XMC pop/click on song change or digital silence (Part 2)

[minthral]

Every time a song starts or when it switches from silence to volume, I'm getting a pop/click sound...this is happening no matter what I try. Different sources and different settings. Similar sound to hitting mute and un-mute. 

Anyone know how to fix this? Or maybe something is wrong with mine? I don't get this using DC-1 Dac direct to amp. Never had this on my last receivers.

i did a search and seems maybe this is a firmware problem?

[minthral]

So I can appreciate rules must be followed and I'm not sure if its the members responding that's at fault, but I am surprised to come back to provide an update, but noticed that my thread has been closed due to some members arguing (i guess). I have a few nitpicking concerns or issues with the overall great XMC and its discouraging to see any negative posts about it are getting closed pretty quick with 'try calling tech support' instead of getting help or addressed. Perhaps the problem posts would be deleted instead of closing the whole thread.

[LCSeminole]

Many of the problem posts do get deleted, but in this case, the same problem you are having has historically been a source of contention with some members that don't know when to let it go with those that aren't having the problem and going straight to the source. Arguing with other members about something they have no control over is pointless. There is nothing that the members here can do about the same problem posted over and over, and with the history of a few that don't want to either accept what Dan/Lonnie/Keith have answered directly on the Lounge, or contact Emotiva directly and/or accept what they have been told by Emotiva, then their frustrations spill over on to the Lounge. Then comes the uncivil/personal/disrespectful responses. In short, the best advice that you can be given about the situation you are having is to call Emotiva directly and get an answer directly. While many/most times the Lounge members are of great help to one another, this situation is best hearing it straight from the source over a phone call to Emotiva Tech Support.

[Deleted]

So please tell us your updates. I would really like to know if there's a way to stop these annoying pops.

[LCSeminole]

Jan 24, 2016 12:13:26 GMT -5 minthral said:

So I can appreciate rules must be followed and I'm not sure if its the members responding that's at fault, but I am surprised to come back to provide an update, but noticed that my thread has been closed due to some members arguing (i guess). I have a few nitpicking concerns or issues with the overall great XMC and its discouraging to see any negative posts about it are getting closed pretty quick with 'try calling tech support' instead of getting help or addressed. Perhaps the problem posts would be deleted instead of closing the whole thread.

Just to add, it has nothing to do with a "Negative" post closing a thread, it's all about the tone and history of a members posts. Dan/Lonnie/Keith/Moderators have no problem with any members reporting problems with their equipment, as they too want as close to a bug/problem free product as they can get. In my experience, talking to someone in a civil and respectful tone will get you much further than with a heated out of control attitude, and unfortunately their will always be those that for whatever reason can't/won't speak appropriately.

[LCSeminole]

READ BEFORE POSTING IN THIS THREAD


I've taken the liberty of moving the OP's original post from the thread that got closed to this one for a fair chance at being discussed in a civil and respectful tone. I am going to give a "one-time fair warning" that if the same frustrations occur in this thread, posts will be deleted and at a minimum, short timeouts from the Lounge will occur. Thank you to all members for their cooperation.

[LCSeminole]

Jan 22, 2016 11:51:35 GMT -5 minthral said:

Every time a song starts or when it switches from silence to volume, I'm getting a pop/click sound...this is happening no matter what I try. Different sources and different settings. Similar sound to hitting mute and un-mute. 

Anyone know how to fix this? Or maybe something is wrong with mine? I don't get this using DC-1 Dac direct to amp. Never had this on my last receivers.

i did a search and seems maybe this is a firmware problem?

While I think it was KeithL that posted a while back addressing this situation, I can't for the life of me find his response, so if any one here remembers where, can copy his response or provide a link, I'm sure the OP would be grateful.

[novisnick]

Jan 24, 2016 13:26:42 GMT -5 LCSeminole said:

Jan 22, 2016 11:51:35 GMT -5 minthral said:

Every time a song starts or when it switches from silence to volume, I'm getting a pop/click sound...this is happening no matter what I try. Different sources and different settings. Similar sound to hitting mute and un-mute. 

Anyone know how to fix this? Or maybe something is wrong with mine? I don't get this using DC-1 Dac direct to amp. Never had this on my last receivers.

i did a search and seems maybe this is a firmware problem?

