek DAC ROON combo hooked up to my amp at the same time, I switched inputs and played a track using ROON. Static noise remained on the same speaker (RH Channel). Then I switched back to my SACD player and played a Redbook CD using SPDIF. Static noise remained.
What I did next was to power cycle the Pontus II. Noise went away but came back 5 mins later while I was playing music from Roon and the Mytek.
What has apparently solved the issue thus far (2 days in) was to power cycle the Pontus II, let it warm up for 30mins to 1hour and never shut it off. I am still looking out for the noise and will update after a week of testing.
Sorry guys, I have not been on this forum for quite a while. I am one of the folks who originally had problems with a similar issue. I say similar because after watching the video I can tell you that what I had was far worse. It would be a sudden speaker-threatening static roar. Would scare the s#$%t out of anyone in the house! My setup at the time was a Denafrips Terminator (original model) with music streaming via ethernet connection from a Melco unit all controlled by Roon. Connection from Magna Mano streamer to DAC is via I2S. Alvin in Singapore was helpful, and I had occasional help from Roon techies, but no one could seem to figure out what was happening. This went on for probably a year or so. I was trying so many things it is hard to say exactly what cured it. Alvin passed along that someone with a similar problem seemed to cure it by putting ferrite on the I2S (i.e. HDMI) cable. So I tried that. And around the same time I experimented with moving my music off the Melco and onto an SSD directly connected to my Roon Core. I have not had a problem since that time. I should also say that during most of the time the problem has been resolved I have had Roon set to not oversample. Although I do listen with the Terminator set in either NOS mode or in OS mode.
