@ Pavel: I might have a solution to the clicking noise of your BluWave! A (small) 10nF capacitor soldered between the USB Shield and USB GND connections might do the trick. Any testing from your side would be fine... but is happening whenever you'll have some spare time to do it (and wish to do so)!
As for Linux, what issues are we speaking about?
I'm a Windows victim so please don't shoot the messenger!
@ Joschl: thank you very much for confirmation
Please use your BluWave for as much as possible and share your findings with us!
Thanx,
L
As for Linux, what issues are we speaking about?
I'm a Windows victim so please don't shoot the messenger!
@ Joschl: thank you very much for confirmation
Please use your BluWave for as much as possible and share your findings with us!Thanx,
L
I just received my BluWave board
My setup:
Lenovo Thinkpad 430 laptop
BluWave (standard)
ES9018 Dac, LCaudio Zapfilter 2
PGA 2310 volume
Slewmaster + Kypton C amplifier
Loudspeakers: 2 ways from "Frequence" with Scanspeak Illuminator units.
An Active subwoofer Scanspeak 10" bass with Hypex amplifier / crossover module.
Loudspeaker cables "QED Silver Anniversary-XT"
The sound is great and with all the details you want, the sound is a bit technical and missing a bit "silky" warm
I think I will try with my "Sjostrom 5V super regulator" for the BluWave board to see ig I can improve the sound
I am using the setup with Tidal desktop "Eksclusive mode"
Maybe later I will renew my JRiver license and use it together with "Asio 4 all, universial driver" for optimum sound quality.
Now the setup It´s a bit unstable sometimes i get very high distortion in right channel when selecting between HD tracks and changing between "example safe, or standard or relaxed mode in the WaveIO control panel software. Buffersize is either "auto" or 4096 don´t know what is most stable yet.
Lorien do you know what can cause the big distortion from the board?
How do I connect 5V external PSU to the Board, do I need to set any jumper or how?
Thx
My setup:
Lenovo Thinkpad 430 laptop
BluWave (standard)
ES9018 Dac, LCaudio Zapfilter 2
PGA 2310 volume
Slewmaster + Kypton C amplifier
Loudspeakers: 2 ways from "Frequence" with Scanspeak Illuminator units.
An Active subwoofer Scanspeak 10" bass with Hypex amplifier / crossover module.
Loudspeaker cables "QED Silver Anniversary-XT"
The sound is great and with all the details you want, the sound is a bit technical and missing a bit "silky" warm
I think I will try with my "Sjostrom 5V super regulator" for the BluWave board to see ig I can improve the sound
I am using the setup with Tidal desktop "Eksclusive mode"
Maybe later I will renew my JRiver license and use it together with "Asio 4 all, universial driver" for optimum sound quality.
Now the setup It´s a bit unstable sometimes i get very high distortion in right channel when selecting between HD tracks and changing between "example safe, or standard or relaxed mode in the WaveIO control panel software. Buffersize is either "auto" or 4096 don´t know what is most stable yet.
Lorien do you know what can cause the big distortion from the board?
How do I connect 5V external PSU to the Board, do I need to set any jumper or how?
Thx
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I did some more testing today, WaveIO control panel was set to "Relaxed" and buffer size = "Auto" I started pc and turned on Tidal Desktop selected HD tracks 24bit / 96khz I get a very high distortion in right channel, I could turn the distortion off by turning exclusive mode off / on in Tidal settings, but it came back when I select a new track in Tidal. everything working fine with Spotify desktop.
I still hope to buy a Jriver license so I can test the board with Jriver WDM driver + ASIO driver to see if it Works better.
I still hope to buy a Jriver license so I can test the board with Jriver WDM driver + ASIO driver to see if it Works better.
Hello Kim, perhaps many sellers are saying this thing but it's definitely something wrong on your side. I say this because here all my BluWaves are playing fine (no weird stuff on any of the channels) otherwise I wouldn't send it to you!
And, AFAIK, there were no such reports from other BluWave owners stating issues like yours.
Anyway, let's try to solve it one at a time. First of all I would like to have some pictures of your setup, if it's possible.
1. USB powering: I'm assuming that you're still powering your BluWave from USB Bus. If so... well... it works, but it's not the best approach! Moreover, please allow for that board of yours for a couple of days to burn in before making any sound assessments.
2. External power: solder the wires to your external PSU to the J8 header. The Positive rail will go to the round pad while the isolated GND will go to the rounded squared one. BluWave will do the rest.
