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Crack when starting a track!
#1
Hi,

I am using Moode Audio 5.3. on a Raspberry Pi 3b+ with an Allo Boss DAC. I left the settings mostly untouched since I am a newby.

The sound quality is very good, however, everytime I start a track, I hear a clearly noticeable litte crack. It sounds like something is switched on. The crack appears when listening via squeezelite as well as via upnp renderer.

My questions:

1) Any ideas how to fix this crack?
2) By the way, I am completely confused about ALSA volume with my Allo Boss DAC. I control the DAC via my smartphone. Is it correct to leave the settings to Software control and put in 100% ALSA volume?
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#2
Those audio glitches are fairly common IME with PCM5xxx based DAC's. I think it's partly that the boards don't include any type of circuit for suppressing the glitches but I recall that there were a couple of bugs in the PCM51xxx kernel codec related to glitches that were supposed to haven fixed. Maybe there are other bugs? Also, if I remember correctly, Allo had enhanced their Boss driver to try and reduce the glitches.

Btw, I've never experienced any audio glitches on my two ESS Sabre based DACS: Mamboberry LS and Allo Katana.

If the DAC supports hardware volume then its usually best to select "Hardware" for volume control in MPD config. If you choose instead to select "Software" then ALSA volume should be left at 100% so that when MPD Software volume is at 100% the overall output of the DAC is 0dB (100%).
Enjoy the Music!
moodeaudio.org | Mastodon Feed | GitHub
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#3
I have a HIFIBerry DAC+ Pro with PCM5122 and i don't hear any glitches (cracks) on MoodeAudio 5 or 6. I always set a volume control to "hardware"
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#4
My IQaudIO Pi-Dac Pro's have PCM5242 DACs & I get an audible click at the start of each track when listening with software volume AND the headphone out ports. Listening to music on speakers via the RCA out does not produce a click.
Having ALSA volume set to hardware = no clicks via the headphone port or RCA.
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#5
(08-13-2019, 06:06 PM)grasshopper Wrote: My IQaudIO Pi-Dac Pro's have PCM5242 DACs & I get an audible click at the start of each track when listening with software volume AND the headphone out ports.  Listening to music on speakers via the RCA out does not produce a click.
Having ALSA volume set to hardware = no clicks via the headphone port or RCA.

That I wrote - hardware alsa volume is recommended.
I have a another problem, but on MoodeAudio 6.0.0 the basses are distorted, and on MoodeAudio 5.3 all is ok. Any config data and Equalizer data are copied 1:1 from 5.3 to 6.0.0. by printscreen ! (provided by hand and compare 5.3 - 6.0.0)
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#6
Great. Thanks. Switching to hardware control did the trick. No clicks and cracks anymore.
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#7
Great info :-)

I guess YMMV with PCM5XXX
Enjoy the Music!
moodeaudio.org | Mastodon Feed | GitHub
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#8
Overjoyed!! The glitches and cracks are back! I changed nothing in my settings. Maybe I just overheard them shortly after I switched to hardware control...
I will let you know when I find a solution.

If someone has an idea as to what the cause of the problem might be, I am happy to hear suggestions.
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#9
(08-21-2019, 11:48 AM)kosmonaut_75 Wrote: Overjoyed!! The glitches and cracks are back! I changed nothing in my settings. Maybe I just overheard them shortly after I switched to hardware control...
I will let you know when I find a solution.

If someone has an idea as to what the cause of the problem might be, I am happy to hear suggestions.

If you have upsampling turned on disable it and start from there...
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#10
@kosmonaut_75 

Like the man said, YMMV.

Since I already have it running to explore issues raised in other threads, I've been putting my old HiFiBerry DAC+ Pro through its paces on a RPi4B with moOde 6.1.0.

This model is a PCM5122 DAC with onboard oscillators. Superficially this would seem to be similar to the Allo Boss. I'm driving a run-of-the mill audio system with it.

I've tried various combinations of software vs hardware volume control and sampling-off vs up to 24bit/192kHz-sampling (the highest claimed by HiFiBerry for this board) and I can't hear any click, just as @Jedrek already reported for his same DAC with hardware volume control.

I notice that the current model is the Allo Boss V1.2. This implies there were a V1.0 and V1.1. What model do you have and have you tried asking Allo Support about the clicking?

Regards,
Kent

PS added later: For completeness, these tests were done with MPD 0.20.23
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