Gustard U12 - Bizarre Problem with Chord Hugo
Posted by: SpecCled Trout on 30 August 2016
MM/Audivarna -> USB -> Gustard U12 -> Coax -> Hugo -> NAC52 -> NAP135s
It was singing beautifully. Certainly better with the Gustard U12 than the optical link which I also have.
HOWEVER, it is has stopped working.
MM/Audivarna is streaming.
Gustard U12 is recognising the bit rate.
Hugo is changing colour to correctly indicate the bitrate.
Silence!!!
When I swap over to the optical input from my CD transport, or swap back to optical input from the MM it works fine.
So the Gustard would seem to be outputting something as Hugo is acknowledging the bit rate. But there is no sound.
When I swap between USB output to Optical the only change I am making in Audivarna is to reflect that change - so as far as I can tell it is not a software volume issue.
Any suggestions please?
What is the bit rate displayed on the Gustard? If it is too high (> 192), then would be no music.
Thank you - Audivarna is set to only output at 192 or less. There is no sound output from the Hugo at any bitrate even though the Hugo is changing to the correct colours that correspond to the bitrates.
that is odd, maybe the hugo is at fault?
Possibly - it plays optical fine.
I need to find a way of finding an alternative coax input for the Hugo to test that hypothesis.
Sounds that way. Worth going back to basics and doing a straight connection to USB from the Mac and see if that works. Perhaps change the USB and coax cables too to be on the safe side. Shut everything down and reboot too.
I have done the reboot thing, just in case.
I had not thought of doing the direct USB - I will try that - thanks.
Hugo plays fine with the same coax in from my CD transport.
it seems to be that my Gustard is Bustard.
Doh! It all sounded so good!
Not sure if this helps but I had the same problem with:
Synology > microRendu (mR) > U12 > Bel Canto 3.5 (BC)
The mR was reporting the correct file frequency, as was the U12 and BC, but nothing but silence.
I was pointed in the right direction - I saved the (unchanged) settings in the mR, all burst back into life - go figure!
M
I have tried to restart and reconnect everything.
I have reselected in Audirvana.
I have also tried to connect via optical from the Gustard to the Hugo.
In all solutions the Hugo is seeing the bitrate from the Gustard, the Gustard is displaying the correct bitrate from the MM.
However silence reigns.
Back to a direct optical connection from the MM to the Hugo (interestingly the direct USB does not work - Audirvana does not see the Hugo) - I read something somewhere that later Macs cannot be directly connected by USB.
Stuck.
My MM is the latest version and I can connect my Hugo to it directly by USB with no problems at all although I now have a regen in between. Audirvana sees the Hugo every time. I'm not sure where you read this but it would seem to be erroneous
Have you tried a different USB cable and port?
I have just tried that - there are four ports. In my earlier experiments I gave up at port three. I have just tried port four and it playing sweet as a nut!
In fact it sounds very good with the Audirvana upscaling (maybe psychological but it does sound sweeter).
Oddly, using port one worked fine in sending a signal to the Gustard which has been working fine for a couple of months.
More fiddling in the morning I suspect.
PS the info about the latest MacBooks was on a USB cable site - saying that the latest Apple devices and MacBooks will not connect as the Hugo does not carry the required Apple 'chip'.
What is the "Gustard" supposed to do?
Winky, it's a USB to s/pdif convertor. There are a number of threads going which discuss it along with others.
SpecCled Trout posted:I have just tried that - there are four ports. In my earlier experiments I gave up at port three. I have just tried port four and it playing sweet as a nut!
In fact it sounds very good with the Audirvana upscaling (maybe psychological but it does sound sweeter).
Oddly, using port one worked fine in sending a signal to the Gustard which has been working fine for a couple of months.More fiddling in the morning I suspect.
At least you have found a smoking gun. Hope you get it fully resolved
Hi,
Hopefully things as moving in the right direction ...if not some more grist: When I had my issue I rebooted the microRendu, made no difference. It was only when I re-saved the config all burst into life. If you hit a brick wall I wold be tempted to work my way through the chain within the MM examining and resaving any driver settings etc. - assuming you haven't already!
Good luck,
M
It is all solved for the moment - thank you for your suggestions.
What have I learned?
That the direct USB connection works very well - which is the only way to get the highest bitrates.
That for some reason a USB port that worked perfectly for two months has stopped working and that only one of the four USB ports now works. I have not made any specific changes as it is a Mac mini running in 'dark mode'. I can only assume that some background update has influenced this.
So the Gustard is NOT Bustard.
The sounds are sweet so now I can fret over a direct connection versus the USB/Gustard/Coax connection.
Both sound very good.
PS Mr Underhill - Audirvana does not 'save' a drive configuration - it allows you to select an 'active' configuration. If the config is not connected you cannot select it so I am guessing it is different to the mR.
On the Mac Mini, the USB port on the far left (near the headphone/tokslink socket) is the best one for digital output as it is the standalone USB 3, the rest are hub USBs.
Peter,
that is the only USB port that is now working for me. I did not realise there was a difference, and up until this week the other ports seemed to work fine.
In future I will only be using this port!
Thanks for the confirmation.
David
Hi Sp.,
Glad it is sorted, sort of. Fingers crossed for your last port!
M
Peter Dinh posted:On the Mac Mini, the USB port on the far left (near the headphone/tokslink socket) is the best one for digital output as it is the standalone USB 3, the rest are hub USBs.
Peter, is this the case for the most recent Mac Mini (2014) or only for previous models? I've tried all 4 ports to my Hugo, but there was no change in the way the Hugo 'appeared' in my MM's list of USB connections.
To check your DAC is connected to the right plug:
1. Use the “System Information” application you can launch from the Apple menu, popping the “About this Mac” dialog. Then click on “More info...”
2. ScrolltheleftcolumndowntotheHardwaresection
3. SelectUSB
4. Check on the top right pane that your DAC is listed alone under a “High speed USB bus” section
Flumpet,
just for reference I have a 2014 MM. Now Audirvana only sees the Hugo via the left most port, and the Gustard only works if attached to that port.
I cannot fathom what has changed on the MM, the only software I have loaded onto it is Audirvana, pretty much everything I was able to remove or disable, I have removed or disabled.