I posted over on the TPA support forum last week but got no replies so am reposting here.
I have a BIIISE connected to a Schiit Wyrd hub then to a Mac Mini using A+. The USB board for the BIIISE is from JLSounds (Joro). The hub is needed due to issues with the Mini USB 3.0 not recognizing the DAC.
For PCM files, everything works fine (and sounds terrific).
However, for DSD files (DoP), I typically get an initialization error in A+ when trying to play the initial song of a playlist. Everything eventually rights itself (i.e. music starts playing) after hitting the A+ play button 2 or 3 times. I also get a small pop in between DSD tracks as well as rather decent sized pop after the last song in the playlist ends.
Could adjustments to the IIR bandwidth settings help with this issue for DSD files? Any other suggestions?
Thanks in advance for your assistance.
I have a BIIISE connected to a Schiit Wyrd hub then to a Mac Mini using A+. The USB board for the BIIISE is from JLSounds (Joro). The hub is needed due to issues with the Mini USB 3.0 not recognizing the DAC.
For PCM files, everything works fine (and sounds terrific).
However, for DSD files (DoP), I typically get an initialization error in A+ when trying to play the initial song of a playlist. Everything eventually rights itself (i.e. music starts playing) after hitting the A+ play button 2 or 3 times. I also get a small pop in between DSD tracks as well as rather decent sized pop after the last song in the playlist ends.
Could adjustments to the IIR bandwidth settings help with this issue for DSD files? Any other suggestions?
Thanks in advance for your assistance.
Thanks for the reply.
I am fairly certain I am playing DSD files using DoP because A+ has a setting for this & I double checked my settings. Also in the A+ interface window it shows what the input (DSF 1bit/2.8MHz (DSD64) Stereo) & output (DSD64 Stereo) is.
Also, the JLSounds USB board only accepts DoP (not native DSD) from what I can tell. Obviously this could be an issue with the USB board just not sure how all the pieces fit together.
Thanks Miero, I have asked Joro about this Pin 8 issue.
It is a bit confusing because I am sending DoP data which to my understanding is DSD data wrapped up in a PCM packet so there is no data conversion happening. If that is true, then either the USB board is sending DSD data (as intended) or else converting it to PCM. Hmmmm.
Here is Joro's reply:
"ES9018 automatically detects the DSD signal and that’s why it doesn’t need to use pin8. Almost all the rest DACs, which can play DSD, need an additional software control for their internal registers for DSD/PCM changing. Then this signal is used from a microcontroller, which controls the used DAC."
While this does not help with my original question pertaining to DSD initialization during startup or "pops" between tracks and an even larger "pop" after the last track, it does confirm that my implementation of the USB board is correct.
Thanks Miero, I think you are correct. From what I am told, some players like JRiver have a Mute function built-in for this reason. Unfortunately A+ does not have this Mute function.
I had previously had pops between DSD tracks with my BMC PureDAC which has a ES9018 chip.
B-IIIse and DSD/PCM switching
My experience mimics yours. I use the Sonore USB interface, and it decodes DoP to DSD, and sends straight DSD to the B-IIIse. Between tracks there is a very quiet little tick, not always audible, this seems to be quite normal, especially for DSD files which are created by ripping from SACD via PlayStation.
At the end of a DSD album, there is a slightly larger pop, still not really annoying on my system, and I believe that comes when the ESS 9018 auto switches back to PCM.
I think Miero is probably right, that the only way to fix this would be to program something in via i2c which could mute the DAC when switching PCM-DSD and DSD-PCM. In my system these noises are not annoying enough to worry about at all.
My experience mimics yours. I use the Sonore USB interface, and it decodes DoP to DSD, and sends straight DSD to the B-IIIse. Between tracks there is a very quiet little tick, not always audible, this seems to be quite normal, especially for DSD files which are created by ripping from SACD via PlayStation.
At the end of a DSD album, there is a slightly larger pop, still not really annoying on my system, and I believe that comes when the ESS 9018 auto switches back to PCM.
I think Miero is probably right, that the only way to fix this would be to program something in via i2c which could mute the DAC when switching PCM-DSD and DSD-PCM. In my system these noises are not annoying enough to worry about at all.
Thanks Barrows. It is oddly comforting to know that you (of all people) are seeing the same thing. At least I know that my system is configured correctly.
I have recently switched players (from A+ to HQ Player) and no longer get the very slight pop between tracks but I do get a rather nasty pop after the last track is completed. I guess I will need to just live with it.
