Bottlehead Forum
Bottlehead Finished Products => Legacy Products => Bottlehead DAC => Topic started by: Natural Sound on March 22, 2015, 03:31:54 PM
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I finally got around to hooking up my Bottlehead DAC and I'm having problems with the DAC detecting the correct sample rate. Please keep in mind that my system has been working flawlessly for a couple of years with all sample rates using a Micromega MyDAC.
It should also be noted that I've tried several boot up and USB connection sequences. MPD likes to see the DAC as being present during boot up or its not happy.
Here are the details.
44.1 and 88.2 and 176 files play fine
96 files show 88.2 and sound slow
192 files show as 176 and sound slow
Hardware PC Engines ALIX, USB Cable, supplied Supra. Also tried two other cables and Bottlehead DAC.
Software: Voyage Linux MPD Version: 0.9.5 (latest version)
aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: BHDACV1 [XMOS Bottlehead DAC BHDACV1], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
Subdevices: 0/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
mpd.conf
audio_output {
type "alsa"
name "Bottlehead DAC"
device "hw:0,0" #optional
# format "44100:16:2" optional
# mixer_device "default" optional
# mixer_control "PCM" optional
# mixer_index "0" optional
dsd_usb "yes"
}
NOTE: I tried to # out dsd_usb "yes" then restarting MPD and it didn't make any difference.
Here is an example of a 96 bitstream that the Bottlehead DAC sees as 88.2.
# cat /proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/sub0/hw_params
access: RW_INTERLEAVED
format: S32_LE
subformat: STD
channels: 2
rate: 96000 (96000/1)
period_size: 12000
buffer_size: 48000
Here is an example of a 192 bitstream that the Bottlehead DAC sees as 176.
# cat /proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/sub0/hw_params
access: RW_INTERLEAVED
format: S32_LE
subformat: STD
channels: 2
rate: 192000 (192000/1)
period_size: 24000
buffer_size: 96000
If there are any Linux guru's out there that can help I'd appreciate it.
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When this gets resolved (which I'm sure it will soon), I'd love to hear how the Bottlehead DAC compares to the MyDAC (which I also have).
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Could you please post the contents of the stream0 file while playing a 48 family file. It will most likely be at:
/proc/asound/card0/stream0
this is assuming the BH DAC is card0.
On MY system at
/proc/asound
is a BHDACV1 directory, this takes you right there.
Is there any way you can test this over S/PDIF (optical or coax)? I would like to determine if it is a USB interface issue or not.
If you are using mpd could you try shutting down mpd and trying directly with aplay?
If you have a wave file that has a 48 family sample rate you can play it direct with:
aplay -D hw:0,0 <wave_file_name>
(this is assuming card0)
You can also try:
aplay -D plughw:0,0 <wave_file_name>
Thanks,
John S.
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I am having a similar problem with my Mac mini. I have a 192 flac file which the DAC is showing as 176 and plays wrong.
The weird thing is that the first time I played the file it played correct and then I switched to a file with a different sample rate and when I came back to the 193 file it was showing a 176. I am using hte supra cabke and Jriver for mac as the the media player. I restarted the computer and still get the 192 file playing at 176
Debra
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I noticed this one or twice when I was first using the DAC. Now I can't repeat it and I'm switching between 352, 176, 48, 44. I've done probably 20 combinations with these. This is on a mac with amarra.
-Dave
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Just want to assure you folks that we are on this. I will be working on reproducing the issue in the lab today.
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When I got in to the office we reproduced a facsimile of the issues reported here on my Mac Mini. What we did was take a DAC that had been running properly on all sample rates for an hour or two on USB. I powered it down and disconnected the USB cable. Then I switched the selector to SPDIF. Then I powered it back up and plugged in the USB cable. The Mini was left on, with Amarra running (not playing music, just open) the whole time.
With the DAC still switched to SPDIF, the DAC display read 44.1. When I switched it to USB it read 352k. Audio MIDI settings on the Mac showed 384k. Playing any 48K multiple sample rate would only run at a multiple of 44.1K - i.e., 96K ran at 88.2k, 192K at 176K, 48K at 44.1K, etc.
