The comment was mostly made in jest, I've not ever noticed it personally but then musicbee is set to play silence at startup, which probably gives it time to activate.
Gamers, What's Your Audio Set Up?
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The comment was mostly made in jest, I've not ever noticed it personally but then musicbee is set to play silence at startup, which probably gives it time to activate.
Caporegime
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half the time at home when I play a YouTube video, it plays for half a second then it starts again from the start. Like someone clicked the rewind button.
It’s been happening for months…I never looked into it. lol
It’s been happening for months…I never looked into it. lol
To be fair, thank you to @mrk in that if he hadn't said anything then I would have still be none the wiser. Although I now wish I had ignored him
If you rely on notifications, i.e. Discord, this effectively mutes those desktop alerts. Interestingly I hadn't even noticed that I was suffering from the problem, but as you both point out once you go down the rabbit hole of research it's documented. I found the following thread on Reddit which in turn leads to an ASR thread where this problem has been talked about for years. Fiio have only very recently added the option to their Windows drivers and I don't know if companies like Topping have. As mentioned by @Rroff these workarounds have existed to 'unhide' the setting, but it doesn't always appear to have worked for everyone.
If you aren't a Windows user then this is another headache. I can't find a solution for Linux and I think Mac OS has the same issue. There are workarounds to send a silent signal to the DAC, but on my setup of Fedora I then lose Pipewire's ability to auto-switch between 44.1kHz and 48kHz for audio and video playback (I don't know if that matters that much). It's also not clear as to why these XMOS and other chips are set to auto-sleep in the firmware; is it to save power, wear and tear on the hardware, for enviromental regulations, or some form of protection for playback. It kinda doesn't make sense in a desktop setup.
I also realised that a bit of my testing was off. The Topping D10B IS having the same issue, which makes me wonder if I mucked up testing the iFi Zen Stack. The Topping appears to be a bit slower in going to sleep, i.e. 10ms vs 5ms. Also there is a similar behaviour when the PC is switching playback frequency on the Topping, but I think that is to be expected. And swapping between Analog and Digital out in Linux doesn't change anything.
Feels very much a manufacturer issue and I can't see why this wouldn't be an option on the actual box (i.e. some of these Fiio models; K11, K13, K15 etc. could all have the option on their settings panels - same for Xduoo, Topping etc.). I'm not sure personally how big a deal is it for me, in that on desktop I don't really rely on notifications the same way I do with a mobile phone. So I suspect I'll just live with the issue on Linux. I may go down the rabbit hole of trying to find if anyone can answer the question of whether the pipewire.conf file has the parameter to change the behaviour. I did read through their extensive documentation and can't see this, but this could just be my lack of Linux knowledge. Also if Pipewire, or ALSA could be changed then people would have probably posted that fix by now.
@mrk - is it worth asking the question of why Fiio don't have the option on models like the K13, K11 etc? I know you have the contact with them and it could be feedback.
I get this too but just assumed it's an extention issue, or the fact I used a Firefox-based brower (Librewolf).
I've emailed them already as part of testing feedback but will follow up and add the question as to why it's not a default option on the older models too. In practice it's just the USB driver to add ASIO support and the control panel is otherwise the same so I see no reason as to why any USB DAC should not have the same tabs and options otherwise tbh.
Pretty much standard for USB peripheral behaviour, most OSes will also quite aggressively turn off USB devices and/or selectively suspend to save power. I'm not a fan - while it mostly works sometimes it can cause hard to trace problems and/or latency issues.
Yea maybe. I get that for wireless devices. Someone made the point in one of the links I posted that ironically Creative devices don't seem to have this problem; something I've found with the SB X1, although I can't remember with the GC7, G6 etc.
As an total aside though it's made me question my current two box PC setup. Maybe it's time to just stomach Windows 11 on my main desktop PC and ditch the separate Linux box. It sucks but I do have other hurdles with Linux. It would free up the need for two separate DAC/AMPs and free up my Minisforum to run as a small Bazzite box in the lounge, which is actually quite appealling.
I have to say I am impressed at the thermals of the K13 R2R, it is still room temp to the touch all over whereas the PA7 and X9 are both in the high 40s at the hot spots. modern class AB and internal power supplies seem to have come a long way in efficiency.
Been awhile since I played about with game audio in terms of soundcards and DACs, etc. but with the QX13 been messing about a bit - nothing desktop/USB DAC wise out of what I have is really a good substitute for the Creative AE-5 when it comes to surround audio in game and many of them don't even support surround as such.
I've raised the Linux issue over in the Linux & Open Source sub-forum. I don't know if anything comes of it, but I thought I'd flag there. At the moment my hunch is you can't amend Pipewire, ALSA to fix the issue. It a hardware issue that needs a fix from the manufacturers. But I did re-purpose the Minisforum by installing the official Steam OS. Actually had some fun tinkering with that last night. A few issues to sound out but fortunately none of them audio related so far.
