I was involved with Beta testing the Directstream Mk 2. Early on I noticed I was getting dropouts when playing music from JRiver 29 via usb. This was something I never had with the Mk 1. At first I suspected something with settings in JRiver or possibly even something caused by an update to Windows 10. PS Audio was very responsive to this issue and had me ship the unit in for a check out. While it was there they cut the trace that was causing some of the units to mute and require a long time shut down in order to get sound back. My unit never had that issue. When it returned from them it quickly revealed the issue was not resolved. They even were willing to swap out the unit for me. Instead to avoild another couple of weeks without the DAC they mad a special exception and shipped me the digital board which was broken in like mine. I swapped the boards out and returned the original hoping that Barry could use the one from mine to trouble shoot. On my end for a couple of days no dropouts. Than they were back! This is not a hardware issue. When I notified Barry he suggested I load a lantency monitor tool to see what is going on in the computer. I ran it and it revealed that there were problems. I had shut down CPU throttling and followed every other suggestion the program came up with. The first culprit is ACPI which has to do with charging the laptop battery. I disabled it in device manager. I ran the latency monitor again and this time it pointed to a possible nrtwork issue. I thought because I had wifi turned off via a button on the laptop. I decided to disable the multiple drivers related to wifi. Since I did that I have been getting clean test reports with durations of 3 hours and no dropouts. This looks to be how I will have to operate now for clean playback. The most troubling part to me is why I never had audible dropouts when using the Mk 1. Maybe there is something about the new driver required by the new improved usb input is more sensitive to latency issues. I felt it was worth sharing this to help anyone else who might be running into the same issue. Now it is time to just enjoy the music!
You had quite the journey. I am glad it’s resolved now and you can really enjoy your new DAC.
I am having usb driver issues as well. The computer sees the dac but my tuning software does not. I am stuck in the middle. PSA has told me they do not write the driver. They are trying to help get fixed but I fear in order to tune I have to put a DDC in the mix.
I hope you can get this fixed too!
Are those with issues using Laptops ? PC laptops?
Yes they are. Even though I have it working now I am considering getting a workstation with no wifi or batteries to charge.
Why not buy a good streamer? Auralic ?
I don’t care for streaming. I like to play files from the ssd and use gizmo on a tablet to control JRiver. I also use the computer to archive my records using the NPC as an A to D and vynil studio. I am still scratching my head why I never had any dropouts when using the mk 1.
I was trying to say why not use a component that’s designed for audio, sounds miles better than a laptop.
Be surprised. A friend of mine has an Aurelic G2 and he’s experiencing regular dropouts. And he’s not the only Aurelic owner with such annoyance. Aurelic support seems reluctant to pick up this issue and help solve it.
Actually I believe the computer feeding via usb to Wyred 4 Sound Recovery to the mk2 Directstream sounds as good as SACD played on the PST connected via i2s. Streaming is a lower performance source no matter what device you are using. I am one who prefers physical media.
I should add that playing quad rate dsd files on the computer sound even better than an SACD on the PST.
Hi John,
I have a similar config. laptop->Jriver MC29-> USB->W4S Recovery-mk2 and whenever I play low res, iTunes files e.g. , the mk2 displays 24/44.1 and not 16/44.1 . All other res up to DSD256 display correctly. Do you experience that condition too?
Thx George
George,
I do not have any iTunes files but whenever I play Redbook files 16bit 44.1khz I see the correct info on the mk 2 display.
John
Thanks, John. The only redbook 16/44.1 I have is CDs; they display correctly through I2S1. I’ll rip a CD and use Jiver to play it and see what happens with that.
George
I get a similar confusion when I play files I recorded with Vinyl Studio at 24 96. They display 24 48 on the mk 2.
That’s a bug that’s supposed to be fixed sometime in an undefined future.
Good to know it’s more than one instance.
Thanks kindly for the info.
When Redbook displays 24 bits it means that something upstream is doing some math on the samples: volume, DSP, etc. The sample width indicates how many bits are changing sample to sample.