Audirvana Plus 3.5

[Cornell77]

Is anyone upsampling 44.1kHz (Tidal) to DSD256 on Audirvana 3.5 without issue?

 

I had been running a 2009 MacBook Pro  and upsampling successfully to DSD128.  I am now using a 2017 MacBook Pro I5 w/ 2.4 KabyLake processor and hoped to be able to upsample to DSD256.  But I have intermittent dropouts and pops. The dropouts are roughly every 30 seconds or so.  I haven't found any settings of Izotope or Sox that solve the problem.  My latest Izotope settings are:

 

Steepness     150dB

Filter Length 1,000,000

Cutoff freq    1x Nyquist

Antialiasing   200

Pre-ringing     0.75

Filter type      C

Safe vol         -4db

 

When running activity monitor, I see that the CPU is about 63% used and 37% idle. Is my new MacBook still too under-powered for DSD256 upsampling?

 

 

[Cornell77]

Hi Jud,

 

Thank you.  When you say that you have to wait a while for the track to load into memory, is there a separate setting in this regard?  I set my memory buffer between 2GB and 5.12GB and it doesn't make a difference with respect to the dropouts.  The track starts playing quickly.  I can see the buffer move ahead of playback as well on the lower progress bar.

[Cornell77]

With regard to upsampling 44.1k to DSD256 on my 2107 MacBook Pro, I discovered that playback is smooth (without dropouts or pops) if I turn off integer mode.  With integer mode turned on, I experience dropouts and occasional pops.  The CPU load looks to be the same whether integer mode is on or off.  As expected however, the sound is better with integer mode on.

 

Can this be fixed?

 

 

[Cornell77]

6 hours ago, damien78 said:

 

This may very well be a USB connection issue. The point with Integer mode is that it is more demanding on the quality of the link to the audio device, and especially that there are no transmission errors. Such error calls for retries and thus kills the timings.

You'll then want to try with another USB cable, and/or use another USB port on the Mac.

BTW, for choosing the USB port on the Mac, the one to pick is the one with least amount of other devices using the bus the port is connected to.

Hi Damien,

 

Thank you for your reply.  In moving from my 2009 MacBook Pro to the 2017 MacBook Pro, the laptops also move from USB A to USB C ports.  I had been using high quality USB A to USB B cables from Audioquest, Oyaide, and Pangea.  Thus, for the 2017 MacBook Pro, I connect these cables with an Aukey USB C to USB A adapter.  Perhaps the adapter is a problem for USB data transmission.  I will order a good quality USB C to USB B cable for testing.  In the meantime, are you able to do a quick test using a Mojave based MAC to confirm that DSD256 upsampling with integer mode works fine?

[Cornell77]

1 hour ago, damien78 said:

 

I'm unfortunately not able to do so right now, as the DAC I had capable of DSD256 on macOS has a serious HW issue as it is even not powering up

But I'm sure someone on this thread has such a DAC and will be able to confirm it works fine in Integer mode with his DAC.

Thanks. Jud confirms that DSD256 upsampling works on El Capitan (I believe) on his 2009 MacBook Pro.  It would be good to know if DSD256 upsampling also works with Mojave.

[Cornell77]

2 minutes ago, damien78 said:

 

Don't know how, but my DSD256 DAC has just come back to life!

So I'm now listening to 44.1 => DSD256 upsampled in Mojave and with no issue  

Nice!  Listen for a bit as my "stutters" sometimes occur only every minute or two.  But at this point, it is best that I eliminate the USB C to USB A adapter with a dedicated USB C to USB B cable.  I hope that is the culprit.

[Cornell77]

On 5/7/2019 at 2:20 PM, damien78 said:

 

Don't know how, but my DSD256 DAC has just come back to life!

So I'm now listening to 44.1 => DSD256 upsampled in Mojave and with no issue  

 

I used a good quality USB C to USB B cable to again test DSD256 upsampling.  This cable eliminated a USB C to USB A adapter that was previously used with the more standard USB A to USB B cable.

 

No luck.  I still experience dropouts using my 2017 MacBook Pro.  Damien, did your test on Mojave include Direct Mode?  If so, can you re-run with Direct mode off?  So far, I am surprised that the 2017 MacBook Pro tops out at the same DSD128 upsampling that was supported by my 2009 MacBook Pro.