J River and "tweeter blowing noises"

[CharlyD]

After acquiring my 'phones and a E-MU 0404 USB, I participated in the "24/192 via USB 2.0 on a Beer Budget" for guidance on how to best configure this setup. My main difficulty was sample rate switching by the DAC to match that of the content and learned that the only way to achieve this automatic switching is to use the ASIO driver. J River is the only player software I tried (Winamp and Foobar were also tried) that included a ASIO driver and worked perfectly with the 0404.

 

Other posters in the "Beer Buget" thread mentioned problems with J River occasionally spewing "tweeter blowing noises". Unfortunately, I've also encountered that behavior (no tweeters involved though). The noise is quite obnoxious at at least 50% of the signal level and occasionally cutting playback completely. The player keeps playing and gives no feedback of a problem. Pausing playback for a few seconds (for the buffer to flush?) then continuing playback will restore normal operation.

 

I noticed that the noises seem to start when the PC gets loaded doing something else (e.g. loading a large web page). The PC is running XP SP3 and is a 2GHz Athlon 64. In an attempt to increase performance, I added RAM to 3GB but the noise behavior persisted. I have turned off hardware accelleration on the 0404 with no effect.

 

I'm using FLAC encoded files.

 

Any thoughts on what might be going on and how to fix it?

 

[CharlyD]

The ASIO buffer size needs to be increased to at least 200ms.

 

There is a control panel titled "ASIO E-MU 0404 | USB" that allows setting of the ASIO buffer size, but the UI for that tool is accessible only through the pro tools included with the 0404 (e.g. Wavelab). The default setting for the buffer size is 10ms and increasing this value to 200ms has fixed the problem! This setting is persistent and only needs to be set once.

 

The "E-MU USB Audio Application" is an installed application and displays a UI titled "E_MU 0404|USB [Control Panel]" but does not allow setting of the ASIO buffer. To access the ASIO Control Panel from Wavelab, select Options/Preferences/Audio Card/Control Panel.

 

I've restarted to verify the persistent setting and have been listening to hi-rez music while browsing for the last hour without a hint of noise. J River support rocks!

 

[nwboater]

Hi CharlyD,

 

Thanks very much for sharing this information. I'll print it out and save it in my 0404USB file. I have not had the tweeter blowing noises, or any other for that matter, but I am only playing FLAC files with JRiver, and doing nothing other than playing audio on my 3 year old Acer laptop. However just for safety I may want to increase the buffer size as EMU suggested. Did you notice any change in SQ when increasing the buffer size? If not I wonder why EMU doesn't have the 200 ms as a default?

 

BTW I am new to computer audio and have been very pleased with the results of this DAC and JRiver on my old Klipschorns. Don't think Paul Klipsch could possibly have dreamed of this combination when he built the first Khorn over 60 years ago!

 

Rod

 

[CharlyD]

I learned of JRiver through the "Beer Budget" thread and decided to try it despite warnings of "tweeter blowing noises". Since I didn't get any response to my posting of this issue for a few weeks, I suspect that there is something unique about my system that was causing the problem. But now it's fixed, and my interest in finding the exact cause has dissapated.

 

I could detect no changes in the SQ after increasing the ASIO buffer size. The only noise I get are very short (200ms ?) burst when loading pages with many graphics/scripts.

 

Rob, I noticed from your posting that your handle is nwboater. Are you from the Seattle area? If so, I stongly suggest you visit Eficion Speakers - http://www.eficion.com/index.htm - in Redmond Town Center. Their speakers are fabulous and the source used to demo them is a PC feeding a 0404!

 

[nwboater]

Good to know that you found no changes in SQ with increased buffer size. Thanks - I'll bump mine up just to be on the safe side.

 

I'm originally from the San Francisco area, but lived a few years in Bellingham, WA and am an active boater. Thus 'nwboater'. Five years ago I married a wonderful Canadian lady and we are living in beautiful Powell River, BC. It's about 100 miles North of Vancouver. Next time I'm in Seattle will try to listen to the Eficion speakers. Impressive to hear that they are using the 0404 (I assume USB). Did you get a chance to talk to them about their choice in DAC's?

 

Rod

 

[CharlyD]

Hi Rob - This forum doesn't seem to support private messages and this topic strays from the original posting. The only person present in the shop when I visited was Peigen Jiang, who happens to be one of the speaker designers. Peigen was very passionate about his speakers, of course, and also was very effusive over the E-MU 0404 USB. He felt the 0404 was at least as transparent as any other DAC he had heard - and he has been participating in several hi-end shows over the last year building a market for his speakers. The music I heard through his F300s was jaw-dropping good, and it was great to get the affirmation that I had purchased a very good DAC.

 

[Audio_ELF]

nwboater asked the question "If [bigger buffer doesn't affect sound quality] I wonder why EMU doesn't have the 200 ms as a default?"

I suspect because as a pro-audio device, it's intended device is as a recording / playback interface, in this situation the smaller latency the better. However with "HiFi" latency is less of an issue.

 

Eloise