[SOLVED] hiccups with Meizu Hifi DAC

[MRamone]

hi,
i have one of these Meizu Hifi dac dongles (non Pro version) that i adore and works flawlessly when connected to both my android phone and my windows laptop.
however when i try to use it with a raspberry pi.... both zero w and 4b running Moode... i get very annoying hiccups. The problem is much worse with the zero, but still bad enough with the 4b.
i understand that the Meizu is a synchronous dac and that can be the cause of the issue, but given it can work perfectly with a phone or a laptop, i wonder if there is a way to make it work without hiccups with a pi.
any ideas?
thank you!

[MRamone]

let me rephrase in case, is there any setting i can play with to see if it somehow improves?
thank you

[the_bertrum]

I have no experience of USB DACs, but I believe that they need to be explicitly supported in RaspiOS in order to be sure they work. Is this DAC known to be compatible with RaspiOS?

[MRamone]

it must be. it shows up with its name in moode when i plugged, and it mostly works, except for the hiccups

[Tim Curtis]

Its prolly not compatible with Linux USB Audio. You should ask the manufacturer if it explicitly supports Linux USB Audio and if so then which kernel version(s).

[TheOldPresbyope]

At the very least you could capture the output from the alsacap command (while it’s plugged in but not playing) and post it here.

Regards,
Kent

[MRamone]

@ Tim, question launched to manufacturer.

@ Theoldpresbyope, there you go:

pi@moode:~ $ alsacap
*** Scanning for playback devices ***
Card 0, ID `b1', name `bcm2835 HDMI 1'
Device 0, ID `bcm2835 HDMI 1', name `bcm2835 HDMI 1', 4 subdevices (4 available)
1..8 channels, sampling rate 8000..192000 Hz
Sample formats: U8, S16_LE
Buffer size range from 80 to 131072
Period size range from 80 to 131072

Subdevice 0, name `subdevice #0'
Subdevice 1, name `subdevice #1'
Subdevice 2, name `subdevice #2'
Subdevice 3, name `subdevice #3'
Card 1, ID `Headphones', name `bcm2835 Headphones'
Device 0, ID `bcm2835 Headphones', name `bcm2835 Headphones', 4 subdevices (4 available)
1..8 channels, sampling rate 8000..192000 Hz
Sample formats: U8, S16_LE
Buffer size range from 80 to 131072
Period size range from 80 to 131072

Subdevice 0, name `subdevice #0'
Subdevice 1, name `subdevice #1'
Subdevice 2, name `subdevice #2'
Subdevice 3, name `subdevice #3'
Card 2, ID `Amplif', name `Meizu HiFi DAC Headphone Amplif'
Device 0, ID `USB Audio', name `USB Audio', 1 subdevices (1 available)
2 channels, sampling rate 44100..384000 Hz
Sample formats: S16_LE, S32_LE, S24_3LE
Buffer size range from 16 to 262144
Period size range from 8 to 131072

Subdevice 0, name `subdevice #0'

@ both: thank you for your help

[MRamone]

hi,
so the guys at Meizu say they don't tge information about linux compatibility.... nevermind...

[TheOldPresbyope]

hi,
so the guys at Meizu say they don't tge information about linux compatibility.... nevermind...

That’s too bad. 

At a glance, the alsacap output looks reasonable. 

You might try posting on the diyaudio.com site to see if some hardy user there has managed to tame this DAC in Linux. I’d suggest the Forums > Source & Line > PC Based sub-forum.

Regards,
Kent

[MRamone]

cool, thanks, will do so