If you're going to use a shunt PSU, note that you'll need 80mA for that output side to work so don't overkill anything there!
EDIT: BluWave does have reverse polarity protection on J8 header so if there's something wrong there you should NOT see the LD4 LED lit up.
3. Drivers: I swear that I have somewhere an email from Thesycon where thy stated that I (or any WaveIO/BluWave) owners should use Thesycon ASIO driver instead of generic ASIO4All alternative but I cannot find it anymore... I didn't get into details as they were kinda proprietary... So, please try if WaveIO's native ASIO driver does make some difference in your setup!
4. Right channel noise: IF there's a single situation where your BluWave works as expected with your host/PC then there are 100% chances that there's a software issue somewhere on your PC. Please try native drivers I gave you!
EDIT: uninstalling any previous drivers (ASIO4ALL/other drivers for XMOS based products) is mandatory!
Kind regards,
Lucian
And, AFAIK, there were no such reports from other BluWave owners stating issues like yours.
Anyway, let's try to solve it one at a time. First of all I would like to have some pictures of your setup, if it's possible.
1. USB powering: I'm assuming that you're still powering your BluWave from USB Bus. If so... well... it works, but it's not the best approach! Moreover, please allow for that board of yours for a couple of days to burn in before making any sound assessments.
2. External power: solder the wires to your external PSU to the J8 header. The Positive rail will go to the round pad while the isolated GND will go to the rounded squared one. BluWave will do the rest.
If you're going to use a shunt PSU, note that you'll need 80mA for that output side to work so don't overkill anything there!
EDIT: BluWave does have reverse polarity protection on J8 header so if there's something wrong there you should NOT see the LD4 LED lit up.
3. Drivers: I swear that I have somewhere an email from Thesycon where thy stated that I (or any WaveIO/BluWave) owners should use Thesycon ASIO driver instead of generic ASIO4All alternative but I cannot find it anymore... I didn't get into details as they were kinda proprietary... So, please try if WaveIO's native ASIO driver does make some difference in your setup!
4. Right channel noise: IF there's a single situation where your BluWave works as expected with your host/PC then there are 100% chances that there's a software issue somewhere on your PC. Please try native drivers I gave you!
EDIT: uninstalling any previous drivers (ASIO4ALL/other drivers for XMOS based products) is mandatory!
Kind regards,
Lucian
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Hi Lucian,
My setup is working by using Jriver with selected "WaveIO Asio driver" together with Tidal desktop application.
I even tried updated all my drivers on the laptop with "Driver booster".. still having large distortion when using Tidal desktop, "exlusive mode" without Jriver.
Yes I use your native Bluewave driver
"Asio4all driver is uninstalled but also tested okay with Jriver....
So it seems that Jriver nailed it and now I can enjoy my new Bluwave board.
Soon I will add my Sjostrom super regulator to see if that could improve sound quality.
I am also thinking about buying a Setup with Raspberry 3, Moode Player (to play Tidal Master files) so everything can be smart and compact setup to put away in the shelf
Thanks Lucian for your fine board and kind support.
Best regards
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So to understand correctly, you now have your BluWave working without issues on the right channel?
I know Sjostrom products! Good choices! Please share with us your further updates on this topic! Just remember that BluWave is more sensitive to external PSU compared to WaveIO so, as some may say: WhatYouSeeIsWhatYouGet (maybe slight less as the PSU rails on BluWave can be definitely improved but I'll get way out of the initial price range set for it!).
Kind regards,
Lucian
Yes jriver solved the problem for now, as my pc is a work pc so I have limited possibilities to do a complete uninstall.
Maybe someone have a suggestion to what drivers to update or where to find to found new ?
Yes I will get back when I have added external power supply😊
Thx again
Kim
It improved after cleaning up with Ccleaner / improved wifi with new extender so now only small crackling like listening to old Lp recordings, so I keep using Jriver for best performance.
Do you still have issues with the right channel?
And, as for the sound, is the same like when BluWave is powered from USB Bus?
Cheers,
Lucian
It gave a nice improvement using external PSU-with a more silky, defined and musical sound.
Do you make the board compatible with Raspberry Pi 3, Rasbian OS?
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I'm having the same problems on Ubuntu 16.04 - sound is there but ALWAY very distorted - WaveIO works great in the same system. Unfortunately I can't try the board out on Windows or Mac
. Onboard LEDs indicate everything is working as it should. I've tried it out with just with USB power and with external power but no luck. Any progress on this Lucian?