Solution:
So I unplugged the USB cable from the DAC, powered it down.
Shut down the Mac.
Made sure DAC was set to USB.
Connected USB cable to DAC.
Powered DAC up.
Booted up Mac.
DAC shows 384K, or whatever the last Audio MIDI setting was, and functions properly.
Please try this exact undo/redo sequence and let us know if it resolves the issue. I'm afraid I don't have a Linux box here, but I'm sure John is working to reproduce the issue on a Linux box.
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Guys,
You don't get this kind of service if you buy a DAC from Wadia, Music Fidelity, Sim Audio, Elgar, Manley (sorry Eveanna), PS Audio or any of the other guys.
There is a reason to be here and this is it!
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Just to add a few notes about the reboot procedure:
The DAC was displaying 44.1 when powered up while the computer was off, and during the first phase of the computer's booting. When the Mac was about 3/4 way through loading the kernel, the display switched to 384. This computer is set up to automatically boot into the sole user account. As the account loaded (i.e. Finder was showing, but not yet interactive) the sample rate displayed changed to 48, which is where Dan had left Audio MIDI Setup before the shutdown. As stated before, from here on out the DAC behaved normally.
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For the sake of completeness I should also add that I used Amarra 2.4.3 for this test. I had been using the latest version and it works great, except for the fact that I had to reboot Amarra every time I switched to a different DAC as I checked them out. 2.4.3 seems to be able to handle hot switching the DACs - something that nobody but me is gonna be doing.
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OK, more data -
We were able to reproduce the issue on another DAC. We did exactly the same sequence to refresh it. This time it did not take.
So we left the Mac booted up, and powered down and disconnected the DAC. We waited 12 minutes, then powered up the DAC and connected the cable. Problem solved, the display went right to 384 as expected.
This would tend to indicate that there is something either in the DAC or the Mac that needs a little time to reset.
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I really want to find out if anybody has this issue with S/PDIF (optical or coax).
Also it might be related to temperature inside the DAC case. Does it only happen when the DAC has been running for several hours?
Does it happen right after power up, or does the DAC work fine for awhile, then when you change rates it gets it wrong?
I cannot make this happen on mine,
some differences are: I don't have a Mac but I do have windows and several linuxes. My Dac is not in the official case, it is screwed into a piece of plywood, thus might be running cooler than when in a case.
The sequence of numbers on the display is normal. If the DAC is on before the computer it will show 44.1. During the boot of the computer when DAC first connects to the OS it gets set to its maximum rate, then when boot is finished and applications start up it will show the rate of the application.
When the selector switch is set to S/PDIF the USB receiver is still active and can connect to your computer, the switch is basically switching between the output of the two receivers.
Thanks,
John S.
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Since we have been encountering this issue during the burn-in cycle, they have generally been warmed up. We may have seen it on a cooled unit, but I am not sure either way.
When the DAC was glitching on USB, we plugged TOSLINK in from a BluRay player (TOSLINK is dead on that computer) and were able to get 44.1 and 48 to display properly. We did not try the coax but we can if that would be useful. When switched back to USB, only the 44.1 derived rates were working.
The problem will manifest immediately when the issue is present. It seems that once it is running OK, it stays fine, but this has not been extensively tested.
Also, during our last test, when we did a full shutdown/start-up but it didn't resolve the issue, the display showed 352 when the OS loaded.
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For me it seemed like it happened in the first 24 hours of being powered up. Perhaps, even the
first 6 hours. Since then I've left it powered up continuously for 3 days and have not seen the issue.
Thanks,
Dave
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The sample rate input switch glitch seems to happen right at startup on USB for us here. We have not seen it happen with SPDIF or TOSLINK. We have seen an SPDIF connection quit a couple times - not a sample rate glitch, but a no play situation. We aren't sure if that is source related or not, and it seems that it is easily reset with a disconnect/reconnect of the power to the DAC. We have not seen any odd behavior with TOSLINK.
We are letting one DAC cool down now, to see if we can reproduce the glitch on a cold DAC.
