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Hello,

I have the latest version of moode on my pi 4b+ 2gb and am playing files from a external hdd connected to the pi directly. When I play high bitrate local files (24/88, 24/96, 24/192) I will hear static or white noise on the track with very high levels of distortion sometimes. If I play other tracks and play the original track after or keep trying a few times, it will often go away. Would anyone know the reason for this? I'm suspecting it may be the HDD cannot keep up with the bit rate, but any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks
Quote:external hdd connected to the pi directly

How is this powered ? From the Pi or using a dedicated supply ? (If the former you probably need the latter...a powered USB hub sized for the hdd would be advised)

What USB DAC or HAT are you using ?
Reminds me of the issue where the Kali reclocker board causes white noise distortion on 24-bit audio. Setting MPD SoX to 32-bit fixes it.
I am plugging the hdd directly into the pi, I have the pi2aes hat attached, but only using the USB directly from the pi regardless.
This does appear to be a power supply problem....you are trying to power the PI, a Hat, and a Hard Drive from one supply.

Put a powered USB hub between the Pi and the USB DAC and see what that brings.
(01-18-2021, 06:10 AM)DRONE7 Wrote: [ -> ]
Quote:external hdd connected to the pi directly

How is this powered ? From the Pi or using a dedicated supply ? (If the former you probably need the latter...a powered USB hub sized for the hdd would be advised)

What USB DAC or HAT are you using ?

(01-18-2021, 05:27 PM)DRONE7 Wrote: [ -> ]This does appear to be a power supply problem....you are trying to power the PI, a Hat, and a Hard Drive from one supply.

Put a powered USB hub between the Pi and the USB DAC and see what that brings.

I am using a 24v/2.5a power supply to the pi2aes hat which powers the pi as well, is this still not enough current? I will try the powered hub if so
I've just read that an SSD uses less power in general, would that potentially fix it as a side product too? I want moode to run faster because the library lags like crazy right now.
(01-18-2021, 05:46 PM)poodytang Wrote: [ -> ]
(01-18-2021, 06:10 AM)DRONE7 Wrote: [ -> ]
Quote:external hdd connected to the pi directly

How is this powered ? From the Pi or using a dedicated supply ? (If the former you probably need the latter...a powered USB hub sized for the hdd would be advised)

What USB DAC or HAT are you using ?

(01-18-2021, 05:27 PM)DRONE7 Wrote: [ -> ]This does appear to be a power supply problem....you are trying to power the PI, a Hat, and a Hard Drive from one supply.

Put a powered USB hub between the Pi and the USB DAC and see what that brings.

I am using a 24v/2.5a power supply to the pi2aes hat which powers the pi as well, is this still not enough current? I will try the powered hub if so

2.5a is not even enough to power a Pi4 (requires minimum 3.0a) let alone all the other items!. No wonder things lag and glitch.

I would recommend removing the AES hat if its not being used (your Pi will run much cooler too) and getting the official Pi4 power supply and a powered USB hub.

Most Hard Drives quote their average power draw but start up and seek operations can draw much more current. A separate supply for your current Hard Drive will be more useful than replacing it with an SSD.
@poodytang 

DRONE7 is quite right that your system may be marginally powered and I would fix that problem for its own sake.

Nevertheless, the noise you describe does not sound like a power problem to me. If the drive were under-powered and hence slow to respond, I would expect you to experience buffer underruns which result in audio dropout rather than "static or white noise on the track with very high levels of distortion." An easy way to test is to copy some of your problematic files to your uSD card, disconnect the drive, and see if you still get the same noise or not when playing the files. If you don't, then yeah, the drive and power are suspect.

If you do however, then, as TIm said, this is reminiscent of a different issue. Since the pi2aes docs claim it "converts the RPi I2S stream to AES3/SPDIF formatted data at 24-Bit up to 192Khz Frame Rate" it would seem like starting with 24-bit material would be ok. Nevertheless, you can try what was suggested.

FYI, I have a number of "high def" files I've downloaded from 2L to an SSD that is plugged into and powered by an RPi4B+. They are "24-bit/88kHz" and "24-bit/176kHz" FLAC and play back without any issue through my Khadas Tone 1 board. SoX is not enabled. Because of the USB handshake with moOde in which the board advertises itself as capable of S16_LE and S32_LE (but not S24_LE), the 24-bit samples are being byte-extended to 32-bit on output, so the output stats are 32-bit/176.1kHz.

Regards,
Kent
Also check ALSA volume is set to 100%, I've encountered the 'static' issue with DSD files and this fixed it.
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