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Post by tonygeno on Mar 13, 2016 15:27:02 GMT -5
Do you have Dirac engaged? What sound mode are you using when listening to music files? I typically listen with DIRAC on, but I have also listened to it without Dirac. And, I have listened in two channel and multichannel and about every processing mode there is...never heard any sounds between tracks. How do you listen? Mark Sonos connected via Coax playing FLAC or ALAC files, or listening to Tidal and Apple Music. I prefer listening using DPL2 Music although I also listen in Stereo. The muting gurgle is heard with those two modes. Using Direct, there is no muting gurgle. |
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Post by foggy1956 on Mar 13, 2016 16:07:29 GMT -5
This is click/pop issue that many suffer from. Other brands do have this issue and have found ways to implement fixes.. Anthem had the same issue on the x00 series and have fixed it on the x10 series. Sorry to the op for your bad luck.. I feel your pain sir. I have yet to have heard an explanation as to why if some owners experience this phenomenon and others do not, this isn't a warranty issue? |
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Post by audiosyndrome on Mar 13, 2016 16:19:56 GMT -5
I do not have this issue although I do not use Dirac.
Russ
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Post by tonygeno on Mar 13, 2016 18:33:53 GMT -5
This is click/pop issue that many suffer from. Other brands do have this issue and have found ways to implement fixes.. Anthem had the same issue on the x00 series and have fixed it on the x10 series. Sorry to the op for your bad luck.. I feel your pain sir. I have yet to have heard an explanation as to why if some owners experience this phenomenon and others do not, this isn't a warranty issue? I think it may depend on how you use it. Emotiva is aware of it according to folks on various forums but don't have a fix. If I don't use Dirac with two channel music files in Stereo or DPL2 mode, then there's no problem. If I listen with Direct or Reference there's no problem. If you're a purist, two channel guy, there's no problem. But if you want to overlay Dirac then there's a problem. The Preset 1 isn't quite as annoying but the gurgle is still there, just lower in level. My Yamaha RX-Z7 demonstrates none of these issues no matter what listening mode I choose. |
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Post by klinemj on Mar 13, 2016 19:25:17 GMT -5
If you're a purist, two channel guy, there's no problem. But if you want to overlay Dirac then there's a problem. The Preset 1 isn't quite as annoying but the gurgle is still there, just lower in level. Based on how you say you are connected, we are basically doing the same thing - but I have no issue. And I use DIRAC. So, your statement on overlaying DIRAC vs. pure 2 channel is not universally correct. There is a specific problem some have reported that, as you note from other forums, Emotiva does not have a fix for. They have declared that herealso for a very specific issue. But, I can't recall what that specific issue is. In any case, it is not as black and white as you state it. There are many of us hear using digital/streaming sources with no odd noises. Mark |
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Post by foggy1956 on Mar 13, 2016 20:09:24 GMT -5
If you're a purist, two channel guy, there's no problem. But if you want to overlay Dirac then there's a problem. The Preset 1 isn't quite as annoying but the gurgle is still there, just lower in level. Based on how you say you are connected, we are basically doing the same thing - but I have no issue. And I use DIRAC. So, your statement on overlaying DIRAC vs. pure 2 channel is not universally correct. There is a specific problem some have reported that, as you note from other forums, Emotiva does not have a fix for. They have declared that herealso for a very specific issue. But, I can't recall what that specific issue is. In any case, it is not as black and white as you state it. There are many of us hear using digital/streaming sources with no odd noises. Mark Then why would they not replace the units which exhibit this behavior? |
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Post by rocky500 on Mar 13, 2016 20:12:33 GMT -5
Based on how you say you are connected, we are basically doing the same thing - but I have no issue. And I use DIRAC. So, your statement on overlaying DIRAC vs. pure 2 channel is not universally correct. There is a specific problem some have reported that, as you note from other forums, Emotiva does not have a fix for. They have declared that herealso for a very specific issue. But, I can't recall what that specific issue is. In any case, it is not as black and white as you state it. There are many of us hear using digital/streaming sources with no odd noises. Mark Then why would they not replace the units which exhibit this behavior? I would think if 2 people swapped over their XMC-1's then the problem would still appear with the same person. I think it may be specific to that person's setup?. I thought I read it was in the chip itself to do with the muting and until the manufacturer of the chips designs something different it might be there for some systems. Now don't quote me on this, just something I thought I read late one night somewhere. :-) |
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Post by tonygeno on Mar 13, 2016 22:03:47 GMT -5