While I think it was KeithL that posted a while back addressing this situation, I can't for the life of me find his response, so if any one here remembers where, can copy his response or provide a link, I'm sure the OP would be grateful.

I too would like an answer to this ,,,,,,, issue. Thanks so much.

[LCSeminole]

Jan 22, 2016 11:51:35 GMT -5 minthral said:

Every time a song starts or when it switches from silence to volume, I'm getting a pop/click sound...this is happening no matter what I try. Different sources and different settings. Similar sound to hitting mute and un-mute. 

Anyone know how to fix this? Or maybe something is wrong with mine? I don't get this using DC-1 Dac direct to amp. Never had this on my last receivers.

i did a search and seems maybe this is a firmware problem?

It's funny that you mention the using of a DC-1. I've now tried out the DC-1 in the chain between my ERC-1 and the XMC-1's balanced inputs. I was using the coax out from the ERC-1 to the XMC-1 as I much more preferred the XMC-1's dac's to the ERC-1's. Now feeding the ERC-1's coax to the DC-1 and outputting from it's balanced outputs to the XMC-1's balanced input has provided as good of a sound compared to the XMC-1's dacs. I think this the same sound that ERC-3 owners are getting and it gets rid of those "clicks" you refer to and that I hear from the digital outputs from the ERC-1 directly to the XMC-1. Yes I know this is a work around, but since I don't get those "clicks" when using my Oppo BDP-83/93, Motorola Cable Box and Fire TV direct to the XMC-1(all HDMI), this situation is no longer a situation for me.

[foggy1956]

Jan 24, 2016 13:32:05 GMT -5 novisnick said:

Jan 24, 2016 13:26:42 GMT -5 LCSeminole said:

While I think it was KeithL that posted a while back addressing this situation, I can't for the life of me find his response, so if any one here remembers where, can copy his response or provide a link, I'm sure the OP would be grateful.

I too would like an answer to this ,,,,,,, issue. Thanks so much.

Me too

[LCSeminole]

A member just PM'ed me asking if the link he provided was what I was looking for?.. and yes it is. KeithL's post below:
==========================================================================================================================================

Nov 27, 2015 14:03:21 GMT -5 KeithL said:

This does NOT specifically have anything to do with muting on digital silence.

"Muting on digital silence" refers to the fact that, when certain elements in the signal chain detect "digital silence" (a string of zeros in the audio signal), they mute the audio signal. (The DAC chips in the XMC-1 have this functionality disabled, but it does nevertheless occur in some other DSP modules as well.) Then, when the digital zeros end, and the audio resumes, it takes a short but finite amount of time for the device to recognize that the audio has resumed and disengage the muting. The result is that, under very specific circumstances, a few milliseconds of digital audio following a period of digital silence may be lost. This only happens when there is a period of "true digital silence", which is usually not the case with typical recordings, and when the audio then resumes after that silence without even a few milliseconds of dithered silence "lead in". HOWEVER, when this happens, there is NO click or pop associated with it; there is simply a short period of audio - typically one or two notes - that isn't heard.

In general, the cause of a click or pop is almost always the direct opposite of this..... where the signal is muted during the disruption in signal caused by a track change or other break in the signal stream, and the muting is disengaged too soon. This can happen when the source actually "dumps" digital noise into the signal stream (and we don't mute it because the stream hasn't stopped - it just contains garbage). It can also happen when the noise generated by a "stream break" continues for longer than we expect (since we limit the length of a mute to avoid clipping off legitimate signal, sometimes we start letting audio through before an especially badly behaved source has stopped passing noise - in which case some of it gets through.) It can also happen if the source mis-identifies the format of the data stream (for example, by failing to change a data-type flag when it should).

The way in which muting responds to digital silence and digital noise is actually a very complex subject - and some of you are trying to oversimplify it...

* There was a recent "bug" where the XMC-1 would create a loud pop when changing tracks on an SACD disc; this has been FIXED. (This was specific to SACD playback, and wasn't actually a bug on our part, but was the result of our not handling an error by the source component as well as we would have liked to.)

