Changes in DAC Presentation - Need Advice

It sounds like the DAC might be changing filters mid track

Sounds like it's breaking in, assuming you've had it less than a month or so.

@alvin1118 might have some thoughts.

To check on @mahler123 's theory, have no noticed if the OS/non-OS light is changing status? 

FWIW, I run a Pontus and an opticalRendu, but haven't had your issue, even though I'm in TX in a spot with notoriously wonky electrical grid. When running analog, I find voltage fluctuations lead me to regularly fine tuning the spped read by the tachometer on my turntable. Cheers,

Spencer

+1 @lordmelton 

Break in period can be "interesting" to say the least. My tube amp was so bad at time I just had to leave the room cause I couldn't stand the sound. I would think the Dac would be as bad but it will be noticeable.

OTOH, it "might be changing filters", as @mahler123 suggests. Problems with new electronics tend to show themselves in the 1st 3 months IME.

I have a voltage regulator on my line and notice a fluctuation of up to 10v.  It is rare that it will fluctuate more than 1v in a short period of time.  For a significant increase in voltage to occur, either an auxiliary power supply we need to go on/off line or a huge number of people would need to do something simultaneously.  Not sure this is terribly likely. 

Could be break-in, especially if it is going in the same direction (bright to warm or Warm to bright) every time your hear it change.  Do you notice a difference if the system is on for a while prior to listening or if your turn the system on fresh?  

Another obvious spot to look is the weak link in your audio chain which is that Mac Mini.  I talk to lots of people and more often than not, if something bizarre is happening in their system, a Mac Mini is involved.  Does anything else run on that Mac Mini?  If something else is taxing the processor, that could be your issue.   It would also explain why you might hear a change mid-song.  

@verdantaudio, my system is on 24/7 so I can't imagine there is much warming up as I listen. Regarding the Mac mini, nothing else is running on it except for Roon, but I'll definitely do some research on this. Thanks! 

@sbank, the OS/NOS light does not change. 

I have a T2 + upsampled  you didn’t mention how long you have had it 

it takes over 600 hours to fully stabilize with these  OX over clocks ,one reviewer in Europe documented this , you are supposed to not shut it off ,

or putin stand by , you should have a dedicated 20 amp line if possible .

Are you in the u.s ?  If so look up my user name and send me a message 8 can fill you in ,and you can tell me what you have or din5 have 

what kind of line conditioning, and usb cable ,if using a computer buy the Iris, or Hermes reclocker ,then you can run it direct the best I2S

From your description, my first guess woukd be breakin. A number of components I have owned have gone through flip flops in sound quality between 100 and 200 hours of use.

The second, and perhaps more likely is your Mac. I assume it is your streamer… PCs are not good streamers. They are noisy sources. There are dozens or more of background processes and other stuff going on. If it continues, I would recommend a good dedicated streamer of comparable or better value.

@ghdprentice , the Mac mini is only running Roon Core. I’m using a Sonore ultraRendu for the streamer.

@audioman58 I've had it about 5 weeks. I left in on for 10 days straight as recommended by Denafrips, bit have since put it in standby. I'll try leaving it on for several more weeks. Not using any line conditioning. USB cable is Wireworld Platinum 8.

Did you just leave it on or play music through it for 10 days? I made the same mistake. I left it on but had no signal running through it. Sound was all over the place.

Ran it in for two weeks and things stabilized much better.

Well, this is very odd. So, sounds to me like your logic is good. I would add some serious power conditioning. Power is really important. All the great audio components I have had have put a big emphasis on power. A. nmber of them have been two box solutions, with the second dedicated to power.

If you can afford it, I would get an Everest… something that would put an end to the question. If you do power conditioning right the first time, you can forget about it for a long time. I have had my power conditioner for 25 years. Although I now have two direct lines… I tried a Cardas power strip a couple months ago… the test lasted 30 seconds, I went back to my power conditioner. Since the power conditioner effects all the components, it is pretty easy to justify a high level of investment. Additionally, it does not have the level of change of a DAC of streamer from a technology point of view.

