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Snap Crackle and Pop

108.27.250.147
Posted on April 10, 2014 at 22:53:08
Bob_C
Audiophile

Posts: 2667
Location: NY
Joined: July 31, 2000
 I would hope that all here agree pops, ticks, drop outs etc. caused
by the transport are undesirable. If this is the case, why is
there such confusion when it comes to trying to obtain the lowest
overhead, cleanest transport. Is this not just a natural progression?

Wouldn't, if there was such a thing as the idea transport, be just as important as the ideal DAC. Nether exist, but is this not what we are striving toward. What's wrong with being a pragmatic idealist?

 

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I agree, posted on April 11, 2014 at 06:18:10
JeffH
Audiophile

Posts: 4574
Location: Orange County, So Cal
Joined: April 5, 2000
 and do consider myself a PI. It's because of that, that I have not put a lot of energy in my transport. You see, I don't get pops,clicks nor dropouts. If I did, I would certainly be looking for and addressing the causes. Coming for a relatively, high end cdp and having folks say my system has never sounded better also speaks to the transport that I'm currently using, which happens to be a $500 dollar ASUS laptop running Win 7 Pro.

 

RE: Snap Crackle and Pop , posted on April 11, 2014 at 07:07:27
b.l.zeebub
Audiophile

Posts: 9361
Location: 52deg 28'N,1deg56'W
Joined: April 17, 2006
 I use my old MacPro as 'transport' and for everything else one might use a computer for.

I've never had any pops, crackles or dropouts. Even when everything else freezes the music still keeps playing without missing a beat.
Streaming music is a laughable task for any computer. In my case cpu use never even reaches 1% for music alone regardless of file size ie cd quality or anything up to 24/96.

 

What snap crackle pop Doctor?, posted on April 11, 2014 at 07:40:09
AbeCollins
Audiophile

Posts: 46306
Location: USA
Joined: June 22, 2001
Contributor
  Since: February 2, 2002
 My experiences mirror those of b.l.zeebub. I've had three Mac Minis of various generations set up as music servers and have never experienced pops, ticks, or drop outs while playing music, including hi-res PCM and DSD content.

If eliminating those transport annoyances is one of the goals, I take pleasure in knowing that I accomplished this goal long ago with no drama.

Being the pragmatist that I am, I am practical and focused on reaching my goals. My approach is straightforward and matter-of-fact without falling prey to pathological tweaking, one of the symptoms of audiophilia nervosa. ;-)

Pathological behavior is defined in two distinct ways. When behavior no longer achieves the desired result or the behavior is not justified by external circumstances, it is viewed as pathological,....."




 

RE: Snap Crackle and Pop , posted on April 11, 2014 at 08:02:36
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
 Snap crackle and pop were the rule with an ancient laptop that I bought in 2011. This machine has been demoted to serving as a remote control for a Chromcast. The machine that replaced it and the machine that replaced that one were free from snap crackle and pop once a little tuning was done, mostly ensuring that system maintenance functions did not occur while listening to music.

Nothing to obsess about. There is grossly excessive computational horsepower available in today's processors to prevent snaps, crackles and pops. If these happen then something is seriously broken or misconfigured in a modern system. If you wanted a real problem, then you should have been trying to make high quality audio work back in the early 1990's on machines with a 1 MHz clock rate, like some of the people who worked for me at that time were doing.


Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

RE: Snap Crackle and Pop , posted on April 11, 2014 at 08:47:24
Bob_C
Audiophile

Posts: 2667
Location: NY
Joined: July 31, 2000
 Hi Tony,

I have never actually had such a problem with my systems. But... my thought process was that if the music can be affected, in an extreme case...

Shouldn't the natural progression be to the lowest possible OS interference? Not just low enough?

I prefer WAV to FLAC files, if one can hear this difference, why not look for the lowest OS intrusion possible?

