DSD with DAC-V1 drops?

Posted by: thijazi on 06 May 2016

With the last DAC-V1 firmware upgrade I am able to listen to my DSD collection, however I noticed frequent "drops" in volume (lasting a split second) every now an then during each track, it can happen 2-3 times per track but it nearly always happens.

I use Roon for playback and 64 and 128 DSD files. Does anyone here face the same issue? Does anyone know if Naim are testing a further update to the firmware or did we reach the end of the road here?

Posted on: 07 May 2016 by Jude2012

Greetings,

I don't have more info than on this thread https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...92#53097172997380192

I recommend contacting Naim direct regarding testing of Roon, as the beta testing involving end users closed in circa November 2015.

Jude

Posted on: 07 May 2016 by Janus

I did not notice any drops when playing back native DSD (or upsampled PCM files to DSD 64) through Room. My source is a Mac Mini and I use a Chord USB to connect it to my DAC V1.

Posted on: 14 May 2016 by thijazi

An update on this one while I am in touch with the good folks at Naim support.... Turned on the USB status page and found out that only when playing back DSD files the buffer plummets from around 60% in a steady stream until it reaches about 25% at which point the DSD playback skips a beat and the buffer jumps back to 60%, only to go back and start plummeting once more until it reaches 25% and again a skip.... This keeps happening regardless if I playback DSD64 or DSD128.... The issue never happens with FLAC files of all resolutions up to 192

I swapped the USB cable, used a different USB port, checked all my drivers on the PC, it is all fine... I then went and swapped the PC!, installed all the drivers on a spare PC I had lying around, and the same issue happens....

Finally, I moved the DSD files from the NAS to play locally and the is issue there... Not sure what affects this buffer and how to resolve it... I am running this gig on a Windows 10 64bit machine....

Regards,

Tareq

 

Posted on: 23 May 2016 by thijazi
While the good folks at Naim are helping me out with this issue, thought to share some new findings on this one, I ran a test setting up a playlist with individual tracks, one for each of the following (all FLAC except for the DSD and the 384-24 bit file:
 
44.1-16bit
44.1-24bit
48-24bit
88.2-24bit
96-24bit
176.4-24bit
192-24bit
352.8-24bit
384-24bit (WAV)
DSD64
DSD128
 
All of them are uncompressed FLAC files except for the 384-24bit file which is WAV (and off course the DSD files are in their own format). I played them all one by one in that sequence (skipped each after about 10-20 seconds of playback) and just monitored the DAC-V1 USB Status window for buffering or CPU issues... Here is what I found
 
44.1-16bit --> no issue
44.1-24bit --> no issue
48-24bit --> no issue
88.2-24bit --> no issue
96-24bit --> no issue
176.4-24bit --> Buffering issue
192-24bit --> no issue
352.8-24bit --> Buffering issue
384-24bit --> no issue
DSD64  --> Buffering issue
DSD128  --> Buffering issue
 
I was surprised to see 176.4 files have the same buffering issue, so I went and selected random albums which I have sourced in 176.4 resolution and all of them exhibited the same issue in playback... I installed JRiver and tested playback with JRiver instead of roon and the same exact behavior repeated. When this happens with the 176.4 files, the buffer bar goes all the way down to about 15% before jumping back up to the 60% zone.
 
I also noticed that when switching from 384 to 176.4 files, the buffer jumps to 100% with an overflow, then as the 176.4 track plays the buffer goes down to 15% before jumping back up.
 
Does anyone know what affects the buffering? I tried putting the files locally instead of the NAS, didn't make any difference. I also tested with another PC, swapped USB cables, used different ports, nothing worked.
Posted on: 23 May 2016 by Jude2012

It's good that you are in touch with Naim. Perhaps they will offer to test your  V1.

Posted on: 23 May 2016 by Brilliant

It seems strange that you are getting the same result whether using different players or PCs. I am assuming that they do not have the same installation/setup. Therefore  In your instance it seems that the trouble may be with the DAC V1. Either way the NAIM customer support is the right place to ask.

I had a somewhat similar problem with my Win 7 PC desktop/J River MC19 setup which I used with a Canon scanner. Shutting down the Canon memory resident apps solved my  issue.  You want Windows in high performance mode (i.e. no Windows power saving routines active).

 I had two spare Win 7 HP Elitebooks (with just a USB hard drive attached) running Win 7 64bit/MC 19 that had no  issues at all, other than not sounding as 'open' as the desktop setup.