Issues with ALIX / Voyage MPD
- Thread starter Natural Sound
- Start date
2wo
New member
I tried the The "switched to SPDIF, plugged into USB" and still have no trouble.
The only abnormality to report, is when I reached back to disconnect the USB cable. There was a slight static pop (still winter here, sigh) when I touched the back panel and this scrambled the display. It recovered on the next song.
If there is a specific sequence you would like me to try, I am game...John
The only abnormality to report, is when I reached back to disconnect the USB cable. There was a slight static pop (still winter here, sigh) when I touched the back panel and this scrambled the display. It recovered on the next song.
If there is a specific sequence you would like me to try, I am game...John
John Swenson
New member
When it is set to S/PDIF is there a S/PDIF cable plugged in with a signal, cable plugged in with no signal or no cable plugged in?
The DAC itself carries no state when powered down, so a power down should fix any problem, but the capacitors can keep things going for a while, thus the wait two minute part.
Thanks,
John S.
The DAC itself carries no state when powered down, so a power down should fix any problem, but the capacitors can keep things going for a while, thus the wait two minute part.
Thanks,
John S.
For us the glitch is happening whether or not a SPDIF cable is plugged in - with or without signal. The two minute reset thing seems to be a solid solution. I think all we have left to address is Tom's issue with the Alix box. Josh just about has our Linux setup going. We're outta here in five, and we should be able to run some tests tomorrow.
John Swenson
New member
I was able to duplicate the issue, and narrowed down what is happening.
When switching from SPDIF (or TOSLINK) to USB if the first song played over USB is the same family as the S/PDIF, everything is fine, USB can change families. BUT if the first song played over USB is a different family than SPDIF, USB is locked to the family last played on SPDIF.
This happens whether the SPDIF was there at boot or not. Starting up in USB, then switching to SPDIF, then back to USB will cause the problem.
Examples:
Power up in S/PDIF, play 44.1 song, switch to USB, play 44.1 song, everything is fine, can then play a 96 song.
Power up in S/PDIF play 44.1 song, switch to USB, play 48 song, display shows 44.1, sounds slow
Power up in S/PDIF, play 96 song, switch to USB, play 48 song, everything is fine
Power up in S/PDIF, play 96 song, switch to USB, play 44.1 song, display shows 48, plays fast
Since I don't have a Mac, I can only do some surmising here, but my guess is that if you have the audio-midi set to a sample rate with the same family as 44.1 (44.1, 88.2 etc) you should be able to switch to say a CD player plugged into the SPDIF or TOSLINK jack which is playing CDs, ie 44.1. Even if you are using something like amara which can over-ride the sample, if the audio-midi is in the same family, the first thing the DAC sees is a connection to the same family, thus the USB will work fine. Someone else will have to do some testing on this to see if it really works this way.
This is a real live firmware bug, I will try and find and get it fixed soon. There does seem to be a work around, if you are using USB exclusively, just make sure the switch is in USB before powering up. If you want to switch between SPDIF/TOSLINK and USB, make sure the first thing played on USB is in the same family as the last thing played on SPDIF. You may have do something specific with audio-midi settings under MacOS.
Doc will have to discuss the firmware upgrade policy when I come up with a firmware fix.
I don't know if this has anything to do with the issue seen with MPD. Please try disabling MPD and use aplay to see if the problem still exists.
John S.
When switching from SPDIF (or TOSLINK) to USB if the first song played over USB is the same family as the S/PDIF, everything is fine, USB can change families. BUT if the first song played over USB is a different family than SPDIF, USB is locked to the family last played on SPDIF.
This happens whether the SPDIF was there at boot or not. Starting up in USB, then switching to SPDIF, then back to USB will cause the problem.
Examples:
Power up in S/PDIF, play 44.1 song, switch to USB, play 44.1 song, everything is fine, can then play a 96 song.