Based on how you say you are connected, we are basically doing the same thing - but I have no issue. And I use DIRAC. So, your statement on overlaying DIRAC vs. pure 2 channel is not universally correct. There is a specific problem some have reported that, as you note from other forums, Emotiva does not have a fix for. They have declared that herealso for a very specific issue. But, I can't recall what that specific issue is. In any case, it is not as black and white as you state it. There are many of us hear using digital/streaming sources with no odd noises. Mark Then why would they not replace the units which exhibit this behavior? So when listening to SONOS, which processing modes do you use? |
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Post by klinemj on Mar 14, 2016 5:20:07 GMT -5
foggy1956 I can't answer that as I am not Emotiva, but I think there is merit in what rocky500 says. tonygeno I mainly listen in two channel to DIRAC, but I have also listened to preset 1/2 in various listening modes, including direct, reference, etc. In 2 channel, I have not even tried anything like PL2/etc. I just want 2.1 to enjoy my fronts/sub. I have listened to BluRays/DVD's from my Oppo with various codecs on both concerts and movies, and I have no odd digital noises for any sources in any modes. Just sonic bliss. Mark
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Post by geebo on Mar 14, 2016 6:50:42 GMT -5
Well, according to a post I read over at AVS this is a an issue that Emotiva is aware of but don't as yet ave a fix. Any reason why some experience it and others do not? I double checked mine...no sound between tracks at all. Mark Silence here as well. No pops, ticks or thumps with any source. |
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Post by foggy1956 on Mar 14, 2016 7:48:27 GMT -5
foggy1956 I can't answer that as I am not Emotiva, but I think there is merit in what rocky500 says. tonygeno I mainly listen in two channel to DIRAC, but I have also listened to preset 1/2 in various listening modes, including direct, reference, etc. In 2 channel, I have not even tried anything like PL2/etc. I just want 2.1 to enjoy my fronts/sub. I have listened to BluRays/DVD's from my Oppo with various codecs on both concerts and movies, and I have no odd digital noises for any sources in any modes. Just sonic bliss. Mark Thanks Mark, I am hoping Keith may chime in and explain. |
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Post by millst on Mar 14, 2016 10:23:50 GMT -5
Why? He already has. The problem isn't going away. At best, they'll release a new firmware and it will improve. It's been discussed to death and the forums have a search feature...
-tm
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Post by KeithL on Mar 14, 2016 13:47:19 GMT -5
Several people have already hit on the situation quite accurately.
The digital processing in the XMC-1 is quite "deterministic" - there are very few situations where two different XMC-1's are going to play the EXACT SAME digital audio stream and behave differently. (Most of the digital processing is essentially a computer running a program; if two different computers run the same set of calculations, and neither is outright broken, they will generally produce the same exact answer). However, depending on the digital audio you're playing, and on your source equipment, the digital data stream itself may be very different in several ways.
Most albums and CDs never actually have "pure digital silence" - because dither is normally applied to digital audio - including the track gaps. And some player programs will play audio continuously - without stopping and starting the data stream, while others will fill the gap between tracks with dithered silence, or with true silence; some will allow the clock to continue between songs (the two songs are played as "one track" so there is no gap). And some players will do one or the other of these depending on what options you have selected (jRiver has one mode with track gaps, one without gaps, and one where tracks change using an overlapping fade). The exact mechanism will also depend on the sample rates, and on the mode you have selected - for example, if you're playing in WASAPI mode, and a song follows one recorded at a different sample rate, then the audio stream MUST stop and restart - because it must change sample rates. And, to put it bluntly, while we know most of what's going on inside the XMC-1, we didn't write every line of code used by the DSPs, and you probably don't know exactly what your player does under all conditions either.
I can tell you for certain that the output "hard" muting on the XMC-1 is activated when the XMC-1 is turning on and turning off, it is operated by "physically" shorting the output to ground, and it does NOT enable between songs or tracks. I can also tell you that the DACs we used in the XMC-1 do in fact have an option to "mute on repeated digital zeros" - and that we have DISABLED that option. I can also confirm that, at some point in the signal path, digital signals are still muted under some conditions when a series of digital zeros are received. This happens somewhere inside the XMC-1's DSP code - which we didn't write and have no direct control over. (And the reason that most of you never encounter this is that, most of the time, a digital data stream will never contain true zeros rather than dithered silence. However, we have no way of knowing, for example, if Sonos has chosen to fill blank spots with digital zeros when certain settings are in effect.) You will also find that many advanced players have options that may address this issue. (For example, when you RIP CDs with jRiver, it has an option to include a specified number of milliseconds of silence at the beginning of each track.)