Topside3.  Not true on 10 days that’s not even 250 hours try a month 

and other comments such as playing on repeat ,if you hav3 Roon it’s a must to keep playing it if not it’s like a car sitting on idle, you have to keep it playung

i bought the Isotek system demagnetizing cd ,burn that to hard drive ,not only does it tax capacitors,but track 3 you use3-4 x a week truly demagnetizes your whole audio system easy to hear improvement,play a song,before and after ,

email Alvin at Denafrips  1000 hoursto fully runin ,the 10 days is a old user ad ask for review mentioning over 650 hours of play time just to fully stabilize . And never put in stand by unless not home for days  you need in real time 1k in actual play time , I documented hours and  mentioned  issues once I was told hours and review then just puton repeat everyday to plsy 24-7;for 5 weeks straight !! 

op

if you haven't already you should contact alvin at vinshine for warranty support immediately - needless to say, what you are describing should not happening

take the time to email him with a precise description of the issue, serial # of the unit etc etc

denafrips gives a ship-back-to-china-at-their-cost warranty period

I believe that you have a problem on the dac.   Breakin  is questionable at best and no major swings in audio should occur.  I use a Microsoft surface as a roon source, ultra rendu via usb to an audio gd r7 and the sq has been incredible and consistent since arrival

+1 @tennisdoc56  - break-in can offer long-term gradual improvements to many components but to swing SQ mid-song by such a noticeable level sounds like a major fault.  

😉

I would try to exchange it for a new unit

i cannot tell you what IS wrong, but can say with a lot of confidence that it is NOT a breakin issue....perhaps you would notice a gradual change in SQ, but certainoy not "flipflops"....

Hey @alvin1118 ! 

@topside3 needs your help. 

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to all. Cheers,

Spencer

I have had some interconnects take a long time to break in [Analysis Plus], but all my electronics sounded fine after the initial warm-up.  If your previous DAC sounded fine with the Mac, then it is not the Mac.  I do have days where my system is golden and other days that I turn it off after 15 minutes.  I would try a power regenerator type power conditioner.

I would switch one component at a time if possible to isolate the offending piece. 

As I said earlier the Term-2 has a Loong breakin and dies change up until over 600+ hours .

If you are not using XLR connections on your pre-amp maybe give that a try, because many of these new dac companies favour XLR, but I'm still sure it's a break-in issue.

For $200 from Audio Advisor.... I picked up a Audio Quest PQ2 Power conditioner...It changed the sound dramatically on my 10 K rig. Best upgrade and affordable. You could have surge problems which this unit will also take care of.

Get a Border Patrol Dac, made in USA. Sophisticated choke input, tube rectified power supply, produces the most natural, un-digital sound possible. The BorderPatrol DAC uses a R2R DAC chip with no over-sampling and no digital filtering. It is available in several upgrade tiers depending on your budget.

https://www.borderpatrol.net/dac/

As stated by many, a slow subtle change is what you would expect from burn-in or power.  You would also need to turn the unit on and off.  A momentary change, it sounds bright and then it sounds smooth or vice versa can happen once or can happen each time a unit hits temperature.  This usually happens with tube units but in a SS device that is on all the time, it has to be a sudden change in what is being fed to the unit or the unit is defective.  

Power generally doesn't have sudden changes.  One exception might be if your air conditioner is going on or off or some other unit that requires huge power.  This is often accompanied by the lights dimming for a second.  

I would be biased toward some other problem if a Mac Mini wasn't involved.  I have had so many customers have bizarre problems (DAC can't get IP Address, Cut outs, noise, skips in certain tracks, etc...) with Mac Mini's that I am prepared to believe they can and will cause any issue.  

An easy test would be to set up your server on another computer of any sort and see if the problem goes away.  

My MacMini (and all MACs I have had) are awful. I had to buy a cheapo DELL to move my ROON CORE off the Mini. Just too many problems. I do not know how people put up with all the issues I see on Macs. 

Recently ROON had some hiccups for me. I did see 3 software updates from ROON that seemed to have fixed that for me. My music would stop periodically.  So, make sure you have updated all the ROON software to the latest and greatest bits.

When I had the Terminator on loan for a week. On some material I never noticed a difference between it and my “Forever DAC”, the PS Audio DirectStream DAC Sr.
On others, it was night and day. The Denafrips was forward and a tad “shouty” on some tracks where as I stated in my Video, the PS Audio was smoother and more Vinyl like in audio reproduction.

