Digital "scratching" sound when a high res album starts to play on a ND5XS
Posted by: jmtennapel on 21 February 2016
When a 24 bit ALAC album starts to play, or sometimes in between tracks, the streamer makes a digital "scratching" sound.
it has has started since the last firmware update or one of the synology updates. I don't know what the source of the problem is. Does anyone have an idea?
I've noticed that with 24bit 192khz music each track starts for a second and then stops for a second before playing correctly, buffering issue I guess?
Maybe that i what you re experiencing?
This used to happen for me when playing hi-res FLAC through a TP DAC-VC.
i read somewhere that it is an error reading header information in the data file; the DAC thinks it is part of the music so tries to play it, rather than knowing it's meta data about the file.
i don't know if that's actually true and don't know if that applies here though.
Transcoding to WAV is the preferred practice.
Even with transcoding to WAV on (somehow it was off on the NAS), there are ticks.
If it is a header problem, then Naim ought to fix this (hello, Naim, are you listening?). I am not going to convert all to FLAC. I am a Mac user and the whole ecosystem is ALAC based, the same music is also loaded on iPhones and iPods.
Are you using the default UPnP server with the Synology? Can you try installing MinimServer? Also try installing MinimServer or another UPnP server on your computer and try streaming some music from there... That will help discover if there is an issue with the music files or an issue with the server.
Eloise, It is definitely a Naim problem. Same files work flawlessly on other devices. On my version of the Synology, I cannot run java, so I cannot run Minim. Also, before the latest firmware upgrade, high res files often started surpassing the first second of the music. With the latest firmware, that problem has been solved, but it has introduced the digital scratching.
If the scratching sound means a pause, then it's most likely a network media timing problem between the media server and Naim renderer. It may have been exacerbated with the latest firmware, although I don't have issues with my NDX but I would look at your media server performance. Can you run a different media server program on a different machine (not a NAS) to see if the issue goes away?
Simon
As I am also experiencing difficulties due, I believe, to a firmware bug (though not for the ND5XS but the Mu-So), I would be curious to know if you have contacted Naim's support and if your problem is now solved. Would you mind letting us know?