Power up in S/PDIF play 44.1 song, switch to USB, play 48 song, display shows 44.1, sounds slow
Power up in S/PDIF, play 96 song, switch to USB, play 48 song, everything is fine
Power up in S/PDIF, play 96 song, switch to USB, play 44.1 song, display shows 48, plays fast
Since I don't have a Mac, I can only do some surmising here, but my guess is that if you have the audio-midi set to a sample rate with the same family as 44.1 (44.1, 88.2 etc) you should be able to switch to say a CD player plugged into the SPDIF or TOSLINK jack which is playing CDs, ie 44.1. Even if you are using something like amara which can over-ride the sample, if the audio-midi is in the same family, the first thing the DAC sees is a connection to the same family, thus the USB will work fine. Someone else will have to do some testing on this to see if it really works this way.
This is a real live firmware bug, I will try and find and get it fixed soon. There does seem to be a work around, if you are using USB exclusively, just make sure the switch is in USB before powering up. If you want to switch between SPDIF/TOSLINK and USB, make sure the first thing played on USB is in the same family as the last thing played on SPDIF. You may have do something specific with audio-midi settings under MacOS.
Doc will have to discuss the firmware upgrade policy when I come up with a firmware fix.
I don't know if this has anything to do with the issue seen with MPD. Please try disabling MPD and use aplay to see if the problem still exists.
John S.
Since this is a fairly minor issue with a very simple workaround (power down, switch to USB, wait a minute, power back up) we will include John's fix with the first firmware upgrade. That will probably happen when John cooks up one or two of the other firmware update goodies he has proposed.
2wo
New member
I tried Johns experiment on my Linux box with similar results.
With my CD player on SPDIF, 44.1K I can switch to USB, (Linux) at 44.1 or 88.2K and back with no issue. Switching to 192K displays 176., but will switch back to 44.1
If I play a 96k track and switch to SPDIF it displays 44.1 but sounds distorted.
To recover I have not had to power down, just play a 44.1 or 88.2k track before switching...John
With my CD player on SPDIF, 44.1K I can switch to USB, (Linux) at 44.1 or 88.2K and back with no issue. Switching to 192K displays 176., but will switch back to 44.1
If I play a 96k track and switch to SPDIF it displays 44.1 but sounds distorted.
To recover I have not had to power down, just play a 44.1 or 88.2k track before switching...John
fullheadofnothing
Moderator
I have put a fair amount of time into playing around with this issue.
If I am running a 44.1 file on the BluRay on S/PDIF or TOSLINK, and I switch to USB playing a 96 file, it will glitch out and go to 88.2.
If I then play a 44.1 file, I can switch back to the 96 file and it WILL WORK.
From this point on I can switch resolutions at will with no problems. If I go back to the S/PDIF input, it will have digital noise over the sound. This can be fixed by unplugging the power and plugging it back in immediately. Switching back to USB will work, AS LONG AS it is set to run a 44.1 file (note that it will remember whatever the last resolution played was). If it is not, it will require either a reset (this is the minute+ reset, the immediate one is only for clearing the digital noise on the S/PDIF), or playing another 44.1 file before the 48 derived ones will work.
I have also used 48 from the S/PDIF, and sometimes switching over to USB will glitch, and sometimes it won't
I have done this using an older version of Amarra on a Mac and aplay on the Debian box.
If I am running a 44.1 file on the BluRay on S/PDIF or TOSLINK, and I switch to USB playing a 96 file, it will glitch out and go to 88.2.
If I then play a 44.1 file, I can switch back to the 96 file and it WILL WORK.
From this point on I can switch resolutions at will with no problems. If I go back to the S/PDIF input, it will have digital noise over the sound. This can be fixed by unplugging the power and plugging it back in immediately. Switching back to USB will work, AS LONG AS it is set to run a 44.1 file (note that it will remember whatever the last resolution played was). If it is not, it will require either a reset (this is the minute+ reset, the immediate one is only for clearing the digital noise on the S/PDIF), or playing another 44.1 file before the 48 derived ones will work.
I have also used 48 from the S/PDIF, and sometimes switching over to USB will glitch, and sometimes it won't
I have done this using an older version of Amarra on a Mac and aplay on the Debian box.
John Swenson
New member
I've been trying to duplicate the original post which is MPD. I have been using MPD on lubuntu since that is what I have handy. It works perfectly in all cases, I have tried every possible set of combinations and cannot get the "48 family doesn't work" problem.