Bob
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Hello Bob! It's really weird what's happen as long as in Windows and Mac all is fine but I'll dig into the issue in the following days searching for the problem. It might take a while since I'm planning to build up a test firmware release just for that or bridge some parts in HW.
I'll get back as soon as I'll have something,
L
I'll get back as soon as I'll have something,
L
Hi Lucian,
I spent some time trying to figure out what the problem was. I've got Ubuntu 16.04 on an Odroid and on an Intel-NUC. The Odroid was fine so I wondered if it was a hardware problem with the NUC. I replaced Ubuntu on the NUC with Windows 10. That's fine as well, no distortion and beautiful sound.
I had tried reinstalling sound drivers on NUC Ubuntu but nothing I did worked. I may stay with Windows 10 now - much easier.
But it may be worth you looking at the problem in case others have the same issue.
Which are the best drivers to use on Windows 10? ASIO, WDM, Direct etc? I'm using ASIO at the moment!
Bob
Hello Bob,
thanx you very much for your help! s BluWave was built on WaveIO I didn't expect to have any issues with Linux (since as far as I know, WaveIO does work on most Linux distros). Still, those few but essential HW differences between BluWave and WaveIO might do some side effects. I have no proofs a.t.m.
So far I'll try to adapt an older firmware for BluWave and see how it behaves.
If you want, you can help me upload it to your BluWave and try again your board on Ubuntu. I'll do the same step from here as well but here things are going slooooooooooowlllyyy...
Kind regards,
Lucian
P.S. Any difference between WaveIO and BluWave form your side? I know that your opinions are subjective but still... I'm interested! Thanx!
thanx you very much for your help! s BluWave was built on WaveIO I didn't expect to have any issues with Linux (since as far as I know, WaveIO does work on most Linux distros). Still, those few but essential HW differences between BluWave and WaveIO might do some side effects. I have no proofs a.t.m.
So far I'll try to adapt an older firmware for BluWave and see how it behaves.
If you want, you can help me upload it to your BluWave and try again your board on Ubuntu. I'll do the same step from here as well but here things are going slooooooooooowlllyyy...
Kind regards,
Lucian
P.S. Any difference between WaveIO and BluWave form your side? I know that your opinions are subjective but still... I'm interested! Thanx!
Some updates: I ran a couple of tests on Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS (Xenial Xerus) with a couple of players I could find and I can confirm that on most of the time BluWave plays like crazy. As Bob said, it's like Ubuntu doesn't receive correctly the sample rate clock feedback from BluWave.
My setup is now spinning around Clementine but I also tested mpd with gmpc (with alsa properly configured). How do I know? Well, I changed the firmware in BluWave to be a clone of WaveIO (is not a drop in replacement though...) and WaveIO played well while BluWave didn't.
There were some rare occasions when BluWave acted properly but I simply cannot find a way to mimic those conditions just find the source of this stubborn problem.
I'm start thinking is a hardware issue BUT BluWave is reported to be working okay in MAC and Windows. If there's indeed a hardware issue then I must say that's a very specific one. Never encountered something like this before!
Before dissecting the BluWave card I have here for tests I would like to install an older Ubuntu version just to see if I'll get the same reaction.
I'll keep you in touch,
L
My setup is now spinning around Clementine but I also tested mpd with gmpc (with alsa properly configured). How do I know? Well, I changed the firmware in BluWave to be a clone of WaveIO (is not a drop in replacement though...) and WaveIO played well while BluWave didn't.
There were some rare occasions when BluWave acted properly but I simply cannot find a way to mimic those conditions just find the source of this stubborn problem.
I'm start thinking is a hardware issue BUT BluWave is reported to be working okay in MAC and Windows. If there's indeed a hardware issue then I must say that's a very specific one. Never encountered something like this before!
Before dissecting the BluWave card I have here for tests I would like to install an older Ubuntu version just to see if I'll get the same reaction.
I'll keep you in touch,
L
I've tried out BluWave on three machines running Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS plus another two PCs running Windows 10 and have had mixed results. BluWave played well on two of the Ubuntu machines - an Odroid XU4 running kernel 4.9 and a Desktop PC running kernel 4.8. It also played well on a Desktop PC running Windows 10 and an Intel-NUC running Windows 10.
I originally had Ubuntu 16.04.3 kernel 4.8 (also tried kernel 4.10) on the Intel-NUC and it was only in that situation that BluWave had these problems. So I wiped Ubuntu 16.04 from the Intel-NUC and installed Windows 10 - BluWave played well with that.
