Page 1 of 4

Click/Pop/Crack when changing tracks

PostPosted: 31 Jan 2016, 22:48
by tangoo
Hallo everyone,

I am really exited and appreciate more and more runeteam's work as I get deeper into your code. Soundquality is just superb and UI is really comfortable.

By progressing in my musicbox project I got a little thing that I wasn't able to fix...
-> A clearly hearable but not loud pop when changing or starting tracks.

I tired with all constelations of...
- newest rune UI
- class-T and class AB amp
- different stabilized powersupplies as well as batteries
- Raspberry B+ and 2
- Raspyplay4 and HifiberryDAC+
- ground coupling and deearthing

In all setups its almost the same on the speakers. A not lound but clearly hearable "tack-tack" sound similar to that when connecting jacks.
Therefore I tested to interconnect several ground point from pi 5 V to DAC and AMP to earth and so on, but this had no noticable impact.

I guess the symptoms would be avoidable by getting the mpd to keep the music bitstream open and stream zeros or something like that (because I use 5 seconds of crossfade and there is just nothing hearable). But I don't know how to try this nor it could be done anyhow.
- Potential Problem? But where?

-> So: can anyone confirm same noise in his setup or found a way to fix it?
Attached you will find two measurements on my amp's output at 0 hw volume (1) and the other while playing music at a not so loud volume (2).

Greets Stef

Re: Click/Pop/Crack when changing tracks

PostPosted: 06 Feb 2016, 21:47
by tangoo
Hello audiophiles,

Can anyone confirm in his setup same pop noise?
I attached two samples.

- In the first I had only connected Rpi2 + Dac + LIRC + Amp (no RJ45 and earth) (click is from remote control, followed by the pop sound). Note: simplest Setup… Lab PS@5V + Pi/s + DAC/s + Headphones produce same pop.
Sample 1: http://tinyurl.com/j7dk95c (updated!)

- Second example shows modified ALSA settings. A maximum long ramp down was the only setting that eliminated the pop on files that are directly on PI. All other setting did not produce any difference. Even changing standby settings. So example shows difference between pi local file (no pop) and same file on NAS (pop).
Sample 2: http://tinyurl.com/gvk9p3d (updated!)

So I could narrow it down to PCM5122 that is used in Raspyplay4/HifiberryDAC+ (in combination with RPi X, because I don’t have other i2s hardware to test)?

On web I found only one other article describing the same behavior:
https://e2e.ti.com/support/data_convert ... 4/t/472960
However, I don’t know how to disable mute function other than in ALSA, which doesn’t seem to take effect?

Old datasheets of PCM5122 state on first page as main function: pop-freeness on clock halts or frequency changes:
http://pdf.datasheetcatalog.net/datashe ... cm5122.pdf

This was deleted in the current version Jan 2016:
http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/pcm5122.pdf

Did TI remove this feature or just don’t want to get vulnerable?

Greets
Stef

Re: Click/Pop/Crack when changing tracks

PostPosted: 07 Feb 2016, 01:31
by PeteB
I can confirm there is a pop between tracks, and also when you skip forward to the next track. So, any transition from one track to another.

The volume of the "pop" remains the same when you use software volume control to lower the sound at the player. Best way to hear it is to lower volume using the control in the Rune GUI, and increase the volume at the amplifier.

Also described in a post in the HiFiBerry DAC forum (not by me).

https://support.hifiberry.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/201492992-DAC-clicks-between-tracks

Re: Click/Pop/Crack when changing tracks

PostPosted: 07 Feb 2016, 09:22
by popov
Hi

With iqaudio and sound control desactivated. I don't notice any pop. Notice pop one Time after activating sound control. I never understand why, but l have to erase sd card.
One other Time When i have to use an other power supply... Lower quality and power power.

Regards

Re: Click/Pop/Crack when changing tracks

PostPosted: 09 Feb 2016, 04:34
by PeteB
Hi Popov,

Are you using the IQAudio Pi-DAC+?

Pete

Re: Click/Pop/Crack when changing tracks

PostPosted: 22 Feb 2016, 18:41
by shaffenmeister
Hi,

I am using the IQaudio PI-DAC+ and can confirm click/pop sound in the following situations:

(1) audio device is opened / closed, e.g. mpd daemon start/stop, squeezelite start/stop, mpd start/stop playing a track
(2) digital mixer is set to zero ("muted"), when the audio device is opened at the same time (e.g. mpd plays a track)
(3) pop sound when playing tracks with silent passages: pop noise at the beginning and the end of the silent passage. --> Can be resolved by disabling auto mute

All kernel versions I've been using did show this issue (4.1.6 to 4.1.18).

I do not face issues like this with my Cirrus Logic Audio Card which works flawlessly.

Kind regards,

Christoph

Re: Click/Pop/Crack when changing tracks

PostPosted: 22 Feb 2016, 23:20
by PeteB
Hi Christoph,

I was hoping more people were noticing this... :D

Can I ask what version of Pi you are using with the Cirrus Logic Audio Card? I ask b/c I think I saw a note on one of the sellers pages that it was not guaranteed to work with a Pi 2. Thanks.

P.

Re: Click/Pop/Crack when changing tracks

PostPosted: 23 Feb 2016, 07:59
by popov
Hi

Apologies for delay. Yes l'm using iqaudio dac +. With runeaudio and Kodi. Sound control is desactivated. Connected on atoll and kef. With sound control activated, i Still notice some noises.

Regards

Re: Click/Pop/Crack when changing tracks

PostPosted: 23 Feb 2016, 09:22
by PeteB
Thanks for the confirmation.

It is interesting that as I turn the volume down (hardware or software volume control), the pops stay at about the same volume, so they become more noticeable. When the music volume is turned down to an inaudible level, all you hear are the pops. Strange.

Re: Click/Pop/Crack when changing tracks

PostPosted: 29 Mar 2016, 17:11
by Teejoo
Hi folks,
I would like to append to this post.
Recently, i got my new RPI3.
I was happy to find already a image for it with RuneAudio.

My setup is very similar to the above ones.
RPI3 + hifi berry DAC +, connected to my Vincent SA-T8 pre-amp.
The setup (DAc and amps) was the same as the one i used with no problems, with my previous RPI2.

Install and config went very smooth, the RPI 3 is realy much faster than its predesessors.

Updating the database from my musicserver (almost 8Tb) didnt even take 2 hours, used to be 2 days with teh first RPIs.

Big dissapointement when playing music though.
I get a lot , and i mean A LOT backgroundsounds, noise, pops and click.
I usualy listen to some radiostreams, and they sound very disformed, even like a bit overmodulated, that is if they play.
Most of the time i hear very loud static noice, witch is specialy true when switching chanels or songs.

Can someone please be so kind to point me to the right direction in solving this ?


Many many thanks in advance,
Tee