I have been able to have it work fine when MPD is already running then plug in the DAC, DAC plugged in before computer started etc. They all just work.
Natural Sound, have you tried having the DAC powered up, but USB cable disconnected from computer, boot up computer, then plugin the USB cable? This works fine for me, and would preclude any possibility of weirdnesses happening at boot time.
Do you have anything else that might be trying to connect to the DAC before MPD starts up?
If you could give us some precise info on your startup sequence (dac power, cable plugged in or not, MPD starts at boot or not) it would help.
Don't worry, we will get this figured out.
John S.
I have been able to have it work fine when MPD is already running then plug in the DAC, DAC plugged in before computer started etc. They all just work.
Natural Sound, have you tried having the DAC powered up, but USB cable disconnected from computer, boot up computer, then plugin the USB cable? This works fine for me, and would preclude any possibility of weirdnesses happening at boot time.
Do you have anything else that might be trying to connect to the DAC before MPD starts up?
If you could give us some precise info on your startup sequence (dac power, cable plugged in or not, MPD starts at boot or not) it would help.
Don't worry, we will get this figured out.
John S.
Natural Sound
New member
Thank you all for your outstanding efforts. I had a family emergency that took me out of town. I'll try the recommendations when I return. Probably this weekend.
Natural Sound
New member
OK, quick update. Please excuse any typo's or grammar mistakes. I just drove 650 miles doing 75 mph the whole way. I'm a bit wiped out at the moment.
Obviously I was anxious to see if the workaround would work for me. So my first attempt was to boot the ALIX with the DAC powered up but the USB cable disconnected as John S. Recommended. After boot up I plugged in the cable and still had the same problem with the "48 family." Then I rebooted the DAC and still had the same problem. But I didn't reboot the DAC correctly. After re-reading what Doc B. Said I disconnected the power and "WAITED TWO MINUTES" before plugging it back in. That did the trick and I can now stream all bit and sample rates. I'll do some further testing tomorrow after I get some sleep.
Thanks to all that helped figure this out.
Obviously I was anxious to see if the workaround would work for me. So my first attempt was to boot the ALIX with the DAC powered up but the USB cable disconnected as John S. Recommended. After boot up I plugged in the cable and still had the same problem with the "48 family." Then I rebooted the DAC and still had the same problem. But I didn't reboot the DAC correctly. After re-reading what Doc B. Said I disconnected the power and "WAITED TWO MINUTES" before plugging it back in. That did the trick and I can now stream all bit and sample rates. I'll do some further testing tomorrow after I get some sleep.
Thanks to all that helped figure this out.
Natural Sound
New member
I'm happy to report that after three days of listening, all sample rates appear to be operating correctly with my minimalist Linux music server setup. A full review of the Bottlehead DAC is forthcoming.
Teaser alert. It's something pretty special. Scratch that. It's freaking awesome! As some others have reported its very close to analog. The closest I've been yet with a digital source.
Teaser alert. It's something pretty special. Scratch that. It's freaking awesome! As some others have reported its very close to analog. The closest I've been yet with a digital source.
mcandmar
New member
Doc B. said:
Hi Doc,
Can i book my DAC in for a service and have the updated firmware installed?
Every time i power cycle the computer i have to go trough this whole routine of powering off the DAC, disconnecting the USB, powering up again, re connecting the USB, playing a 44.1khz track, then a 192khz, put your left foot in, then your right foot in, then shake it all about. Problem is this work around only seems to work once every three attempts which is just infuriating, and i am also worried it will wear out the power and usb sockets unplugging them so often. More than happy to pay your service flat rate, i would just love to get this glitch removed.
Thank you,
Mark
fullheadofnothing
Moderator
Since you are posting in this thread rather than another, are you using the same software?
How many 192 files do you really have...?
It sounds like you are making this far more complicated than necessary, or perhaps I am misunderstanding your error (since you do not state what error you are actually trying to fix).
