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Hi all. I just got myself an Edirol UA-1EX USB interface so that I can use ASIO with foobar. It has made the world of difference, but has also introduced some pops/clicks. I have tried everything I have come across, and while certainly better than before, there is still the occassional pop/click to distract from pure sound. My question is this:I currently use the Edirol as what you'd call DAC: it takes the USB input, does whatever it does with it, and sends the RCA output to an amp. Would using it strictly as an interface - in other words USB in and digital output to an external DAC - help with getting rid of pops/clicks or is the fact that the Edirol is still in the chain mean that the pops/clicks are passed through the digital output too.
Follow Ups:
Hi Guys,I may have mentioned it somewhere here but wanted to ask again: could it be because I have CnQ enabled? I remember reading somewhere that perhaps that can cause an issue?
Hi guys. Just wanted to let you know that CnQ seemed to be the culprit! I just turned Power Management to "Always On" instead of "Minimal" (which effectively turns CnQ off in Windows XP) and I also disabled it in the BIOS. Things are now running click and pop free! And it does so while still using a resampler at 48/96kHz; browsing, emailing and MSNing :)
Look and see what process is robbing the CPU at the time of the problem. Or do you have other devices on the USB?
Hi there. No major processes hogging CPU. I have shutdown all services I do not need and closed programs such as Outlook, MSN messenger etc. I used to have the Edirol on a shared USB hub (my Dell LCD monitor in fact) but have since moved it to a separate 2-port USB hub (integrated onto motherboard at back of PC), not shared with any other device.
not sure if that's what you meant, but sometimes you can see on the graphical display a big spike in CPU usage, and sometimes you can correlate that with a process showing a similar rise in usage.
I'm using iTunes (on a mac and pc)- wireless to Airport Express - optical out to Altmann DAC. Sounds wonderful and eliminates all the insanity of trying to figure out foobar and asio and plug ins and EAC settings and the never knowing if it is optimized. Life is too short to deal with that mess.Do the pops and clicks occur at the same point on the recording, which would indicate a bad rip, or are they random?
They are random. I can play a song and get a few pops and clicks in the beginning, and then I can play it agian immediately after and get pure sound for 40s until the first noise etc.
Whether you use the analog or digital outputs, you will stil get the same pops and ticks.Have you tried everything on my website? How fast is the CPU?
Hi there. Yes, tried pretty much everything I have come across. Interestingly enough setting foobar's priority to realtime in task manager makes it a bit worse for some reason (makes the music play "slowly" somehow.It's an Athlon 64 3000+ with 1GB RAM and 2xSATA HDDs. One thing I did not think of which perhaps may cause issues is the fact that the CPU is using CnQ (Cool 'n Quiet). Might this be causing the pops/clicks?
Anything that competes for CPU cycles is suspect.
There should be no pops and clicks.
Have you tried to increase playback buffer in foobar, to let's say 5 seconds?
Hi there. Yes, I have tried tweaking the playback buffer, both in foobar and in the Edirol control panel. As you can see in the image attached, the Edirol control panel has the buffer at one notch before max. I have also tried it at max and it even seemed a little worse. The image also shows the settings, which are left at default and are the recommended settings for ASIO.The Edirol is set to advanced mode (24-bit and using ASIO; non-advanced mode is 16-bit and does not use ASIO) and at 48kHz. I tried it up to 96kHz and while it sometimes sounded a little better (quality wise) there were more pops/clicks at that sample rate.
The foobar buffer I tried everything from around 500ms all the way to around 4000ms. Currently it is at 1500ms and there are still clicks/pops but only come about every 20-25 second. I would like to eliminate them completely however. I have not tried the buffer as high as 5s yet.
x,for some usb devices, using 'direct monitor' will add a lot of processing overhead for both the CPU and the USB bus.
try turning this option off since it can only improve sound quality to turn it off (it does not have any positive effect to have this turned on).
Hi there. Thanks for the tip, I will try it out. The reason I left it on as that according to the manual, it needs to be on in order for ASIO to work, otherwise IIRC it defaults to the WDM driver. I will double check though and let you know!
X - based on the numbers you are indicating for what you are setting for the buffer in foobar, it sounds like the DirectSound settings. Can you double check your Output option? You should be using ASIO, and for that you need an ASIO plugin for foobar. You can get the plugin for version 0.8.3 here:
http://personales.ya.com/angel49/foobar2000_otachan/Or for version 0.9.4 go here:
http://www.foobar2000.org/components/index.html(Forgive me if I'm overstating the obvious - and you are already aware of these things)
A couple of other things to note: Go to your "Core" preferences in foobar and change the process priority class to "realtime" (all the way to the right). Also, are you using SRC in foobar to upsample to 96KHz? If so, this requires substantial CPU processing.
Yeah, I'm sorry, I should have mentioned I'm only familiar with v0.8.3. Poor assumption on my part to think they were the same.Hopefully v0.9.4 users can chime in now and give useful advice.
BTW, this may be helpful to know - if you disable the resampling and just output 16/44.1 do the "pops/clicks" go away?
Xenithon - I thought of something else that may be pertinent.What format is the music you are playing? (WAV, FLAC, MP3)
Playing FLAC files, for example, require more CPU processing than WAV, and could result in "pops/clicks".
Hi there,ASIO is indeed installed and being used by foobar. The buffer setting for playback I mentioned is the only one in foobar (using 0.9.4). There are also thus no "Core" settings. I tried setting priority to realtime in task manager and it ends up causing the music to "slow down" for some reason.
In terms of upsampling, I am currently upssampling to 48kHz - seemed to be better than 96kHz in terms of performance. I have tried this with all 3 DSP plugins (standard foobar resampler, SRC and PPHS).
Sounds like you have a virus scanner running. You must turn this off. Also screen-saver, basically everything not needed. You MUST use the real-time priority setting in foobar or select it from task manager.
And Firewall too. They are even more intrusive than virus scanners. Possibly Norton is exception; this is very very intrusive.
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