I have recently switched players (from A+ to HQ Player) and no longer get the very slight pop between tracks but I do get a rather nasty pop after the last track is completed. I guess I will need to just live with it.
Players
Yeah, it does appear that different player SW makes a difference as well. I use a stripped down version of votexbox (MPD player) and the pop at the end of an album (playlist) is not bad enough to bother me. I only hear tiny tic between tracks, and I am pretty sure that it does not even exist on DSD downloads, just on Playstation type rips.
The only way any of this woudl be enough to bother me is if I was playing a playlist with both DSD and PCM files together, and almost always play full albums so this is not an issue for me.
I have jRiver 20 on my MacBook for travel music, maybe I'll try that just for kicks sometime and see if it makes a difference as jRiver can be configured to play silence at the beginning of a playlist, and this might help the DAC sync. I suggested this option to be incorporated into MPD, but I do not think it has been done. It makes sense to me that all players would be wise to just play 250-500 mS of silence whenever they start playing (not between tracks though as this woudl affect gapless) as some DACs handle these things less elegantly than others.
I also wonder if Twisted Pear could incorporate a fix in their controller code on the PIC chip? But muting the DAC might miss the start of a track. Some recordings seem intenet on starting the track instantly, which seems annoying as well, it would just as easy for a recording to have a couple of seconds of (digital) silence at the beginning of every track which would allow all DACs to have plenty of time to sync up.
Yeah, it does appear that different player SW makes a difference as well. I use a stripped down version of votexbox (MPD player) and the pop at the end of an album (playlist) is not bad enough to bother me. I only hear tiny tic between tracks, and I am pretty sure that it does not even exist on DSD downloads, just on Playstation type rips.
The only way any of this woudl be enough to bother me is if I was playing a playlist with both DSD and PCM files together, and almost always play full albums so this is not an issue for me.
I have jRiver 20 on my MacBook for travel music, maybe I'll try that just for kicks sometime and see if it makes a difference as jRiver can be configured to play silence at the beginning of a playlist, and this might help the DAC sync. I suggested this option to be incorporated into MPD, but I do not think it has been done. It makes sense to me that all players would be wise to just play 250-500 mS of silence whenever they start playing (not between tracks though as this woudl affect gapless) as some DACs handle these things less elegantly than others.
I also wonder if Twisted Pear could incorporate a fix in their controller code on the PIC chip? But muting the DAC might miss the start of a track. Some recordings seem intenet on starting the track instantly, which seems annoying as well, it would just as easy for a recording to have a couple of seconds of (digital) silence at the beginning of every track which would allow all DACs to have plenty of time to sync up.
This issue seems to be the "dirty little secret" with the ES9018 chip which is a bit of a surprise given its wide popularity.
The various vendors seem to point fingers at the other vendors as being responsible for correcting this issue. In a similar thread on this forum, Brian (TPA) said this needed to be corrected by Jussi (Signalyst). When I asked Jussi, he pointed back to TPA & the ES9018 chip functions. Arghhh. To be fair, this seems to fall into the gray area and the solution might not be so simple as you pointed out. Kinda sounds like this is something that ESS should address.
With A+ I rarely listened to DSD so I didn't have to deal with that much. However, with HQ Player, I am converting PCM to DSD so now I deal with it all the time.
The various vendors seem to point fingers at the other vendors as being responsible for correcting this issue. In a similar thread on this forum, Brian (TPA) said this needed to be corrected by Jussi (Signalyst). When I asked Jussi, he pointed back to TPA & the ES9018 chip functions. Arghhh. To be fair, this seems to fall into the gray area and the solution might not be so simple as you pointed out. Kinda sounds like this is something that ESS should address.
With A+ I rarely listened to DSD so I didn't have to deal with that much. However, with HQ Player, I am converting PCM to DSD so now I deal with it all the time.
yeah...
It is definitely a gray area. This comes about because the ESS can accept DSD on the same pins as I2S, and can also auto switch between DSD/PCM without having to be told anything via I2C, other DAC chips cannot even do this at all, so to blame ESS is a bit odd...
In my case there is no problem really, nothing which bothers me at all, but worse things happen with some playback software. Manufacturers who use the ESS chip address this though their control code via I2C, or, alternately, via the way their USB interface switches between PCM/DSD/PCM. No one is really to blame, and there are multiple possible solutions if you really have a level of pop or tic which annoys you.
It is definitely a gray area. This comes about because the ESS can accept DSD on the same pins as I2S, and can also auto switch between DSD/PCM without having to be told anything via I2C, other DAC chips cannot even do this at all, so to blame ESS is a bit odd...
