Not enough gain

[Jud]

More detail if it helps:

- No associated "crack" or any other noise except the amp power relay.  The power light on my amp goes off and the volume ramps down quite quickly with the amp power shutting down.  (The amp sits on the desktop in front of me, so I can't help but see the power light.)

- This happens when volume for the DragonFly, which is being used as a preamp/volume control in this setup (connected through an adapter to RCA cables that run to the amp) is set at 50 in Windows, but not when the volume is set at 40.

- With the volume set at 40, everything just plays fine, no problems at all.

- Edit: Also, attenuation in XXHE is set to -9.0db, as I undertand it the max volume (minimum attenuation) allowed for phase alignment to operate.

[PeterSt]

- No associated "crack" or any other noise except the amp power relay.

What I lacked to tell more explicitly is that when this happens actually the stream (towards the DAC) stops. But you won't be able to hear that crack of it anymore, because your amp is quicker than lightning to shut all off (well, the relais is fast and will cut the output).

When that volume is at 40% (XXHE still at -9 (which indeed is the max for Phase Alignment) you should be able to hear it I think. So, then some sort of "crack" should be there. When not it should be related to te music data itself, which you should be able to proove (but you seem to say that you actually did ?). And when it is the music data, it is the coincidence of the coming together of "my" DC and DC in the data (with the notice that DC already can be regarded that when only the frequency is low enough to let last the "offset" long enough to let trip something which protects from
But I can't imagine this much ...

Peter

[Jud]

I think I understand, Peter.  Happily, it appears I may have time after all to test tomorrow (unless I have a 7 hour conference call on my "day off" like last week, which may actually happen).

[Jud]

OK, a couple more data points today (everything's on Win 7, I haven't reinstalled XXHE on Win 8 yet - may not until there's a change in XXHE to test):

- I used a different track, "Rodeo Girl" from Rickie Lee Jones' "Flying Cowboys."  This is a natural track for such experiments: The CD is from way before the "loudness wars," so it's quite soft and I would actually like to hear it louder.

- DragonFly setting of 50 with XXHE attenuation of -9.0 resulted in amp protection kicking in after a few seconds.  I don't think there was any higher volume in the track itself associated with this, and I didn't hear any sort of crack or other noise.

- Tried a DragonFly setting of 45.  Attentuation of -9.0 caused the amp protection to kick in, as did -10.5.  Attentuation of -12.0 allowed the song to play.

So I can reach settings that allow playback.  But there are a few tracks I would actually like to hear louder.  Maybe not possible using my current hardware and XXHE settings.  Perhaps I'll try "After SFS Rounds," which I've never used yet.