It has been my experience that getting the DAC to go from 44 to 48 never requires powercycling. The only time I have found power cycling to be benefical is with distorition issues, NOT sample rate errors. My post on the second page of this thread is quite focused on which solutions fix which problems.
How many 192 files do you really have...?
It sounds like you are making this far more complicated than necessary, or perhaps I am misunderstanding your error (since you do not state what error you are actually trying to fix).
It has been my experience that getting the DAC to go from 44 to 48 never requires powercycling. The only time I have found power cycling to be benefical is with distorition issues, NOT sample rate errors. My post on the second page of this thread is quite focused on which solutions fix which problems.
mcandmar
New member
Hi Josh,
I posted in this thread because Johns posts above relate to the bug. Whenever you first connect the DAC to a computer you have to play a 44.1khz track, then a 192khz in that order, other wise it will mis detect the sample rate and play 192khz at 176khz, 96khz at 88khz, and 48khz at 44khz and so on.
There is a very specific way to get the DAC to work correctly, power up the DAC, then connect the USB cable, then play a 44.1khz track, then a 192khz. And hopefully it will detect 192khz, if it plays at 176khz you have to disconnect the USB, then the power, wait at least 2 minutes, then try it all again. I have to do this every time i unplug the USB cable, power cycle the DAC, or unplug the PC or laptop from the mains. Once you get it set it will work fine, until you have to unplug something.
I believe my DAC was one of the very first units to ship so its possible i may have an older firmware than others, i seem to recall you delayed shipping a batch while you worked out an issue.
Thanks,
Mark
I posted in this thread because Johns posts above relate to the bug. Whenever you first connect the DAC to a computer you have to play a 44.1khz track, then a 192khz in that order, other wise it will mis detect the sample rate and play 192khz at 176khz, 96khz at 88khz, and 48khz at 44khz and so on.
There is a very specific way to get the DAC to work correctly, power up the DAC, then connect the USB cable, then play a 44.1khz track, then a 192khz. And hopefully it will detect 192khz, if it plays at 176khz you have to disconnect the USB, then the power, wait at least 2 minutes, then try it all again. I have to do this every time i unplug the USB cable, power cycle the DAC, or unplug the PC or laptop from the mains. Once you get it set it will work fine, until you have to unplug something.
I believe my DAC was one of the very first units to ship so its possible i may have an older firmware than others, i seem to recall you delayed shipping a batch while you worked out an issue.
Thanks,
Mark
Just to add a data point to the discussion, I tried to reproduce Mark's observations in my system, because it is similar (though not identical) to his and I never had those problems. (edit: I assumed from the thread title that this is about ALIX/MPD, but upon re-reading the posts above I realize that this is rather not the case.) Result is that my DAC works perfectly fine and I cannot reproduce his findings. Also, power cycling the DAC for like two minutes has always solved any problem (in the rare event that there was any) and I never had to disconnect the USB cable. Bottom line is that your problem may be either related to a different firmware as you suspected, or to your Alix/MPD PC setup. The second hypothesis you could test by repating your experiments from a different source (other mpd server or PC/Mac).
For reference, I documented my findings. Sorry for the long text, but perhaps it is useful for other people to check against my exact procedures.
My Bottlehead DAC is connected via USB (Supra cable) to a Cubox-i4Pro running Voyage MPD version 0.9.5 with real time Kernel optimizations as described on Punky's Website. I use Cantata as my mpd-client. Actually the version of Voyage MPD compiled for Cubox is called "Voyage Mubox", but as I understand it it is basically comparable to Voyage MPD on ALIX (though the differences I observe my be because of that).
DAC is always on "USB" and is and has never been changed to/tested with other source types. Three experiments follow:
1. Switch on Cubox, wait until it has booted, switch on BH-DAC (display briefly shows "44.1", for less than a second, and then shows "384"), put 96kHz file on playlist, hit play (display shows "96"), listen (especially for pitch and speed, which would later reveal if the track is played with the different/wrong sampling rate).