* There is also a known "issue" where the XMC-1 will mute briefly after a period of digital silence. This is a known issue, only affects certain few recordings under certain circumstances, and we currently are not aware of a solution for it. (But this will never cause pops or other noises; only the loss of a few milliseconds of audio.)

* There are also situations where a small period of noise may "leak through" our muting because of a source component that delivers a longer burst of noise than normal (sometimes during track changes). Because muting time is always a compromise between muting long enough to prevent noise from getting through, but not muting long enough to clip off legitimate audio, it may not be possible to prevent this under all circumstances.... but we do continue to do our best to improve it when we can.

[minthral]

Thanks for the info, but I'm not sure if what Keith states is the complete problem.

I tested and the pop/click is very obvious using Apple TV via AirPlay or apps. If you scroll through icons at the start screen, you never get the first icon change tone. Instead there is an "engaging pop/click sound." If you continue to scroll through multiple icons quickly, you hear the proper icon change tune by the 2nd and 3rd icon. It seems that XMC doesn't engage till it gets a signal and if it doesn't get one it disengages. However, other receivers don't do this. They maintain sound from the moment the Apple TV powers on or when it sends the first sound...Onkyo will actually have silence the first few seconds and then you hear the proper tunes.

I tested on my HTPC and got no pop/click on song changes. The HTPC seems to be maintaining HDMI or USB sound and not disengaging unless you don't do anything for a long time. There are times in a 5.1 Netflix stream where buffering induced pause causes the pop/click.

To me it seems the solution is to allow XMC to maintain sound and NOT disengage when there is no sound signal sent by the source. Perhap XMC could send "silence sound" instead of disengage when it's not getting signal from the source. I'm not sure what other brands do, but you an definitely hear normal sound scrolling through Apple TV icons and not a weird engaging pop/click. I'm sure this easy to reproduce for the emotiva folks...just plug in an Apple TV and scroll through icons. It's worse with Dirac and loudness enabled and tolerably minor with a preset.

[monkumonku]

Jan 24, 2016 12:43:22 GMT -5 LCSeminole said:

Jan 24, 2016 12:13:26 GMT -5 minthral said:

So I can appreciate rules must be followed and I'm not sure if its the members responding that's at fault, but I am surprised to come back to provide an update, but noticed that my thread has been closed due to some members arguing (i guess). I have a few nitpicking concerns or issues with the overall great XMC and its discouraging to see any negative posts about it are getting closed pretty quick with 'try calling tech support' instead of getting help or addressed. Perhaps the problem posts would be deleted instead of closing the whole thread.

Just to add, it has nothing to do with a "Negative" post closing a thread, it's all about the tone and history of a members posts. Dan/Lonnie/Keith/Moderators have no problem with any members reporting problems with their equipment, as they too want as close to a bug/problem free product as they can get. In my experience, talking to someone in a civil and respectful tone will get you much further than with a heated out of control attitude, and unfortunately their will always be those that for whatever reason can't/won't speak appropriately.

Wait, are you talking about the XMC-1 pop/click issue or about the Patriots thread?

[LCSeminole]

Jan 24, 2016 15:12:27 GMT -5 minthral said:

Thanks for the info, but I'm not sure if what Keith states is the complete problem.

I tested and the pop/click is very obvious using Apple TV via AirPlay or apps. If you scroll through icons at the start screen, you never get the first icon change tone. Instead there is an "engaging pop/click sound." If you continue to scroll through multiple icons quickly, you hear the proper icon change tune by the 2nd and 3rd icon. It seems that XMC doesn't engage till it gets a signal and if it doesn't get one it disengages. However, other receivers don't do this. They maintain sound from the moment the Apple TV powers on or when it sends the first sound...Onkyo will actually have silence the first few seconds and then you hear the proper tunes.

I tested on my HTPC and got no pop/click on song changes. The HTPC seems to be maintaining HDMI or USB sound and not disengaging unless you don't do anything for a long time. There are times in a 5.1 Netflix stream where buffering induced pause causes the pop/click.

To me it seems the solution is to allow XMC to maintain sound and NOT disengage when there is no sound signal sent by the source. Perhap XMC could send "silence sound" instead of disengage when it's not getting signal from the source. I'm not sure what other brands do, but you an definitely hear normal sound scrolling through Apple TV icons and not a weird engaging pop/click. I'm sure this easy to reproduce for the emotiva folks...just plug in an Apple TV and scroll through icons. It's worse with Dirac and loudness enabled and tolerably minor with a preset.

