Unitiserve Crackles

Posted by: sbilotta on 23 June 2012

Hello,

I just took home a new Unitiserve and started ripping a few CDs and putting some music in the Download folder, and have it hooked up via DC1 to the nDac/555PS.

All is fine, except that I often hear some crackling in the music replay and can't understand or pin point the reason. It is not constant, so I'm sure something it is something specific causing this, and I've checked all my cables.

I also hear, but only from from time to time, a small (1 - 2 sec) repetition of the audio being played, like a glitch (or a déjà vu as seen in The Matrix )

Has anyone experienced these ?

Could it have something to do with the bandwidth on the local network ?

Up until yesterday I had a NDX playing fine without any issue at all from a network perspective.

 

Many thanks !

Stefano

Posted on: 23 June 2012 by Hook

Hi Stefano -

 

Are you saying that your NDX is now having these "crackles", or have you switched to using the S/PDIF output of the US, and that is where the "cackles" are coming from?

 

I have, on rare occassion, heard something similar from my NDX.  It is a very subtle, very short sound -- crackle is a good description -- and I can only hear it during very quiet portions of songs.  If I do nothing, I may hear it a total of 2 or 3 times during the playback of a CD.  

 

The other things I've noticed are 1) it only happens after my NDX has been powered on for quite some time, a couple of months at least, and 2) if I turn the NDX off and back on again, the crackle disappears.  Noticed it a couple of times last winter, but not since spring (and pretty regular thunderstorm forced shutdowns) have begun.

 

I do not use a US, but like you, I connect my NDX using a DC1 to the DAC/555PS.

 

Hook

Posted on: 23 June 2012 by sbilotta

Hi Hook,

no, I don't have the NDX anymore, only (and curently) the new US and that is where I sometimes hear crackles in the play back.

However I am all the more convinced that these crakles, the small repetitions (glitches) are all bandwidth related, but not due to the newtork in itself but to the US (CPU & bandwidth) usage at the time . I say this because when I heard the above crackles the US was scanning my extensive network share or "elaborating" a rip (I notice that the ripped wavs are progressively written to the hard disk after the actual cd has been ejected after a rip).

Another curious thing is that a 24-192 album put in the Download folder has evident buffer problems (causing rebuffering during playback) while the same album on my network share doesn't have these issues, and whilst the former doesn't need to use the network (being in the same HDD within the US) the latter does !

 

Oh well... having fun understanding this new toy

Stefano

Posted on: 24 June 2012 by Klout10

Can it be that this has something to do with the position of the "Signal Ground" switch on the back of the unit? 

 

Regards,

Michel

Posted on: 24 June 2012 by Hook
Originally Posted by sbilotta:

Hi Hook,

no, I don't have the NDX anymore, only (and curently) the new US and that is where I sometimes hear crackles in the play back.

However I am all the more convinced that these crakles, the small repetitions (glitches) are all bandwidth related, but not due to the newtork in itself but to the US (CPU & bandwidth) usage at the time . I say this because when I heard the above crackles the US was scanning my extensive network share or "elaborating" a rip (I notice that the ripped wavs are progressively written to the hard disk after the actual cd has been ejected after a rip).

Another curious thing is that a 24-192 album put in the Download folder has evident buffer problems (causing rebuffering during playback) while the same album on my network share doesn't have these issues, and whilst the former doesn't need to use the network (being in the same HDD within the US) the latter does !

 

Oh well... having fun understanding this new toy

Stefano

 

Makes perfect sense Stefano!

 

Given the relative infrequency with which I hear the crackles, I would not be surprised to find out that they correspond to periods of peak network usage (e.g., Mrs. Hook copying large folders from her PC to our shared NAS -- that sort of thing).  Will attempt to do some detective work next time I hear them rather than simply power cycling my NDX.

 

ATB.

 

Hook

Posted on: 24 June 2012 by DQ
Hello I have had this problem periodically. I power everything down - naim and nas and then back up. Has always fixed it for me. I am using NDX.