In my case there is no problem really, nothing which bothers me at all, but worse things happen with some playback software. Manufacturers who use the ESS chip address this though their control code via I2C, or, alternately, via the way their USB interface switches between PCM/DSD/PCM. No one is really to blame, and there are multiple possible solutions if you really have a level of pop or tic which annoys you.
Guys - this is all about the source. If your source was playing DSD all the time (silence between tracks) you would never have this issue. 
The problem is most DoP sources don't do this - they switch between PCM and DSD and because they do so - the ES9018 has no choice to play the dirty PCM samples which thes DoP player is in the midst of detecting that is should output DSD.
A correctly implement DSD source will never cause any issues with the ES9018. Don't fault the ES9018 - fault the devices doing DoP/DSD wrong.
The problem is most DoP sources don't do this - they switch between PCM and DSD and because they do so - the ES9018 has no choice to play the dirty PCM samples which thes DoP player is in the midst of detecting that is should output DSD.
A correctly implement DSD source will never cause any issues with the ES9018.
Don't fault the ES9018 - fault the devices doing DoP/DSD wrong.
Hmmm.
So how can one play silence between tracks and have gapless playback? I do believe that Russ is correct in that one way to fix the "problem" is to do it in the USB iterface.
The Sonore USB will play native DSD, but unfortunately, many, many of the better playback software and OS cannot do so.
But, if one is using HQplayer on Windows, you should be able to play native DSD via ASIO, anyone care to comment on their experiences with that approach?
In my system: Linux server running vortexbox/MPD, Sonore USB, I get a tiny tic between tracks, barely audible, and not distracting at all. If the tracks are gapless, you cannot hear the tic. I do not think the DAC is switchign between PCM/DSD in between tracks though, as the lock LED stays lit. But, at the end of a playlist, this switch DSD-PCM does happen, with a small pop.
So how can one play silence between tracks and have gapless playback? I do believe that Russ is correct in that one way to fix the "problem" is to do it in the USB iterface.
The Sonore USB will play native DSD, but unfortunately, many, many of the better playback software and OS cannot do so.
But, if one is using HQplayer on Windows, you should be able to play native DSD via ASIO, anyone care to comment on their experiences with that approach?
In my system: Linux server running vortexbox/MPD, Sonore USB, I get a tiny tic between tracks, barely audible, and not distracting at all. If the tracks are gapless, you cannot hear the tic. I do not think the DAC is switchign between PCM/DSD in between tracks though, as the lock LED stays lit. But, at the end of a playlist, this switch DSD-PCM does happen, with a small pop.
I am in the same camp as BrianL so a HUGE thanks
to Russ & barrows for their attention to this matter. Hopefully this will lead to a solution.For the record, with HQ Player on a Mac (Core Audio), I don't get the ticks between tracks but do get a rather nasty (loud) pop after the last track is completed. FYI - in the HQ Player documentation there is mention of ticks between tracks depending on how you load the tracks.
One of the reasons I went the DIY route was the ability to upgrade (modify) components so if there is another USB board (now or in the future) that solves this, then I am all ears.
barrows - I would have seriously considered your USB board but it was not available when I was having my Buffalo IIISE built. I ended up with Joro's board - liked the ability to power both sides of the board and not rely on 5v from the cable. That said, I have asked Joro to weigh in on this but not gotten a reply.
ericuco: It would not be that hard to mod the Sonore USB to power the "dirty" side with a separate supply, any decent DIYer could do it. But, the only way to keep the two sides fully isolated would be to provide a completely separate power supply for the dirty side, with a dedicated transformer, other wise your grounds will be common and there will not be full isolation. My server has a pretty clean 5 V feed on the USB, and I have noticed no improvement from providing a separate isolated (in my test case a battery with discrete reg for 5 V) in my tests. But feel free to experiment!
I just made some additional tests with the Sonore USB, and I only get the very small tics between tracks with SACD rips via Playstation, i have also heard thta there is a Playstation software upgrade from Mr Wizard to avoid this, but have no experience with it. With DSD downloads, absolutely no noise between tracks with the Sonore USB and vortexbox or jRiver.
I just made some additional tests with the Sonore USB, and I only get the very small tics between tracks with SACD rips via Playstation, i have also heard thta there is a Playstation software upgrade from Mr Wizard to avoid this, but have no experience with it. With DSD downloads, absolutely no noise between tracks with the Sonore USB and vortexbox or jRiver.
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