I'm probably not the right person to be responding here(my Amazon Fire TV plays nicely with the XMC-1) so hopefully some of those members with AppleTV's will chime in and give their experiences. Beyond that, I would direct any questions directly to Keith or Tech Support as to what you are experiencing.

[Deleted]

Jan 24, 2016 15:51:32 GMT -5 LCSeminole said:

Jan 24, 2016 15:12:27 GMT -5 minthral said:

Thanks for the info, but I'm not sure if what Keith states is the complete problem.

I tested and the pop/click is very obvious using Apple TV via AirPlay or apps. If you scroll through icons at the start screen, you never get the first icon change tone. Instead there is an "engaging pop/click sound." If you continue to scroll through multiple icons quickly, you hear the proper icon change tune by the 2nd and 3rd icon. It seems that XMC doesn't engage till it gets a signal and if it doesn't get one it disengages. However, other receivers don't do this. They maintain sound from the moment the Apple TV powers on or when it sends the first sound...Onkyo will actually have silence the first few seconds and then you hear the proper tunes.

I tested on my HTPC and got no pop/click on song changes. The HTPC seems to be maintaining HDMI or USB sound and not disengaging unless you don't do anything for a long time. There are times in a 5.1 Netflix stream where buffering induced pause causes the pop/click.

To me it seems the solution is to allow XMC to maintain sound and NOT disengage when there is no sound signal sent by the source. Perhap XMC could send "silence sound" instead of disengage when it's not getting signal from the source. I'm not sure what other brands do, but you an definitely hear normal sound scrolling through Apple TV icons and not a weird engaging pop/click. I'm sure this easy to reproduce for the emotiva folks...just plug in an Apple TV and scroll through icons. It's worse with Dirac and loudness enabled and tolerably minor with a preset.

I'm probably not the right person to be responding here(my Amazon Fire TV plays nicely with the XMC-1) so hopefully some of those members with AppleTV's will chime in and give their experiences. Beyond that, I would direct any questions directly to Keith or Tech Support as to what you are experiencing.

Herein lies the problem though.. we're not receiving any support in this matter, as it appears to only happen on certain systems it's not a big problem in the eyes of the manufacturer.

[foggy1956]

Jan 24, 2016 15:51:32 GMT -5 LCSeminole said:

Jan 24, 2016 15:12:27 GMT -5 minthral said:

Thanks for the info, but I'm not sure if what Keith states is the complete problem.

I tested and the pop/click is very obvious using Apple TV via AirPlay or apps. If you scroll through icons at the start screen, you never get the first icon change tone. Instead there is an "engaging pop/click sound." If you continue to scroll through multiple icons quickly, you hear the proper icon change tune by the 2nd and 3rd icon. It seems that XMC doesn't engage till it gets a signal and if it doesn't get one it disengages. However, other receivers don't do this. They maintain sound from the moment the Apple TV powers on or when it sends the first sound...Onkyo will actually have silence the first few seconds and then you hear the proper tunes.

I tested on my HTPC and got no pop/click on song changes. The HTPC seems to be maintaining HDMI or USB sound and not disengaging unless you don't do anything for a long time. There are times in a 5.1 Netflix stream where buffering induced pause causes the pop/click.

To me it seems the solution is to allow XMC to maintain sound and NOT disengage when there is no sound signal sent by the source. Perhap XMC could send "silence sound" instead of disengage when it's not getting signal from the source. I'm not sure what other brands do, but you an definitely hear normal sound scrolling through Apple TV icons and not a weird engaging pop/click. I'm sure this easy to reproduce for the emotiva folks...just plug in an Apple TV and scroll through icons. It's worse with Dirac and loudness enabled and tolerably minor with a preset.

I'm probably not the right person to be responding here(my Amazon Fire TV plays nicely with the XMC-1) so hopefully some of those members with AppleTV's will chime in and give their experiences. Beyond that, I would direct any questions directly to Keith or Tech Support as to what you are experiencing.

