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What's causing static during Tidal playback?

noobie1

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Hi,

New to the forum. I'm not an expert in audio science but I would love to learn. I have a question that may have a simple answer but it's hard to trust Google when it comes to audio science.

I have Teac HA P90SD player (http://www.teac.com/product/ha-p90sd/) that allows me to connect to an iPhone via USB (according to Teac website it's asynchronous USB). Sometimes I connect the Teac to my iPhone (via lightning cable) when I'm streaming Tidal on my phone. My headphones are connected to the Teac.

Every once in awhile, I hear a slight buzzing static in the background. I believe this happens when my 4G LTE connection gets wonky, music pauses and is trying to buffer. What could be causing this static? To be clear, I haven't noticed this in other listening scenarios (when connected to my computer or playing from internal SD card).

Thanks in advance.
 
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amirm

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Welcome to the forum.

Music is continuous waveform. If you start and stop it, it caused a glitch. Should the glitch be short-lived it could manifest itself as buzz.

The other reason it could do it is overflow. Some DACs will perform volume control/filtering/resampling that can overflow if the music is near clipping causing the same static. To know if this is the reason, replay the same track. If it does it in the same place again then it is the DAC.
 

March Audio

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Sounds like the RF from the phone getting into the DAC amps.

Try moving the phone around in relation to the dac next time you hear it and see if it changes. Also try a longer cable to physically separate the two. You could even try an RF choke on the cable

rf choke.PNG
 
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noobie1

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It seems at least some of the static is coming from the iPhone interfering with the Teac player. When I intentionally bring the two device on top of one another, I can reproduce the static often (though not always). I have fairly long Apple lightning cable so I just have keep them far apart. I've ruled out overflow as a cause.
 
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noobie1

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I got my hands on a NUC and decided to incorporate into my audio chain as a dedicated library source and music renderer. Previously, I connected the Teac HA-P90SD (running on battery) to a MacBook Pro (running off battery) via USB. The SQ was very good. My current setup is similar - Teac (running on battery) connected to the NUC via USB except the NUC is plugged into a surge protector for my amp. The SQ of my current setup is very good. However, there is a very loud static noise when not playing music (that was not present before). I am playing my music at similar volumes. Any ideas on where this new static is coming from?
 
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