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Buff IIISE DSD256 and higher crackling

I have a vexing issue with DSD and was wondering if there was a simple, obvious solution I was missing.
I'm playing native DSD recordings from my Dell laptop with Core i7 processor to my Buffalo IIISE DAC through a Sonore Audiobyte USB to I2S board and get great sound with PCM at all rates, and with DSD64 and DSD128. When I get to DSD256, though, playback has a low-level crackling sound mixed in with the playback. I hear the crackling whether I play the files using Foobar (with a multitude of different settings) or HQ player (trying every filter and modulator setting on HQplayer).
I have the Buffalo IIR filter set at the default (recommended for PCM). I'm thinking if this was an issue with the Buffalo's IIR filter, for example, it would also happen with the DSD64 and DSD128, right? Or could the higher sample rate of DSD265 cause issues with the DAC that don't appear at the lower rates? The dip switches are not very accessible in my DAC so I'd like to known if I'm barking up the wrong tree before I tear into the unit.

Any help is greatly appreciated!
 
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Well, I went ahead and changed the DPLL settings from default to 70k, and that did nothing for the crackling. If it was due to the DSD256 ultrasonic noise that should have done something. Interestingly, the crackling is only in the right channel speaker, and is only when I play DSD256.

I thought that maybe the DSD download from Blue Coast that I was using to test DSD was corrupted, so I deleted my copy and downloaded the sampler tracks again from Blue Coast. The new copy sounded just like the first, low but clearly audible crackling at DSD256, perfect at DSD128 and DSD64. Unfortunately I only have that one DSD256 song to test it with, and I'm not likely to buy any more if I can't fix this.

I also tried swapping in a new USB cable, but that made no difference either.

I'm starting to think my 9 year old Dell Inspiron might be the culprit, as it cannot successfully convert PCM files on HQ Player on the fly even to DSD128 without interrupts. I thought it would still be able to simply play native DSD256, though, as that is not very processor-intensive.

Maybe the next step is to try my much newer work laptop with the same file...nope, that won't work as I don't have the permissions to install new programs on that. Rats.
 
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