Mytek Brooklyn "overdriven" distortion sound

[kipdent]

As much as I love the sound of my microrendu/original Mytek Brooklyn/Audirvana system, I've been experiencing a fairly frustrating issue the past several months. About twice a month during daily use, playback of loud passages suddenly becomes distorted with a nasty "overdriven" or "clipping" sound. To correct the issue, I reboot the Mytek Brooklyn and usually the distortion disappears. Sometimes I also have to reboot the microrendu and use the App Switcher to reconnect to the UPnP player so the Mytek shows up again within Audirvana, and the distortion is gone. The most frustrating part is that I'm at Sonicorbiter v2.7 and the latest firmware available for the Mytek, so I don't think there are any other steps I can take to permanently fix this problem--unless someone else has some ideas of what I could try. I use the Sonore USB plug to attach to the Mytek, and Blue Jeans Cables ethernet cables to the microrendu. This distorted sound never occurs when I take the microrendu out of the chain and revert to a plain old USB connection from my music server (a Mac mini). Has anyone else had this experience, or might anyone suggest things to try to eliminate it? Thank you--

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 hours ago, kipdent said:

As much as I love the sound of my microrendu/original Mytek Brooklyn/Audirvana system, I've been experiencing a fairly frustrating issue the past several months. About twice a month during daily use, playback of loud passages suddenly becomes distorted with a nasty "overdriven" or "clipping" sound. To correct the issue, I reboot the Mytek Brooklyn and usually the distortion disappears. Sometimes I also have to reboot the microrendu and use the App Switcher to reconnect to the UPnP player so the Mytek shows up again within Audirvana, and the distortion is gone. The most frustrating part is that I'm at Sonicorbiter v2.7 and the latest firmware available for the Mytek, so I don't think there are any other steps I can take to permanently fix this problem--unless someone else has some ideas of what I could try. I use the Sonore USB plug to attach to the Mytek, and Blue Jeans Cables ethernet cables to the microrendu. This distorted sound never occurs when I take the microrendu out of the chain and revert to a plain old USB connection from my music server (a Mac mini). Has anyone else had this experience, or might anyone suggest things to try to eliminate it? Thank you--

Very interesting. 
 

Which volume control are you using, analog or digital?

 

The analog volume control on my Brooklyn is substantially quieter than the digital. Not that this is your issue, but it may be something to test. 

[kipdent]

Thanks for the reply! I have the Mytek Brooklyn's volume control set to Analog, but also in "Bypass" mode is it (supposedly) does nothing. But you raise an interesting point--perhaps I should enable the analog volume control, set it somewhere within its range and adjust my preamp's volume control to taste (as I do now with it disabled) and test to see if any distortion comes back. I'm sure this is not the ideal configuration, but I'm at my wit's end trying to find a solution.

[vortecjr]

5 hours ago, kipdent said:

As much as I love the sound of my microrendu/original Mytek Brooklyn/Audirvana system, I've been experiencing a fairly frustrating issue the past several months. About twice a month during daily use, playback of loud passages suddenly becomes distorted with a nasty "overdriven" or "clipping" sound. To correct the issue, I reboot the Mytek Brooklyn and usually the distortion disappears. Sometimes I also have to reboot the microrendu and use the App Switcher to reconnect to the UPnP player so the Mytek shows up again within Audirvana, and the distortion is gone. The most frustrating part is that I'm at Sonicorbiter v2.7 and the latest firmware available for the Mytek, so I don't think there are any other steps I can take to permanently fix this problem--unless someone else has some ideas of what I could try. I use the Sonore USB plug to attach to the Mytek, and Blue Jeans Cables ethernet cables to the microrendu. This distorted sound never occurs when I take the microrendu out of the chain and revert to a plain old USB connection from my music server (a Mac mini). Has anyone else had this experience, or might anyone suggest things to try to eliminate it? Thank you--

Are you playing back bit perfect or resampling?

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, kipdent said:

Thanks for the reply! I have the Mytek Brooklyn's volume control set to Analog, but also in "Bypass" mode is it (supposedly) does nothing. But you raise an interesting point--perhaps I should enable the analog volume control, set it somewhere within its range and adjust my preamp's volume control to taste (as I do now with it disabled) and test to see if any distortion comes back. I'm sure this is not the ideal configuration, but I'm at my wit's end trying to find a solution.

Yeah, it’s worth a try to see if you can find something that has an effect. If you do, then it’s a start to finding a resolution. 
 

Perhaps @mytek has seen this before?

[kipdent]

Jesus—I am playing bit perfect only (never oversampled). And the experiment to enable the Brooklyn’s analog volume control made no difference. Today a sudden transient on a favorite track sent the Brooklyn into the distorted sound again which disappeared after rebooting.

 

Feel stuck!

[The Computer Audiophile]

19 minutes ago, kipdent said:

Jesus—I am playing bit perfect only (never oversampled). And the experiment to enable the Brooklyn’s analog volume control made no difference. Today a sudden transient on a favorite track sent the Brooklyn into the distorted sound again which disappeared after rebooting.

 

Feel stuck!

Does the distortion come out of the headphone jack as well?

 

Can you make this happen every time you play this track?

[mytek]

Hello,

 

Michal, the main designer at Mytek here. I was made aware of this thread and maybe can help. 

 

I'd say that we need more information to troubleshoot your case, for the moment it seems like, it can be anything, computer , sonic orbiter, Mytek bug in their firmware or drivers etc. 

 

Typically 9 of 10 similar cases are quickly resolved by proper troubleshooting and setting up the software properly.

 

Mytek has a tech support system which is attended daily by a dedicated engineer:

 

https://mytekdigital.com/hifi/support/

 

An email address is needed so if possible I would like to ask Kipdent to copy and paste the first post into our tech support system, and our tech support technician will trouble shoot this with you. If phone call is needed we will call you.

 

We have many customers using similar Sonic Orbiter setup  and I don't remember this ever being an issue, so I hope your problem can be permanently resolved.

 

Best Regards, Michal

 

[kipdent]

Hello, Michal—greatly appreciate the input. I called tech support first and it was not resolved—for now it remains a head scratcher. But I’m of course willing to work closely with anyone to diagnose and fix the issue. Thanks again!

[mytek]

" I called tech support first" - you mean you talked to Brooklyn office? Did you file the support ticket?. If not please tell me the ticket nr or if not, please do this so we can get in direct contact. This seems to be specific troubleshooting case , rather than topic of interest for larger public forum. Thanks M

[kipdent]

I will contact support directly going forward, Michal--and thanks for the help here. I only mentioned my issue on the Forum in the hope of finding someone else who had a similar experience and was able to solve it. Thanks again to everyone--