Break is BS IMHO. I’ve never heard ANY difference in sound of any of my electronics or Speakers from initial turn on to several hundred hours later.

Bring it on Bee aches !

@yyzsantabarbara ​​​​, if I'm only using the Mac for the core with no playback issues, wouldn't the separate streamer remove any of the sound quality issues? 

I was also only using my MacMini for CORE. My issue was not sound quality. It was that ROON would have performance issues on the Mac. It would crash, stop playing, the MacMini would update the OS and then not reboot. I had to restore this machine close to a dozen times with a backup OS copy. That was also a PIA to do. Just a piece of crap software.

I am a software developer myself and I get frustrated to no end when I have to use the Mac. I am too old now to deal with stuff like this. I just need a machine that just works all the time. 

BTW - I am one of those heretics that say that by using Fibre Optical wire just before the DAC. It does not matter about the quality of the machine hosting the music server (ROON Core in my case) as long as the machine is located before the FIbre Optic cable. Fibre cannot carry analog noise.

Server matters in terms of sound quality even when not used as a renderer. You would be amazed home much noise the garbage power supplies and other bad parts can introduce. The core is also the more power intense function as it needs to tame a very volatile internet. The least expensive audio server will be a step up compared to a Mac Mini. Look at SGC or Roon for moderately priced options.

i can’t speak about the impact of a fiber output from a server to render.

I obviously don’t sell small green, I do sell Roon. I have never had a Nucleus returned unless someone upgraded to a better server within the 30 days.

@topside3 any update?

@sbank 

i agree w scott/@verdant

@jjss49 So do I. I would add that having experience adding optical (going from microRendu to opticalRendu) was a big improvement in clarity, spaciousness and lower noise floor. Cheers,

Spencer

yes absolutely... we are on same page

@sbank I replaced the ultraRendu with an opticalRendu and things have been pretty stable. Perhaps network noise was the culprit. Definitely now looking at replacing the Mac mini. 

Yes, the opticalrendu is wonderful network upgrade, recently upgraded from TPLink FMC to opticalrendu, plays on much higher plane.

As for Macmini. I've used three different macminis over the years, never had a single glitch with Roon. These things are network related if mini optimized as server, therefore, shutting down all those non-critical processes. You do have one major upgrade left to you with mini. Get Uptone MMK with Uptone JS-2, then use Thunderbolt out as ethernet bridge out, you'll have top flight server. Just doing the ethernet out from thunderbolt alone will be of great benefit.

@sns do you mean you upgraded to the opticalModule from the TPlink? I’m definitely doing that once they are back in stock.

That’s good to know about the Mac Mini. Perhaps I should investigate my network first. My main issue now is Roon/HQPlayer has audio drop outs every now and then where audio will stop and come back 3-4 seconds later. I was thinking it was the Mac, but maybe its network related. The mac only sits around 30% CPU usage when playing. Right now I’m set up modem>Google Wifi>unmanaged TPlink switch>TPLink Powerline adapter>FMC>rendu. Would a MANAGED switch make a difference? Can you give bandwidth preference to certain devices?

What do you mean by using thunderbolt ethernet out? Ethernet in and thunderbolt out? Or just use thunderbolt instead of the standard ethernet port?

No, I was previously running two TPLink FMC, both with lps going to SOTM SMS200 streamer/roon endpoint. The opticalrendu replaced both last Tplink and sotm, powering with Uptone JS2.

Your issue is wifi, you have to do hard wiring for any HQPlayer, really even for any decent streaming.

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/#comment-613370 This link explains how to use thunderbolt port as second ethernet port for direct ethernet out. I don't know if you're using router with switch or router alone, but you can bypass switch or router post server by doing the direct out thunderbolt port.

Your new routing would be: modem>router>mini>FMC>rendu. You'll have no need of switch ,at least post server with thunderbolt ethernet out. This is quite large sound quality improvement.

First and foremost you have to get hard wired,even long ethernet or coax cable is superior to wifi.

@sns Gotcha, thanks! I'll look into that. Also the Uptone mod.