24 bit stuttering with Pure Music & Amarra

[joelha]

For some reason, while 16 bit music plays fine, I'm getting stuttering playback and sometimes silence in the middle of my 24 bit music playback.

 

Sometimes it takes place within the first 30 seconds of the first song and sometimes several minutes into the second song.

 

I've experienced this with Amarra and Pure Music (not with Itunes which I know downsamples to 16 bit) which of course leads me to believe that I've got an issue with my Mac Mini or (hopefully and more likely) a software setting I've set incorrectly with Itunes or the MAC operating system.

 

The issues have occurred on both 24/88 and 24/96 ALAC files. Both Amarra and Pure Music are fine with 16 bit files. The stuttering and distortion will take place randomly with no apparent cause.

 

I'm using an HRT Streamer II+, SSD in my Mini, 8GB of RAM, and up until recently all was working fine with both 24 bit files.

 

I'm sure someone will point out an obvious miss on my part, but between my ego and my music I'd rather have the music.

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Joel

 

[scotty]

Just trying to followup on source of this - heard couple comments about iTunes doing this but hadn't found any info to confirm.

 

[flatmap]

I am not getting stutters with my 24/96 files on Pure Music. However all my files are in aiff -- so I wonder if that makes a difference?

 

 

 

[joelha]

It turns out that the files I thought were 24/96 were in fact 24/88. But more to the point, I learned through the excellent help of Rob Robinson of Channel D (which produces Pure Music) that there's been an issue with the HRT II+ handling 24/88 files on some MAC OS's.

 

I contacted HRT to find out that in fact they do have a repair option available for this DAC ($10 if you've owned the DAC for more than one year).

 

So, while I'm not thrilled that I have to go through this process to get a solution, I'm at least glad I know now where the solution lies.

 

Thanks to those of you who offered suggestions.

 

Joel