Again, not an obsession,but a noble goal.

regards
Bob

 

RE: I agree, posted on April 11, 2014 at 09:21:12
Bob_C
Audiophile

Posts: 2667
Location: NY
Joined: July 31, 2000
 "I agree and do consider myself a PI. It's because of that, that I have not put a lot of energy in my transport."

Thy title was more figurative than literal, but I would think less is always better than more. Not worth climbing K2 for, but how about a pleasurable hike.

 

RE: Snap Crackle and Pop , posted on April 11, 2014 at 09:49:20
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
 At a certain point where there are no more clicks and pops the question comes whether more tuning should be attempted. At some point, one reaches the point of diminishing returns. Note that as clicks and pops become rarer and rarer it becomes more and more time consuming to find and change proposed tweaks that might be the cause. So if one is following the "start big" diagnostic strategy, one has to stop at some point. Of course if one is also tuning for improved sound quality that is another reason to keep on going, but this is also time consuming, because it may take a lot of listening time to see whether a change is beneficial.

The other approach is to "start small" with an absolutely minimal system that includes the minimum operating system that runs well enough so that you can tweak it, and than add functions needed to run the audio software, the volume holding the music library and the audio interface connecting to the DAC. This is a completely valid approach. Indeed, this is the "purist" approach. Were I to do it, I would probably start with a purpose built operating system that is stripped down totally, something like Arch Linux. That way I would have the potential advantage of being able to read the source code and understand what is going on. This is probably the fastest way to get excellent results if one has the necessary experience with the chosen software, but I haven't tried this yet because I am still a "newbie" when it comes to various Linux distros and lack the facility that I had with navigating via command line, such as I did in the 1960's with various PDP-10 operating systems.


Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

RE: Snap Crackle and Pop , posted on April 11, 2014 at 10:29:56
Bob_C
Audiophile

Posts: 2667
Location: NY
Joined: July 31, 2000
 "The other approach is to "start small" with an absolutely minimal system that includes the minimum operating system that runs well enough so that you can tweak it, and than add functions needed to run the audio software, the volume holding the music library and the audio interface connecting to the DAC. This is a completely valid approach. Indeed, this is the "purist" approach. Were I to do it, I would probably start with a purpose built operating system that is stripped down totally, something like Arch Linux. That way I would have the potential advantage of being able to read the source code and understand what is going on. This is probably the fastest way to get excellent results if one has the necessary experience with the chosen software, but I haven't tried this yet because I am still a "newbie" when it comes to various Linux distros and lack the facility that I had with navigating via command line, such as I did in the 1960's with various PDP-10 operating systems."

Yes a valid and interesting approach. Here are a couple good threads.

I just picked up a Utilite Pro to play with.

Computers can be like riding a bicycle, once you get on you never forget.
But... we are just slower now and need glasses. :)


http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/twisted-pear/250583-building-open-embedded-audio-applicance.html


http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?97881-Community-Funded-Squeezebox-Replacement-Would-you-be-interested



 

Many people, who never faced this problem, don't realize...., posted on April 11, 2014 at 12:01:58
carcass93
Audiophile

Posts: 7181
Location: NJ
Joined: September 20, 2006
 ... that they have large buffers set in either driver, or media player - or are unaware of the negative impact of large buffers on sound quality.

Pretty easy to hear in resolving system - and is the reason JPlay sounds best with DirectLink option.

 

Is this some sort of troll..., posted on April 11, 2014 at 12:02:02
John Elison
Audiophile

Posts: 23900
Location: Central Kentucky
Joined: December 20, 2000
Contributor
  Since: January 29, 2004
 First of all, this is the computer audio forum -- not the CD transport forum. If you don't like transports, buy a computer and be done with them. That's what I did. On the other hand, I never owned a transport or CD player that introduced any snap, crackle and pop into my music. You must be listening to records. Does your transport have a tonearm and phono cartridge attached?

