Crackling / pops on USB DAC

betocool

Hi guys,

been using RuneAudio 0.4 beta on a Raspberry Pi 3 for a few months, and I'm very happy with it. Kudos to the great job, it's a very nice interface and player.

However, sometimes I get on some tracks a bit of crack/pop noises playing FLAC files (44.1/16) over NFS/Wifi. I notice that especially while listening on headphones. Other times I don't really pay any attention. I'm using an Amanero based USB DAC, and I wonder if that may be the issue? The wifi seems to be pretty stable, haven't had any problems there.

I read somewhere something about a USB driver upgrade, but I think that was for a RPi 2/B?

Any help or comment is appreciated. Happy to provide more information if needed.

Cheers,

Albert

hondagx35

Hi Albert,

welcome to RuneAudio.

You can try to update the kernel as described here.

Frank

betocool

Hi Frank,

thanks for your help and quick answer.

I did resize the partition and did the upgrade, as expected, that worked well.

There's still the odd crackle/pop while playing the FLAC's from the network. I'm pretty sure the digital files are ok, I rewinded to the same spot I heard the noise before and it didn't happen twice. In all fairness though, they seem to happen less than with the previous kernel.

Any log message I can have a look at if any data packets were dropped somewhere?

Cheers,

Albert

betocool

So, further news.

I had a look at the RuneAudio debug info. Only 28 packets lost on Wifi. Not the world.

I also had a try at increasing the buffer size and the amount of buffer being full before playing to 4096Kb and 30%.

That seems to have done the trick. Had a listen yesterday on the tracks I knew came up with faults, and they sounded all perfect. No noticeable delay on play/pause/stop either. Good stuff!

Still, is there any way I can check if any audio packets were dropped somewhere?

Cheers,

Albert

hondagx35

Hi Albert,

change the mpd loglevel to verbose and check the log file
/var/log/runeaudio/mpd.log for errors.

Frank

betocool

Hi Frank,

I just checked the mpd.log file, there seem to be no packets dropped or anything. I still have to have a quiet dedicated listen, but I think increasing the buffer size and amount before playing helped significantly.

Thanks a lot!

Alberto

IgorGIV

Hi, betocool!
Had the same problem with my RPi3 and usb dac. The problem was in built-in WiFi, which has very poor performance (you can search about it and it's performance tests in internet). So i changed my connection from wifi to wired (ethernet), and it solved the problem. No more crackling / pops.
Hope it will help to you and others.

P.S. Sorry for my Eng, but my native is Russian. And i hope i was understandable.

truckinve

IgorGIV wroteHi, betocool!
Had the same problem with my RPi3 and usb dac. The problem was in built-in WiFi, which has very poor performance (you can search about it and it's performance tests in internet). So i changed my connection from wifi to wired (ethernet), and it solved the problem. No more crackling / pops.
Hope it will help to you and others.

P.S. Sorry for my Eng, but my native is Russian. And i hope i was understandable.

Happens the same to me. The kernel fixed the channel swapping, but the Rpi3 built-in Wifi oh my ..

Im going to try increasing the buffer size before getting a dongle or cable.

Thank you