However, to return to the original subject, since this is a detail of how the XMC-1 responds to a certain specific structure in the digital audio data, it is neither something you should expect a different XMC-1 to do differently (under exactly the same conditions), nor something that we can "fix" either in your current XMC-1, or by giving you a new/different one. We do continue to review and improve the code that runs the XMC-1 whenever we see an opportunity to do so, so we may in fact eventually succeed in further reducing such issues, or even eliminating them entirely, but in the mean time we can't simply "fix" it... and we have no hardware update which will make it go away.
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Post by foggy1956 on Mar 14, 2016 14:13:02 GMT -5
Several people have already hit on the situation quite accurately. The digital processing in the XMC-1 is quite "deterministic" - there are very few situations where two different XMC-1's are going to play the EXACT SAME digital audio stream and behave differently. (Most of the digital processing is essentially a computer running a program; if two different computers run the same set of calculations, and neither is outright broken, they will generally produce the same exact answer). However, depending on the digital audio you're playing, and on your source equipment, the digital data stream itself may be very different in several ways. Most albums and CDs never actually have "pure digital silence" - because dither is normally applied to digital audio - including the track gaps. And some player programs will play audio continuously - without stopping and starting the data stream, while others will fill the gap between tracks with dithered silence, or with true silence; some will allow the clock to continue between songs (the two songs are played as "one track" so there is no gap). And some players will do one or the other of these depending on what options you have selected (jRiver has one mode with track gaps, one without gaps, and one where tracks change using an overlapping fade). The exact mechanism will also depend on the sample rates, and on the mode you have selected - for example, if you're playing in WASAPI mode, and a song follows one recorded at a different sample rate, then the audio stream MUST stop and restart - because it must change sample rates. And, to put it bluntly, while we know most of what's going on inside the XMC-1, we didn't write every line of code used by the DSPs, and you probably don't know exactly what your player does under all conditions either. I can tell you for certain that the output "hard" muting on the XMC-1 is activated when the XMC-1 is turning on and turning off, it is operated by "physically" shorting the output to ground, and it does NOT enable between songs or tracks. I can also tell you that the DACs we used in the XMC-1 do in fact have an option to "mute on repeated digital zeros" - and that we have DISABLED that option. I can also confirm that, at some point in the signal path, digital signals are still muted under some conditions when a series of digital zeros are received. This happens somewhere inside the XMC-1's DSP code - which we didn't write and have no direct control over. (And the reason that most of you never encounter this is that, most of the time, a digital data stream will never contain true zeros rather than dithered silence. However, we have no way of knowing, for example, if Sonos has chosen to fill blank spots with digital zeros when certain settings are in effect.) You will also find that many advanced players have options that may address this issue. (For example, when you RIP CDs with jRiver, it has an option to include a specified number of milliseconds of silence at the beginning of each track.) However, to return to the original subject, since this is a detail of how the XMC-1 responds to a certain specific structure in the digital audio data, it is neither something you should expect a different XMC-1 to do differently (under exactly the same conditions), nor something that we can "fix" either in your current XMC-1, or by giving you a new/different one. We do continue to review and improve the code that runs the XMC-1 whenever we see an opportunity to do so, so we may in fact eventually succeed in further reducing such issues, or even eliminating them entirely, but in the mean time we can't simply "fix" it... and we have no hardware update which will make it go away. Thank you Keith |
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Post by tonygeno on Mar 14, 2016 14:22:48 GMT -5
Yes, thank you Keith. That explains the fact that the problem is not a "warranty" issue as some have suggested and why some don't encounter the problem.
Unfortunately for me, since Sonos and the Mac Mini are my main listening sources and it happens on every track, I cannot live with the current situation.
Fortunately, you guys are great with your return policy, although I will be out the $99 for the full Dirac (but I knew that going in).