Good luck,
John Elison

 

We're discussing "computer transports", not CD - the term is widely used. N/T, posted on April 11, 2014 at 12:03:25
carcass93
Audiophile

Posts: 7181
Location: NJ
Joined: September 20, 2006
 N/T

 

Really! I guess I don't transport my computer..., posted on April 11, 2014 at 12:07:29
John Elison
Audiophile

Posts: 23900
Location: Central Kentucky
Joined: December 20, 2000
Contributor
  Since: January 29, 2004
 It remains stationary and it sounds fine.

Best regards,
John Elison

 

RE: Computer transport. Thought that would be obvious. :) nt..., posted on April 11, 2014 at 12:11:06
Bob_C
Audiophile

Posts: 2667
Location: NY
Joined: July 31, 2000
 nt

 

Here's what we're discussing:, posted on April 11, 2014 at 12:16:16
carcass93
Audiophile

Posts: 7181
Location: NJ
Joined: September 20, 2006

N/T

 

RE: Really! I guess I don't transport my computer..., posted on April 11, 2014 at 12:20:51
Bob_C
Audiophile

Posts: 2667
Location: NY
Joined: July 31, 2000
 Some people transport their computers on the yellow school bus...


 

RE: LoL !!! nt, posted on April 11, 2014 at 12:22:11
Bob_C
Audiophile

Posts: 2667
Location: NY
Joined: July 31, 2000
 nt

 

RE: Many people, who never faced this problem, don't realize...., posted on April 11, 2014 at 12:47:49
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
 What size buffers do you use?

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

Unfortunately, W4S driver doesn't expose buffer settings - so, the only place..., posted on April 11, 2014 at 12:50:10
carcass93
Audiophile

Posts: 7181
Location: NJ
Joined: September 20, 2006
 ... for me to set the buffer size is in the playback engine.

There, the buffer size is set to 0 samples.

 

I don't move bad puns -t, posted on April 11, 2014 at 16:37:11
Sordidman
Audiophile

Posts: 13665
Location: San Francisco
Joined: May 14, 2001
 .

"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"

 

Some people hear differences in puter transports & their , posted on April 11, 2014 at 16:40:40
Sordidman
Audiophile

Posts: 13665
Location: San Francisco
Joined: May 14, 2001
 playback software. Certainly, - Itunes playback on a PC is much different than jplay....



"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"

 

RE: Unfortunately, W4S driver doesn't expose buffer settings - so, the only place..., posted on April 11, 2014 at 19:39:51
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
 I've got three different buffer settings:

1. HQ Player buffer size, set in milliseconds. (10, 20, 50, 100, 250, default)
2. USB PAL (for Mytek) Asio Buffer Size (settable to Minimum, small, large, maximum). Large is 6.0 millseconds, 1152 samples at 192000)
3. USB PAL (for Mytek) Streaming Buffer Size (settable to Minimum, extra small, small, large, extra large, safe). Extra Small is 2.0 milliseconds at 192000.

If this confuses you, note that it also confuses me. :-)

It looks like there is a three stage pipeline. The settings that I can get away with depend on the sample rate of the file, the upsampling rate if different, and whether or not digital room correction is enabled. Also, whether or not anything else is running in the computer. This especially means anything with complex graphics or lots of operating system interaction, such as web browsers (real bad on scroll wheel mouse scrolling even though mouse is on separate USB controller) or worst of all the Windows task manager. The good news is that the USB PAL control panel has status information which includes counters which tally the number of glitches of different types, providing an easy and reliable way of catching all the errors without having to hang around and listen carefully. (Which may not catch all the errors anyhow, e.g. if one occurs during a silent portion of the music.)

The way I normally run things, I can play 44/16 without any glitches and still use the computer for other things. However, high-res or DSD requires dedicating the computer for the duration or accepting the occasional glitch. However, if I run room correction I have to have a large buffer in the player software, which runs a few seconds ahead anyhow since it is doing FFT processing of convolution and this has to be somewhat batched. As fmak pointed out a high quality analog parametric equalizer between my DAC and my amplifiers would probably be better than using software which is using 50 watts of power when room correcting in the DSD domain. (Not a factor at 44 kHz.)




Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

RE: Some people hear differences in puter transports & their , posted on April 11, 2014 at 21:07:54
Bob_C
Audiophile

Posts: 2667
Location: NY
Joined: July 31, 2000
 "playback software. Certainly, - Itunes playback on a PC is much different than jplay...."

Absolutely... I used the general term "transport" in hope to avoid some people going into seizure during the discussion. Clearly some software is cutting edge, and others pretty bad.

 

I doubt it is "Many people", posted on April 11, 2014 at 21:20:07
agattu
Audiophile

Posts: 606
Location: NW Washington & Southcentral Alaska
Joined: March 27, 2005
 Media player documentation/ setup instructions advise that using large buffers can degrade SQ.

 

RE: Unfortunately, W4S driver doesn't expose buffer settings - so, the only place..., posted on April 11, 2014 at 22:07:33
John Elison
Audiophile

Posts: 23900
Location: Central Kentucky
Joined: December 20, 2000
Contributor
  Since: January 29, 2004
 The only time I encountered drop-out problems or snaps and crackles is when I put music files on the internal hard drive of my Toshiba notebook computer. As long as I used an external USB hard drive for all music storage, I had no more problems with drop-outs even at 24/192, which is the highest resolution my DAC can convert.

My main computer music server uses a 1-TB eSATA external hard drive for music storage and I never encountered any problems with drop-outs or snaps and crackles. I use Foobar2000 software for streaming and an April Music Eximus DP1 DAC. I've played this system for about a year and a half without any of the problems you are talking about.

Best regards,
John Elison

 

RE: Unfortunately, W4S driver doesn't expose buffer settings - so, the only place..., posted on April 11, 2014 at 22:14:12
fmak
Audiophile

Posts: 13158
Location: Kent
Joined: June 1, 2002
 For me, the best sound is to be had with all set to minimal consistent w/o
breakup or hf issue.

 

RE: Snap Crackle and Pop -Actually with laptops and netbooks, posted on April 11, 2014 at 22:17:34
fmak
Audiophile

Posts: 13158
Location: Kent
Joined: June 1, 2002
 the culprit for me has been wireless, networks and useless software in the background casing high latency spikes that are very high. Soemtimes it is a driver issue even with nominally the correct one.

 

RE: Snap Crackle and Pop -Actually with laptops and netbooks, posted on April 11, 2014 at 23:08:13
Bob_C
Audiophile

Posts: 2667
Location: NY
Joined: July 31, 2000
 "useless software in the background casing high latency spikes that are very high."

Always a bad thing.

I was just hoping that more people might realize the detriment of program/OS activity in general. The lower we can go, and the closer to a direct stream the better IMO. I think this idea might be lost on some though.

 

RE: Unfortunately, W4S driver doesn't expose buffer settings - so, the only place..., posted on April 12, 2014 at 07:24:31
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
 Like carcass said, it will depend on the buffer sizes. I like to work with the smallest possible buffer sizes which makes the problem worse.

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

RE: Snap Crackle and Pop -Actually with laptops and netbooks, posted on April 12, 2014 at 07:41:41
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
 Wireless can have huge latency, since sometimes packets are lost completely and have to be retransmitted. This can happen due to noise if the reception isn't so great, but it can also happen due to two stations transmitting simultaneously. I have some computers off in a distant part of my home and these are behind a wireless bridge. Pinging this bridge or the computers behind it usually shows low latency, but sometimes there will be a large spike, over 1 second, which I attribute to retransmission. On extreme cases I've seen packets dropped.

