Hmm, are you suggesting that the DAC should autonomously select the correct sample rate and not do its own oversampling? Did I understand you correctly that only one oversampling can be used at a time in the audio path?
There is no such setting in my Audirvana Studio preferences.
@LuckyRo You also have a DAC from Audio-gd. Do you also need to have NOS enabled if you have oversampling set in SoX or r8brain?
Apparently in the case of your DAC over-sampling should be disabled… The transmission of digital-audio signal sample-rate is in the metadata of the file… The DAC is handling the digital-audio data asynchronously, and acts on the metadata about the file sample-rate where the platform clocks are synched to the metadata… So it is best to let the computer do the up-sampling as it has more resources… but this is something that needs comparison between your DAC platform doing the up-sampling versus Audirvāna doing the up-sampling to determine which process provides the best sound-quality in your personal assessment.
I switched off this option two days ago.
I used it only at NOS. Popping sound was always after switching from dsd to pcm. For all settings I used only r8brain options. The worst situation is the loud 2kHz narrow sound after changing the file format.
I had to turn off and restart the device so that it would stop.
Please paste your debug information report here, so we can see your settings in concert with your computer resources and system configuration…
Now dsd and pcm streams works perfectly with cheapest smsl:
Audirvana Origin 2.5.21 (20522)
macOS 15.3.1 ARM64 with 16GB physical RAM
NETWORK
Status: available
Local network access: allowed
SIGNAL PROCESSING:
Polarity Inversion:
Globally: OFF
Per track: ON
Effects plugins NOT ACTIVE
UPSAMPLING:
r8brain to DSD64 with filter type B 7th order
r8brain filter parameters
Bandwidth = 99.5%
Stop band attenuation 218dB
Phase linear
AUDIO VOLUME:
Max allowed volume: 100
Replay Gain: None
SW volume control: OFF
LIBRARY SETTINGS:
Sync list: 2 folders
AUTO: /Volumes/SG4Aux_HDMusic/[HD] Library
AUTO: /Volumes/SG4Aux_HDMusic/Vinyl rip
iTunes/Music library synchronization: not synchronized
Sort and display order: en
APPEARANCE SETTINGS:
UI theme: dark
Font size: large
Language: English
Show album covers in tracks list: yes
Source list sorted:
My Music
Library
Startup view: My Music: Albums
Show local extended in source list: yes
Use media keys: yes
Use media keys for volume control: yes
Use Apple Remote: no
Number of paired remotes: 3
Remote pairing code required: no
Screen saver disabled: no
=================== AUDIO DEVICE ========================
Active method: Local
Max. memory for audio buffers: 7398MB
Local Audio Engine: CoreAudio
Exclusive access: OFF
Integer mode: ON
Use max I/O buffer size: ON
Actual I/O buffer frame size: 512
Preferred device:
SMSL USB AUDIO
Model UID:SMSL USB AUDIO:152A:85DD
UID:AppleUSBAudioEngine:SMSL:SMSL USB AUDIO:1100000:1
Active Sample Rate: 44.1kHz
Hog Mode is off
Bridge settings:
Sample rate limitation: none
Sample rate switching latency: 3s
Limit bitdepth to 24bit: OFF
Mute during sample rate change: ON
Selected device:SMSL USB AUDIO
Manufacturer: SMSL
Model name: SMSL USB AUDIO
Model UID: SMSL USB AUDIO:152A:85DD
UID: AppleUSBAudioEngine:SMSL:SMSL USB AUDIO:1100000:1
USB Vendor ID: 0x152a
USB Product ID: 0x85dd
ID 0x4e
10 available sample rates up to 768000Hz
44100
48000
88200
96000
176400
192000
352800
384000
705600
768000
Audio buffer frame size : 14 to 4096 frames
Current I/O buffer frame size : 512
Volume Control
Physical: No
Virtual: No
Max volume alert: Disabled
MQA capability
Auto-detect MQA devices: No
Not automatically detected, user set to not MQA
DSD capability
DSD via PCM 1.0
Device audio channels
Preferred stereo channels L:1 R:2
Channel bitmap: Ox3, layout:
Channel 0 mapped to 0
Channel 1 mapped to 1
Audio channels in use
Number of channels: 2
Use as stereo device only: No
Simple stereo device: Yes
1 output streams:
Number of active channels: 2, in 1 stream(s)
Channel #0 :Stream 0 channel 0
Channel #1 :Stream 0 channel 1
UPnP
UPnP network interface
Selected Network interface: Ethernet
Available Network interfaces:
Ethernet
Wi-Fi
UPnP devices found : 0
Chromecast
Chromecast devices found : 0
I suggest enabling Exclusive Access…
Also… I suggest using DoP 1.1 for all 1-bit file sample-rates in the case of the S.M.S.L. DAC.
I have noticed that the Audio-gd boxes have a USB interface upgrade available.
I sent this device back
Also I’m doing an experiment
The thing is that I most often experience crackling when I select different tracks on my own that differ in sampling. I listen to songs this way when I test some equipment or cables, which happens quite often lately. There is never any crackling below 192 kHz. When I play an album with this sampling there is no crackling between tracks either. Very rarely, even occasionally, there are crackles when I listen to the playlist and the tracks have different samplings. Again, if the crackles occur, it is only with the 192 kHz track. I have SoX off and DAC is in NOS mode. Streamer and DAC are connected via I2s cable. To test, I switched to the SPDIF cable and the problem was similar. I also tried playing from PC via USB cable directly to the DAC, bypassing the streamer. Then the problem didn’t occur at all. I tested the Gustard x30 DAC with an I2s cable and the problem was identical to that with my streamer.
Maybe you have some new thoughts?
Make sure your I²S cable pin configurations are correct for the device(s)
It could be so, but there are two facts that contradict this: firstly, it has not been like this from new, it only happened some time ago, and secondly, crackling noises also occur via SPDIF.
My many years of experience working with computers have taught me that if something occurs sporadically, it is more likely a hardware problem than a software problem. Unfortunately, when a defect occurs so sporadically, sending it to service seems to make little sense.
@Jacek Try limiting the bit-depth to 24bit and lower your Audirvāna output gain -6dB to see if this gives you a working baseline playback scenario.
@Agoldnear You mean to turn down the volume in Software Volume Control?
Note that I only use Remote because I have a headless system.
I have it limited to 24 bits.
Will enabling Preserve Album Dynamics have any impact?
Yes… the Audirvāna Volume control… experiment with Volume Leveling…
No, it has no influence on it.
By the way, it turned out that when is the same set of two songs and the first has a low bitrate and the second has a higher bitrate, there are crackling noises when switching manually and when first ends and the next one begins after it, there are no crackles.
I mentioned that this has been happening for some time, I wonder if it is caused by a newer version of Audirvana or an update in GentooPlayer?
Was that for me? If so, I don’t use DSD.
Ahh… Okay…
So it seems you should get a working baseline performance using direct USB transmission from your computer to your DAC and work from there…
…at the expense of quality, unfortunately.
I think I’ll stick with what I have, at most, I won’t choose songs selectively.
Then more-likely-than-not this is related to the 4GB of System RAM available, when tracks are loading in the background during playback… You are allocating 2.3GB for playback preload memory, and running Audirvāna at the bare minimum System requirements… More System RAM is better…