2. Switch of BH-DAC, wait several minutes, clear playlist and put three files on it (first 44kHz track, second 192kHz track, third the 96kHz track from the first experiment), switch DAC back on (display again briefly shows "44.1", for less than a second, and then shows "384"), play 44kHz track (display shows "44"; sound seems OK), play 192kHz track (display shows "192"; sound seems OK), play 96kHz track (display "96", sound OK and seems same pitch and speed as in first experiment).
3. Stop music, switch DAC off briefly (i.e. for one or two seconds), switch DAC on again, play track from experiment no.1 (display "96", sound OK), switch off/on briefly as before, repeat track order from experiment no.2 (all OK, same behavior as in experiment no.2).
There are two BUTs however: 1. Playing around some more, with an additional file from the 48kHz family (actually a 48kHz track), I ONCE could get a problem, which unfortunately I cannot remeber how I produced it and thus cannot reproduce: Switching the DAC off and on briefly, the display showed "352" (and not "384") aftewards and all files from the 44kHz family (44, 96, 192) played slow. Switching the DAC off for a few minutes and then back on cured this problem and it behaved fine afterwards (this is the proper reset procedure for the DAC that John described somewhere here on the forum). This only happened one other time in two years of use and is not a normal error, it has to be forced by playing around a lot. 2. I remember that some time ago occasionally I had problems regarding the correct recognition of the DAC by Voyage MPD, but it always worked and works if I switch on the DAC after the Cubox has booted, which is now my normal routine. If I have to reboot the Cubox while the DAC is on, I usually leave the DAC on and it is usually correctly recognized afterwards. On the very rare occasion that a problem occurs, I switch off the DAC for like 2 minutes and on again, and everything is fine.
For reference, I documented my findings. Sorry for the long text, but perhaps it is useful for other people to check against my exact procedures.
My Bottlehead DAC is connected via USB (Supra cable) to a Cubox-i4Pro running Voyage MPD version 0.9.5 with real time Kernel optimizations as described on Punky's Website. I use Cantata as my mpd-client. Actually the version of Voyage MPD compiled for Cubox is called "Voyage Mubox", but as I understand it it is basically comparable to Voyage MPD on ALIX (though the differences I observe my be because of that).
DAC is always on "USB" and is and has never been changed to/tested with other source types. Three experiments follow:
1. Switch on Cubox, wait until it has booted, switch on BH-DAC (display briefly shows "44.1", for less than a second, and then shows "384"), put 96kHz file on playlist, hit play (display shows "96"), listen (especially for pitch and speed, which would later reveal if the track is played with the different/wrong sampling rate).
2. Switch of BH-DAC, wait several minutes, clear playlist and put three files on it (first 44kHz track, second 192kHz track, third the 96kHz track from the first experiment), switch DAC back on (display again briefly shows "44.1", for less than a second, and then shows "384"), play 44kHz track (display shows "44"; sound seems OK), play 192kHz track (display shows "192"; sound seems OK), play 96kHz track (display "96", sound OK and seems same pitch and speed as in first experiment).
3. Stop music, switch DAC off briefly (i.e. for one or two seconds), switch DAC on again, play track from experiment no.1 (display "96", sound OK), switch off/on briefly as before, repeat track order from experiment no.2 (all OK, same behavior as in experiment no.2).
There are two BUTs however: 1. Playing around some more, with an additional file from the 48kHz family (actually a 48kHz track), I ONCE could get a problem, which unfortunately I cannot remeber how I produced it and thus cannot reproduce: Switching the DAC off and on briefly, the display showed "352" (and not "384") aftewards and all files from the 44kHz family (44, 96, 192) played slow. Switching the DAC off for a few minutes and then back on cured this problem and it behaved fine afterwards (this is the proper reset procedure for the DAC that John described somewhere here on the forum). This only happened one other time in two years of use and is not a normal error, it has to be forced by playing around a lot. 2. I remember that some time ago occasionally I had problems regarding the correct recognition of the DAC by Voyage MPD, but it always worked and works if I switch on the DAC after the Cubox has booted, which is now my normal routine. If I have to reboot the Cubox while the DAC is on, I usually leave the DAC on and it is usually correctly recognized afterwards. On the very rare occasion that a problem occurs, I switch off the DAC for like 2 minutes and on again, and everything is fine.
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