Hi good people,
Need some help on the MQA stuttering issue I'm suffering.
I have connected my Topping E50 to a Pi 3B+ (with official Pi 7inch LCD) and running the latest image of
Moode Audio (7.4.1 fresh image) and 'controlling' it via Bubbleupnp. I am suffering from 2 issues:
1) Some tracks marked as Master Audio on Tidal does not light up the MQA label
on the E50 screen. The MQA label will light up when using Windows/Tidal app. I could be wrong but I think the newer MQA tracks light up the MQA label but older ones dont.
2) MQA tracks which can be detected (MQA label lights up on DAC) will stutter (they will sound like
scratched CDs)- when this happen the E50 screen will briefly show PCM
and back to MQA.
Below are some details on my setup/testing:
- I am running on 5Ghz wifi with excellent signal, Internet connectivity and generally the whole network is working fine. I have also tried connecting via Ethernet (no difference).
- I am using separate 5V power supplies for the Pi and E50 units (7inch LCD powered by the same 5V official Pi adapter as the Pi3 but with a splitter).
- I have tested various USB cables to connect the PI and E50 including the one provided in the E50 package. One is only 6inch long (that's what she said)
- MPD correctly detects the USB DAC as 'E50'.
- As much as I can, I made sure that the stream sent out front the Pi to E50 is bit perfect- no resampling etc (otherwise I should have not gotten MQA at all).
- Nothing else is connected to the Pi USB ports.
- I have tested the E50 output with 3 different amps (and headphones) so I am assuming this issue is not due to the topping analog output.
- DAC works fine on Windows Tidal app (all MQA detected and no stuttering).
- Audio buffer set to 64MB, Output buffer to 256MB.
- CPU Governor set to 'Performance' - no difference when set to 'on-demand', kernel to 32bits (I think the stuttering is worse in 64bits).
- DAC has the latest firmware.
- CPU usage is very low when the stuttering happens.
- HDMI output is disabled.
- Both Direct:hw & Default(plughw) ALSA output mode have the same results.
I cannot test/compare with other DACs since I dont have any other MQA capable DAC.
Worst case scenario, is there anyway I can 'disable' sending MQA stream to the DAC and stick with hifi quality for all the Tidal tracks?
Would a Pi4 with its dedicated USB bus solve this issue? anybody has any experience on this?
I'm quite new at this- any testing advise, logs to check etc is very much welcomed.
Cheers everyone and thanks in advance for not starting another MQA war!
Need some help on the MQA stuttering issue I'm suffering.
I have connected my Topping E50 to a Pi 3B+ (with official Pi 7inch LCD) and running the latest image of
Moode Audio (7.4.1 fresh image) and 'controlling' it via Bubbleupnp. I am suffering from 2 issues:
1) Some tracks marked as Master Audio on Tidal does not light up the MQA label
on the E50 screen. The MQA label will light up when using Windows/Tidal app. I could be wrong but I think the newer MQA tracks light up the MQA label but older ones dont.
2) MQA tracks which can be detected (MQA label lights up on DAC) will stutter (they will sound like
scratched CDs)- when this happen the E50 screen will briefly show PCM
and back to MQA.
Below are some details on my setup/testing:
- I am running on 5Ghz wifi with excellent signal, Internet connectivity and generally the whole network is working fine. I have also tried connecting via Ethernet (no difference).
- I am using separate 5V power supplies for the Pi and E50 units (7inch LCD powered by the same 5V official Pi adapter as the Pi3 but with a splitter).
- I have tested various USB cables to connect the PI and E50 including the one provided in the E50 package. One is only 6inch long (that's what she said)
- MPD correctly detects the USB DAC as 'E50'.
- As much as I can, I made sure that the stream sent out front the Pi to E50 is bit perfect- no resampling etc (otherwise I should have not gotten MQA at all).
- Nothing else is connected to the Pi USB ports.
- I have tested the E50 output with 3 different amps (and headphones) so I am assuming this issue is not due to the topping analog output.
- DAC works fine on Windows Tidal app (all MQA detected and no stuttering).
- Audio buffer set to 64MB, Output buffer to 256MB.
- CPU Governor set to 'Performance' - no difference when set to 'on-demand', kernel to 32bits (I think the stuttering is worse in 64bits).
- DAC has the latest firmware.
- CPU usage is very low when the stuttering happens.
- HDMI output is disabled.
- Both Direct:hw & Default(plughw) ALSA output mode have the same results.
I cannot test/compare with other DACs since I dont have any other MQA capable DAC.
Worst case scenario, is there anyway I can 'disable' sending MQA stream to the DAC and stick with hifi quality for all the Tidal tracks?
Would a Pi4 with its dedicated USB bus solve this issue? anybody has any experience on this?
I'm quite new at this- any testing advise, logs to check etc is very much welcomed.
Cheers everyone and thanks in advance for not starting another MQA war!