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Post by klinemj on Mar 14, 2016 15:51:59 GMT -5
Yes, thank you Keith. That explains the fact that the problem is not a "warranty" issue as some have suggested and why some don't encounter the problem. Unfortunately for me, since Sonos and the Mac Mini are my main listening sources and it happens on every track, I cannot live with the current situation. Fortunately, you guys are great with your return policy, although I will be out the $99 for the full Dirac (but I knew that going in). Prior to returning the XMC-1...have you considered reaching out to Sonos for their thinking? This may be a long-shot, but I have found them very helpful. That said, for the issue you are having with music from iTunes, I suspect your collection itself has issues. For example, as you "ripped" them from iTunes, you created digital silence w/o dithering. I do not use and know nothing about iTunes, so I don't know if that's even possible (in fact, I didn't even know you could "rip" from iTunes...). If it's possible to create, perhaps it is possible to fix easily. If so, at least you could get that working w/o noises. Maybe Apple could be of help w/that. As to why you are having an issue with Tidal also, I have zero issues with it so based on what Keith says - you should not either. I am listening to Tidal right now through my Sonos to my XMC-1 and there is zero sound between tracks. Mark |
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Post by tonygeno on Mar 14, 2016 15:57:03 GMT -5
Yes, thank you Keith. That explains the fact that the problem is not a "warranty" issue as some have suggested and why some don't encounter the problem. Unfortunately for me, since Sonos and the Mac Mini are my main listening sources and it happens on every track, I cannot live with the current situation. Fortunately, you guys are great with your return policy, although I will be out the $99 for the full Dirac (but I knew that going in). Prior to returning the XMC-1...have you considered reaching out to Sonos for their thinking? This may be a long-shot, but I have found them very helpful. That said, for the issue you are having with music from iTunes, I suspect your collection itself has issues. For example, as you "ripped" them from iTunes, you created digital silence w/o dithering. I do not use and know nothing about iTunes, so I don't know if that's even possible (in fact, I didn't even know you could "rip" from iTunes...). If it's possible to create, perhaps it is possible to fix easily. If so, at least you could get that working w/o noises. Maybe Apple could be of help w/that. As to why you are having an issue with Tidal also, I have zero issues with it so based on what Keith says - you should not either. I am listening to Tidal right now through my Sonos to my XMC-1 and there is zero sound between tracks. Mark I hate to keep harping on this, but what mode are you using to listen and is Dirac engaged? Just trying to isolate every variable. |
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Post by geebo on Mar 14, 2016 16:03:52 GMT -5
Prior to returning the XMC-1...have you considered reaching out to Sonos for their thinking? This may be a long-shot, but I have found them very helpful. That said, for the issue you are having with music from iTunes, I suspect your collection itself has issues. For example, as you "ripped" them from iTunes, you created digital silence w/o dithering. I do not use and know nothing about iTunes, so I don't know if that's even possible (in fact, I didn't even know you could "rip" from iTunes...). If it's possible to create, perhaps it is possible to fix easily. If so, at least you could get that working w/o noises. Maybe Apple could be of help w/that. As to why you are having an issue with Tidal also, I have zero issues with it so based on what Keith says - you should not either. I am listening to Tidal right now through my Sonos to my XMC-1 and there is zero sound between tracks. Mark I hate to keep harping on this, but what mode are you using to listen and is Dirac engaged? Just trying to isolate every variable. Maybe you missed his response above. Or are you asking a different question? emotivalounge.proboards.com/post/805168 |
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Post by tonygeno on Mar 14, 2016 16:12:01 GMT -5
I hate to keep harping on this, but what mode are you using to listen and is Dirac engaged? Just trying to isolate every variable. Maybe you missed his response above. Or are you asking a different question? emotivalounge.proboards.com/post/805168No, I didn't miss the response. That was a general response. My question was in reference to the particular situation that he was experiencing, i.e. he was listening while typing. Just trying to understand the variables. He said: "As to why you are having an issue with Tidal also, I have zero issues with it so based on what Keith says - you should not either. I am listening to Tidal right now through my Sonos to my XMC-1 and there is zero sound between tracks." We have Keith who says that it's not a defective processor. We have folks who are using the same sources as I and don't have the problem. So either I'm making it up or I have a defective unit or the situations are similar but not the same. |
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Post by klinemj on Mar 14, 2016 16:17:26 GMT -5
tonygenoAs I said above...I mainly listen in two channel to DIRAC, but I have also listened to preset 1/2. And, I have tried various listening modes, including direct, reference stereo, and stereo. In the past, I had not tried to play back 2 channel with applying any multichannel effects like PLII or All Stereo - but I tried that also...with and without Dirac. Still no noise. Nothing I have tried has been able to make mine make any sounds between tracks (even standing up next to the speakers trying to hear something). Just sonic bliss. Mark
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