Phasure driver throws out NOS1a

[CoenP]

Hi Peter,

Last nite: everything perfect.

Today: cannot play one track decently (totally NOTHING changed)

This is win7 (no more win .

What happens that I start a track (wav), everything plays fine, a crack sound occurs and about 3500 samples are lost according to the driver panel (kernel/wasapi counter).
Worse, after a while (30 sec) all counters, except the ASIO start running like crazy, sound breaks up, stops and finally the NOS1a is thrown out of the driver panel. This all happens in 10 seconds or so. The driver automatically reconnects to the 1a again and then I can repeat this sequence.

I've rebooted three times now and the problem persists. No matter if I use 1.186 or 9z9e or driver buffersettings.

Help!

regards, Coen

[PeterSt]

Coen,

What happens that I start a track (wav), everything plays fine

For how long ?

DC Offset behaviour is normal when all still plays fine ?
What happens with it when the strange things start to occur ?

Peter

[CoenP]

For how long ?

about 45 seconds. After a driver buffer adaption (4->8msec) 1 minute, 45 seconds.

DC Offset behaviour is normal when all still plays fine ?
What happens with it when the strange things start to occur ?

I will report later.

FWIW: on the mac no "crash" observed.

regards, Coen

[PeterSt]

Yo Coen,

Looks like something went wrong with the driver. What about uninstalling / reinstalling it ?

I don't know whether your audio PC is connected to the Internet so you can receive viruses, but if so consider it as a possibility.

Lastly, if that 45 sec and 1:45 is repeatable it looks very strange to me and when the above doesn't help you I will be the most curious what *this* turns out to be. Especially because it happened "over night".

Regards,
Peter

PS: Great checks/analysis you did there !

[PeterSt]

Something else :

The most obvious in general is the USB connection failing. I think you ruled out "in-DAC" because it works on the Mac, and most probably you also ruled out the cable because of using the same one for both PC and MAC. Still not, because when the computer side connector is lame, it could fit better in the Mac connector than the PC one.

How this leads to this 45 and 1:45 would be a bit far sought, but I think this can happen after many failures (unnoticed to you) in the first place, and after xx attempts finally giving up (up to disconnecting the device). Btw, the fact that it automatically reconnects is something that I may have not expected, but possibly this works the same as a USB disk with wrong driver (disconnects and auto-reconnects as well).

When we talk about a failing USB connection, this is also about too much noise. So if you now e.g. put 230V on the USB cable (but think groundloops once again) it can be a reason for failure in general.

Peter

[CoenP]

The most obvious in general is the USB connection failing.

I think so, but it happens unnoticed by the driver error counters. I mean it just crashed while I was having a sandwich upstairs and after a restart, I swear it sounds different. No I am shure. Before the mono recoding sounded like a mono recording, now it could be mistaken for a (narrow) stereo one. Much much less focus. Nothing to see in the panel and absolutely no changes except for a restart.

I think you ruled out "in-DAC" because it works on the Mac, and most probably you also ruled out the cable because of using the same one for both PC and MAC. Still not, because when the computer side connector is lame, it could fit better in the Mac connector than the PC one.

That was the goal of attaching the Mac. The PC cable connection is lousy and the Mac's better but not much better.
 
Now I have to wait longer for the crash to happen (I got hungry so I wasn't even there ). Now I'm in my second track. No additional errors above the "start" ones (see comment below).

Maybe I just touched the USB cable while starting up the PC. Just enough to cause some *unmonitored* buffer to fill and cause the system to go unstable.
I did reconnect it two times yesterday though, maybe I had better luck today with connection...

How this leads to this 45 and 1:45 would be a bit far sought, but I think this can happen after many failures (unnoticed to you) in the first place, and after xx attempts finally giving up (up to disconnecting the device). Btw, the fact that it automatically reconnects is something that I may have not expected, but possibly this works the same as a USB disk with wrong driver (disconnects and auto-reconnects as well).

It is not very repeatable. Today it was several times 35 seconds on all starts except for the one that went without an interruption (). Oops there just was another interruption 18 minutes playing and another one at 25 seconds after a restart...
These interruptions seem to be win7 and WAV related, so far no interruptions with FLAC...

The DC offset stays rock solid: -4,4 and 3,4 respectively.

When we talk about a failing USB connection, this is also about too much noise. So if you now e.g. put 230V on the USB cable (but think groundloops once again) it can be a reason for failure in general.

AC between USB cable shield and Chassis USB ground is 5,3V.

So of course today no crashes observed by me yet (Murphey?). The stops remain and might be related to the crashes but that would be another topic.

regards, Coen

[PeterSt]

It can very well be XX settings as well. Especially when you play Hires, I noticed myself one time that things can get "out of order". However, I never looked at USB errors and just blamed a too low SFS for it. In my case (if the same at all) it was about a 24/96 which played the day before, and the next day didn't want to play at all. Btw, sheer static which you may just appreciate as "noise" when using an alogue attenuator (like with a preamp). Also notice that I hardly ever play Hires, and my SFS of 2 could just be too low in general hence is critical. Btw, this is 1.186-i with Custom filter, hence with 1.186-a no problem ever.
After this happening I set my SFS to 4 which also plays OK for 1.186-i (my advice ever back was SFS=2).

It may not be your situation (so recognize static or not), but anyway I find it very odd that it can happen in the first place (this is about bytes getting in a shifted sequence). When the same as your situation, it can recover (and break) per SFS partial track load (size).

I also received this static with a normal Redbook one time a couple of weeks ago (1.186-i and Custom filter) and it lasted for only one SFS trackload part.
In itself it can't be a coincidence that this happened twice to me while at least 3 years in advance of this it never happened.

So question : Do you recognize this as static ? (blowing windows type when at full anaogue volume)

?

[CoenP]

No, not that I specifically listened to it. The static I know is the small random ticks in quiet and organic music (classical). This is rare and usually my indicator for a poor USB connection.

I will put attention to this later this day.

I had a hunch that it might have a thing to do with the processing of the WAV files that is different from FLAC. I noticed that already played tracks are less inclined to have a drop-out.

I understand better now that samples and bits get messed up by the OS and USB interface. I am also realizing that my current PC is not fit for purpose. Who'd thought that you need a top of the line setup to get a few crunched bits correctly over a wire. And even then..

Regards, Coen

[PeterSt]

Who'd thought that you need a top of the line setup to get a few crunched bits correctly over a wire. And even then..

No ... It is all about how demanding "you" are. Like my given SFS=2 vs SFS=4 example.

Suppose it happens a next time and you can't get rid of it, try Arc Prediction intead of the Custom Filter and see what happens with that.

Peter

[CoenP]

No ... It is all about how demanding "you" are. Like my given SFS=2 vs SFS=4 example.

I am demanding with 9z9 SFS=2 (AP of course). sfs=6 with 1.186i. Looking for the static.

Regards,  coen