So in summary, two Ubuntu installs worked well, two Windows 10 installs worked well and one Ubuntu install did not work at all well. The odd thing is that on the same Intel-NUC BluWave worked well with Windows 10 but with Ubuntu it didn't.
I have a Mac as well but haven't tried that out yet.
My guess is that something was wrong with the Ubuntu kernel install on Intel-NUC. The kernel version used was 'generic' (using 'uname -a' at the command line).
I don't think there is anything wrong with the BluWave firmware. I'm fairly sure it's a kernel issue with some Ubuntu installs.
Bob
I originally had Ubuntu 16.04.3 kernel 4.8 (also tried kernel 4.10) on the Intel-NUC and it was only in that situation that BluWave had these problems. So I wiped Ubuntu 16.04 from the Intel-NUC and installed Windows 10 - BluWave played well with that.
So in summary, two Ubuntu installs worked well, two Windows 10 installs worked well and one Ubuntu install did not work at all well. The odd thing is that on the same Intel-NUC BluWave worked well with Windows 10 but with Ubuntu it didn't.
I have a Mac as well but haven't tried that out yet.
My guess is that something was wrong with the Ubuntu kernel install on Intel-NUC. The kernel version used was 'generic' (using 'uname -a' at the command line).
I don't think there is anything wrong with the BluWave firmware. I'm fairly sure it's a kernel issue with some Ubuntu installs.
Bob
Just a quick update: trying to solve the Linux playback problem I went ahead and compared BluWave with WaveIO using the same configuration and same Ubuntu version. It's true that WaveIO is more stable but my results are mixed and rather confused.
For example when playing a 44.1 kHz track in Clementine on WaveIO all is okay, music sound normally and the pitch is the correct one. But same track with 48 kHz sample rate plays normally (pitch is okay to my ears) BUT my scope doesn't show up that WaveIO is disabling the 22.5792 MHz NDK oscillator (used for 44.1 family of fs) and enables the 24.576 Mhz NDK oscillator. ... and the frequency is the "old" one: 22.5792 Mhz.
How is that possible... I don't know!
Along my test time I saw that sometimes BluWave is playing fine regardless of the sample rate of the track streamed over USB! Usually this is happening when I plug in the cards on USB ports for the first time! After I plug them in again all start being messy.
Now I'll leave 16.04 LTS and go for next stable version just to see what's happen!
I'll report back my findings,
L
For example when playing a 44.1 kHz track in Clementine on WaveIO all is okay, music sound normally and the pitch is the correct one. But same track with 48 kHz sample rate plays normally (pitch is okay to my ears) BUT my scope doesn't show up that WaveIO is disabling the 22.5792 MHz NDK oscillator (used for 44.1 family of fs) and enables the 24.576 Mhz NDK oscillator.
... and the frequency is the "old" one: 22.5792 Mhz.How is that possible... I don't know!
Along my test time I saw that sometimes BluWave is playing fine regardless of the sample rate of the track streamed over USB! Usually this is happening when I plug in the cards on USB ports for the first time! After I plug them in again all start being messy.
Now I'll leave 16.04 LTS and go for next stable version just to see what's happen!
I'll report back my findings,
L
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Thank you! I know that BluWave is working okay on Windows (and MAC) ... Linux is the problem, at least some distributions...
On a side note, to all those of you who are waiting for the NDK's SDA parts to show up: I just received a note letting me know that oscillators will be delivered with a week sooner than expected thus I'll start messaging over PMs all of you who are interested in those parts.
Kind regards,
L
On a side note, to all those of you who are waiting for the NDK's SDA parts to show up: I just received a note letting me know that oscillators will be delivered with a week sooner than expected thus I'll start messaging over PMs all of you who are interested in those parts.
Kind regards,
L
Occasional noise
After playing tracks through BluWave for several weeks now using Windows 10 I'm very impressed with sound quality. Occasionally though, once or twice on each track, there is a crackling noise that sounds like static, the type of static noise you used to get when playing a vinyl disc. It isn't very loud but it is distinct and easily audible - not present when using WaveIO.
Any ideas?
Bob
After playing tracks through BluWave for several weeks now using Windows 10 I'm very impressed with sound quality. Occasionally though, once or twice on each track, there is a crackling noise that sounds like static, the type of static noise you used to get when playing a vinyl disc. It isn't very loud but it is distinct and easily audible - not present when using WaveIO.
Any ideas?
Bob
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