This is good to hear. Interesting that there are so few Youtube channels covering the recent Fiio launches, yet. Very different from other companies where you have the review embargos which mean the reviews all break at the same time. But I guess it's just the way of the audio world.
Certainly the Fiio boxes I've had over the years tend to run warm at most when under load. So sounds like Fiio have improved on that. Could be that being a larger unit helps with heat dissipation.
This is good to hear. Interesting that there are so few Youtube channels covering the recent Fiio launches, yet. Very different from other companies where you have the review embargos which mean the reviews all break at the same time. But I guess it's just the way of the audio world.
Certainly the Fiio boxes I've had over the years tend to run warm at most when under load. So sounds like Fiio have improved on that. Could be that being a larger unit helps with heat dissipation.
I think so too. I am in a pinch now though as I'm using the K13 as the main unit now and miss the display of the X9 and the volume dial and the r2r sound from adjusting it, but then I like the glow from the open window on the K13 and that it has a button on the remote to flick between headphones and pre-amp, and whilst it has a mute button on the remote too, the metal tactile feedback of the mute button on the X9's front feels and sounds so much nicer and I used that a lot whether for mute or standby when walking away.
The sound between them is so close that I really would not care if I had to use one or the other if one broke down.
First world problems or what.
The sound between them is so close that I really would not care if I had to use one or the other if one broke down.
First world problems or what.
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Albeit small device but the Fiio QX13 in standard mode gets warm enough you can tell to the touch it is above ambient but not warm exactly, but in desktop mode gets warm but not hot - but I do wonder what the lifespan would be using it heavily in desktop mode given it is a fairly compact device with high density electronics despite not getting that warm.
So the new linear power supply from FiiO that shares the design of the K13, they say it could be out by December which makes me think not until early 2026... Might be tempted to buy the PL50 off Amazon and return it if there's no noticeable difference.
At least I can test out the DC input this way too.
Edit* Ok so now played some DSD music and yeah the X9 is capable of positioning this sort of hi-res mastering with more nuance than the K13 R2R. With normal lossless or compressed music the difference is much of a muchness in that they both sound amazing, but with proper hi-res music it seems the X9's circuitry is doing a better job at stereo imaging and layering of instruments especially to the point it is noticeable.
I guess this makes sense, at this level of music file and the mastering, you'd expect the higher end gear to extract the extra information this way.
Get a bit more info on the bigger display, too
At least I can test out the DC input this way too.
Edit* Ok so now played some DSD music and yeah the X9 is capable of positioning this sort of hi-res mastering with more nuance than the K13 R2R. With normal lossless or compressed music the difference is much of a muchness in that they both sound amazing, but with proper hi-res music it seems the X9's circuitry is doing a better job at stereo imaging and layering of instruments especially to the point it is noticeable.
I guess this makes sense, at this level of music file and the mastering, you'd expect the higher end gear to extract the extra information this way.
Get a bit more info on the bigger display, too
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No what I'm on about is how DSD sounds on K13 R2R vs the X9, the X9 is able to extract the layering better. Whereas playing the same song not in DSD format between both units the difference isn't as noticeable. It could be that the non DSD masters were from a different source whereas the DSD master contains that additional info in the master, either way there is a difference that is noticeable on my speakers on the DSD in that the X9 appears to resolve that detail more noticeably vs the other formats of the same music.
It makes sense the mastering comment though, even Gemini outlines it:
This is my first experience with DSD tracks. Both amps sound awesome of course either way.
It makes sense the mastering comment though, even Gemini outlines it:
This is my first experience with DSD tracks. Both amps sound awesome of course either way.
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I guess maybe it's down to this as well then if there is a difference not that I'm really familiar with it " the native format their specific DAC decodes. Delta-Sigma DACs decode native DSD and R-2R DACs decode native PCM."
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It could be that too, but I also discovered a fatal error on my part during the DSD testing, I had the K13 set to OS mode not NOS and completely forgot to check, so now yeah with DSD in NOS mode, the soundstage is widened up a bit more so now even with DSD both X9 and K13 are on a similar kind of level with the X9 edging once again but only slightly, so just like with non DSD music, it's too close to call the X9 an outright winner when both are in their most "bypass" mode. This is with the X9 set to the AKM filter 'Short delay fast rolloff' which is the default by the way. FiiO do not offer DAC filter processing options with R2R, guess there's no need to as it's kind of fixed sound signature anyway here.
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Caporegime
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Got 3 months of Apple Music activated....have another 3 months on the way too with my Airpods. I am more intrigued with its algorithm than anything else.
The app is nice though, the player can do just album art with or without lyrics under it, don't think YouTube Music does that?
The app is nice though, the player can do just album art with or without lyrics under it, don't think YouTube Music does that?
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