Directing questions to either Keith or tech support has been fruitless.  If this is only occurring on some units I would be very pleased if they chose to replace mine with one that didn't pop or click.  So far that option hasn't been offered that I am aware of.

[igorzep]

Jan 24, 2016 15:12:27 GMT -5 minthral said:

Thanks for the info, but I'm not sure if what Keith states is the complete problem.

Here is his more detailed response about the digital silence problem: emotivalounge.proboards.com/post/761039/thread

3) We have confirmed that strings of digital zeros inside otherwise normal audio tracks sometimes cause the XMC-1 to digitally mute. While this is not especially unusual behavior, and in fact most DAC chips have an option to do it, we would prefer that the XMC-1 not do it - because, when this happens, it may also bite off a few milliseconds of music. We have confirmed that the XMC-1's overall muting isn't the cause. We have also confirmed that the DACs in the XMC_1 aren't doing it (that function is disabled in our DACs). Therefore, we have concluded that this is probably being caused by the code in one of the DSPs - which is hard-coded into the DSP itself. Since most recordings use dithering, very few song tracks actually have stretches of digital zeros which would trigger this behavior, and, of those, most probably have a short lead-up to the audio after the silent space such that the muting is fully off before the music starts again. This means that it only happens with a few tracks, and, to put it bluntly, only one or two people have noticed it at all. (Unfortunately, since it seems to originate with the DSP code, which we don't have access to change, it seems unlikely that we will be able to resolve this.)

So, it it true that they think the problem is too rare. And it is really great suggestion to call them. The more people made them aware this is an issue for them, the more chances they will re-evaluate the importance and make appropriate actions (either find a solution themselves or use their forces to push their chip/dsp code provider).

[igorzep]

Jan 24, 2016 16:09:48 GMT -5 foggy1956 said:

Directing questions to either Keith or tech support has been fruitless.  If this is only occurring on some units I would be very pleased if they chose to replace mine with one that didn't pop or click.  So far that option hasn't been offered that I am aware of.

So far it is like that. But, after my lengthy conversation with Keith they are made aware of the issue exists among many common skips/clicking noises sources. And contrary to other ones it is not that random and purely content dependent. The problem I think many who had the problem was not really specific and even if there was a lot of complaints they were drowned in sea of other similar-symptoms complaints and were attributed, mostly, to a new stream initialization noises (wich is natural to do as a first assumption). Unfortunately most ordinary users cannot directly describe "I have the problem when stream of digital zeroes is passed to XMC-1". They tell 'in between tracks', and that makes confusion about re-establishing audio streams.

[foggy1956]

Jan 24, 2016 17:10:37 GMT -5 igorzep said:

Jan 24, 2016 16:09:48 GMT -5 foggy1956 said:

Directing questions to either Keith or tech support has been fruitless.  If this is only occurring on some units I would be very pleased if they chose to replace mine with one that didn't pop or click.  So far that option hasn't been offered that I am aware of.

So far it is like that. But, after my lengthy conversation with Keith they are made aware of the issue exists among many common skips/clicking noises sources. And contrary to other ones it is not that random and purely content dependent. The problem I think many who had the problem was not really specific and even if there was a lot of complaints they were drowned in sea of other similar-symptoms complaints and were attributed, mostly, to a new stream initialization noises (wich is natural to do as a first assumption). Unfortunately most ordinary users cannot directly describe "I have the problem when stream of digital zeroes is passed to XMC-1". They tell 'in between tracks', and that makes confusion about re-establishing audio streams.

I really don't care.  If they make ones that don't do it, I just want one of those, or mine to stop it.

[minthral]

So that's useful info. Seems the problem is hardcoded into the DSP and that can't be changed via firmware upgrade?

The pops/clicks are definitely source dependent. However, the receiver's primary job is to accept signals from different sources. Apple TV pretty mainstream and a problem integrating with it is significant. I'm sure that many are accustomed to using an Apple TV to AirPlay content and would find the weird pop/click on the start screen obvious and troubling...I'm curious if anyone here uses an Apple TV and does NOT have this pop/click problem? Like maybe Apple TV 4th generation works different?

So Amazon Fire TV doesn't do this?

How about another device that can AirPlay?