The latency tests show operating system latency handling upcalls to applications. Even if this latency is good there can still be problems if the system is starved for CPU time at peak instants. To some extent this problem can be alleviated by raising the priority of the audio application threads, but if another application running at lower priority gets a lock on a critical system resource there can be "priority inversion" whereby the higher priority audio program ends up waiting anyway.

Real time operating systems are designed to deal with these problems, not so much as to banish the problem of running out of CPU time but rather to allow the system to be designed and configured that overloaded configurations can be eliminated when the system is designed and configured. Unfortunately, existing operating systems are not built this way. They can be used for real-time operation provided the load is kept low enough. Unfortunately, general purpose operating systems aren't built on top of a real-time kernal and don't provide the necessary configuration tools and enforcement thereof. Example: a good real-time operating system would not allow a driver to exceed a budgeted time or receive an excessive rate of interrupts, so that the miscreant driver would get nailed rather than the correctly operating audio driver.

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

RE: I doubt it is "Many people", posted on April 12, 2014 at 07:44:22
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
 I'd be curious as to which products come with such documentation.

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

RE: I doubt it is "Many people", posted on April 12, 2014 at 11:08:29
b.l.zeebub
Audiophile

Posts: 9361
Location: 52deg 28'N,1deg56'W
Joined: April 17, 2006
 Mine didn't say anything about sound quality but since I use my convertor to record as well as replay I obviously set it to the smallest buffer possible in order to keep latency to an absolute minimum.

 

RE: I doubt it is "Many people", posted on April 13, 2014 at 02:18:35
agattu
Audiophile

Posts: 606
Location: NW Washington & Southcentral Alaska
Joined: March 27, 2005
 JRiver, Foobar2000 and JPLAY. I use all 3 of these players in various systems. Buffer size "warnings" are not just in the documentation but are also graphically reiterated during media player setup.

 

RE: I doubt it is "Many people", posted on April 13, 2014 at 09:21:48
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
 Of the three players, JRiver, Foobar2000 and JPLAY, the only one that I've installed is Foobar2000. I do not recall any warnings that too large a buffer size might impact sound quality. The documentation that I've seen says that too small a buffer size may cause stuttering, while too large a buffer size may make the user interface sluggish. I would be extremely surprised if the official documentation for Foobar2000 includes a mention that large buffer sizes might adversely affect sound quality since the purveyor follows the dogmatic religion that "bits are just bits". The official FAQ implies as much:

Does foobar2000 sound better than other players?
No. Most of “sound quality differences” people “hear” are placebo effect (at least with real music), as actual differences in produced sound data are below their noise floor (1 or 2 last bits in 16bit samples). foobar2000 has sound processing features such as software resampling or 24bit output on new high-end soundcards, but most of the other mainstream players are capable of doing the same by now.


I repeat my request for player documentation that describes how too large a buffer size may negatively affect sound quality.


Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

RE: I doubt it is "Many people", posted on April 13, 2014 at 10:36:00
agattu
Audiophile

Posts: 606
Location: NW Washington & Southcentral Alaska
Joined: March 27, 2005
 See HA/Foobar 2000 Wiki:
Quote:
"High buffer sizes offer stronger protection against glitches but introduce side effects such as long delay between changing DSP settings (eg. adjusting equalizer bands) and changes in sound output."

 

RE: I doubt it is "Many people", posted on April 13, 2014 at 10:49:53
Tony Lauck
Audiophile

Posts: 13629
Location: Vermont
Joined: November 12, 2007
 "High buffer sizes offer stronger protection against glitches but introduce side effects such as long delay between changing DSP settings (eg. adjusting equalizer bands) and changes in sound output."


That comment relates to the time delay between changing the DSP settings and the change in what you hear. It does not refer to what you continue to hear after the time delay has passed.

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

 

OK...I see now. *, posted on April 16, 2014 at 22:35:53
agattu
Audiophile

Posts: 606
Location: NW Washington & Southcentral Alaska
Joined: March 27, 2005
 .

 

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