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John,
I'm using the SPDIF (optical), with an older CD player.
CD player OFF->ON, DAC OFF->ON: 44.1
or
DAC OFF->ON, CD Player OFF->ON: 44.1
CD player ON->OFF, DAC ON: 44.1 or 192, 192 most of the time
CD Player ON, DAC ON->OFF->ON: 44.1
CD player OFF->ON, DAC ON: 44.1
I'm glad to run any other test. I do have win7 and a couple different flavors of Linux. I haven't tried a USB connection yet.
Craig
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Just to clarify, the issue is not directly related what the display reads at startup. That's going to depend upon what it's connected to (or not connected to). The issue is that the 48K based sample rates are not available via USB at times, and that seems to require a reboot of the DAC.
We have been able to reproduce the glitch on both warm and cold DACs fed by a MAC mini. The consistent sequence for creating the glitch is switch input to SPDIF, power up DAC, plug in USB cable, then switch to USB input. The consistent sequence for fixing it is power down DAC, wait at least two minutes. Be sure input set to USB first, USB cable plugged in, power up DAC.
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I have been unable to duplicate this issue on my Linux box.
Yesterday I had the power go out for about 4 hours. I abandoned ship so when it came back up, everything booted up on its own and I did not play anything. Tonight, after reading this thread, I looked and the DAC read 384.
I played a 96k file and all correct. I switched back and forth between 96, 44.1, 88.2 and 192k files, sometimes to the same file sometimes to another file of the same sample rate. some are wav, some are FLAC.
I get the correct sample rate displayed in every case...John
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Doc, I will try to reproduce per your above post and report back...John
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The "switched to SPDIF, plugged into USB" glitch is reproducible on Windows, and solved the same way, power down, cable into USB, switch input to USB, wait for a minute or two and power up.
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Josh is starting to set up a Linux box so we can see what happens. That will take a little time so we may not have much to offer until tomorrow.
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I am unable to try the fix at this time since my set up is torn apart for some remodeling. I hope to have everything hooked up again by early next week. I had tried the DAC on SPDIF before this occured so it seems to be consistent with what others are experiencing
Debra
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Just wanted to mention that I reproduced this on a mac by the methods mentioned.
I recall now that I had switched to toslink and back to usb, so my early issues with the dac were not due to
the dac being cool.
Thanks,
Dave
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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
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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.
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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.
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Josh, I See what you see with the exception that I can recover from any abnormality by playing a 44.1 or 88.2k track. I have never had to power down the DAC.
The Vortexbox runs Fedora 14 and I am using Logitech Media Server as the player...John
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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.
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Everything hooked up again and the solution worked for me. Everything plays at the correct sample rate
Thanks
Derba
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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.
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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.
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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.
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
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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 (https://bottlehead.com/smf/index.php?topic=7692.msg74134#msg74134) on the second page of this thread is quite focused on which solutions fix which problems.
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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
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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.
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I have one of the first DACs and after several years I have never been able to duplicate this issue. I run a linex box headless and occasionally the player will go to "sleep" and the DAC will display 384 when I wake up the player the DAC always syncs right up, never have to power off or disconnect the USB...John
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Bump. So anybody know anything about this, or do we need to track down PB?
@Lobo sounds like your system is defaulting to 384khz which would work around the problem as it immediately tries to sync the maximum rate.
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Bump. So anybody know anything about this, or do we need to track down PB?
You'd want to track down the designer of the DAC: John Swenson.
FWIW, I haven't had any of these types of issues on any of the firmware versions we have had. I do leave my music server on all the time. When I restart it, I power cycle my DAC so the computer picks it up, then everything works.
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You'd want to track down the designer of the DAC: John Swenson.
FWIW, I haven't had any of these types of issues on any of the firmware versions we have had. I do leave my music server on all the time. When I restart it, I power cycle my DAC so the computer picks it up, then everything works.
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.
John S.
So are you saying you never received an updated firmware to address this bug?
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I was only relaying my personal experience, not speaking about the actual firmware versions. You could certainly contact John with the issues you're experiencing to see if he has any ideas on what to try next!
-PB