Latest LG G5 series toslink dropouts

[boomerang]

Owning a Hifi store, i tend to change TV sets/equipment now and then.
After the last LG, we had two Sony high end TV models and now a LG 65G56LS again. (providing the best picture quality ive seen till now)
TV audio playback: over toslink or HDMIarc, depending of video material.
Toslink via Topping D90SE Sabre, HDMI arc via Marantz AV pre amp. (+ Mcintosh C52/MC312/Michi M8 x2/801D4)
First LG tv went fine over predecessor D90LE (AKM), but showed audio drop outs with the new Sabre D90SE.
Later two Sony tv sets faultless via Sabre D90.
Now, with the new LG tv set, the same problems again; audio drop outs every 8-10 seconds.
When i put the toslink into the Mc C52 digital input, all is fine again.
Sabre+LG = Bad news?
I presume the PLL is causing troubles, LG running out of spec?
(HDMI no problems)
If this really is a LG problem, they should be ashamed, after three generations OLED, still the same problems!
I read these problems not only ocuur with the Topping, also with some other brands, like Cambridge audio.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Owning a Hifi store, i tend to change TV sets/equipment now and then.
After the last LG, we had two Sony high end TV models and now a LG 65G56LS again. (providing the best picture quality ive seen till now)
TV audio playback: over toslink or HDMIarc, depending of video material.
Toslink via Topping D90SE Sabre, HDMI arc via Marantz AV pre amp. (+ Mcintosh C52/MC312/Michi M8 x2/801D4)
First LG tv went fine over predecessor D90LE (AKM), but showed audio drop outs with the new Sabre D90SE.
Later two Sony tv sets faultless via Sabre D90.
Now, with the new LG tv set, the same problems again; audio drop outs every 8-10 seconds.
When i put the toslink into the Mc C52 digital input, all is fine again.
Sabre+LG = Bad news?
I presume the PLL is causing troubles, LG running out of spec?
(HDMI no problems)
If this really is a LG problem, they should be ashamed, after three generations OLED, still the same problems!
I read these problems not only ocuur with the Topping, also with some other brands, like Cambridge audio.

I suspect there are not enough people trying to use S/PDIF out of their TVs for LG to care. But yes, ASR has many threads where people start by blaming their DAC only to find out that since the AKM fire, most S/PDIF receivers are much less tolerant of the nonsense coming out of these TVs.

 

[soundwave76]

I have my eye se on the G5 77". The trouble is I have to sell my Genelec 8340 pair and settle for a soundbar if I am going to pull the trigger...

 

[JSmith]

Sabre D90SE

Did you go into the user menu settings and try increasing the DPLL setting from default to 9? If not, that may help the DAC lock onto the signal more reliably.


JSmith

 

[boomerang]

Did you go into the user menu settings and try increasing the DPLL setting from default to 9? If not, that may help the DAC lock onto the signal more reliably.


JSmith

Ran through set up several times, but could not find such a setting, can you help?

 

[JSmith]

Ran through set up several times, but could not find such a setting, can you help?

Apologies, it seems Topping chose not to expose the DPLL setting to the user in that model and I assumed being ESS based that it did. SMSL ESS DAC's generally all have the DPLL setting available.


JSmith

 

[boomerang]

Hoping this would solve the isues, i ordered this:

AUDIOPHONICS DIGIRESCUE Reclocker SPDIF Optical Coaxial Galvanic Insulation 24bit 192kHz - Audiophonics

This Audiophonics DIGIRescue reclocker module has been designed in association with Ian Canada. Using a high-precision local clock and Ian Canada's reclocking technology, it perfectly resynchronizes S/PDIF signals to achieve very low jitter.

www.audiophonics.fr

Good revieuws, but sadly it did not stop the audio drop outs.
Supplier states the quality of the optical output of this LG TV must be really rubbish, because this unit was designed for solving exactly that problem.
Still funny that the Mcintosh C52 plays well on that same LG tv via toslink....
Meanwhile, our LG representative has forwarded this problem to Korea, waiting for their response.
And i plan to try a HDMI toslink audio extractor, presuming LG will not be able or willing to repair with a future SW update.
And maybe even a hardware alteration is needed for solving this problem.

 

[LumiAudioNut]

This is exactly why I love ASR. After spending way too much time switching around almost every component in my audio stream, I was finally able to isolate the cause of the audio dropouts and intermittent digital anomalies that I was experiancing to the toslink (SPDIF) output of my C2 LG television. For a while a I thought the source of the issue was my Denefrips Ares 15tht R2R, as my two other DACS (SMSL Su10 and D400) had fewer issues with the same input. However, after more experimentation I later I realized that their seeming immunity was just due to the fact that they could cope with the digital issues better than the Ares 15. What finally clinched it was that the Ares 15th was alway rock solid when I hooked it up to secondary system (source was a Mac mini). Little did I know that it wasn't just my LG that was flawed, but that entire generations of LG televisions and across multiple product lines had similarly defective toslink outputs. My next TV will be a Sony.

ASR brings clarity.

Lumi!

 

[boomerang]

"Take it back and grab a Sony again" was my first response also indeed.
But the picture quality of the new G5 series is state of the art at this moment.
Especially processing is great, no other tv can upscale HD content to 4k-ish, like this one. We have them all, top Samsung, Panasonic, Sony etc, but no one reaches the G5.
That is why it is so sad, that this LG high end tv, can not play with high end audio.
Absurd.

 

[MCH]

I suspect there are not enough people trying to use S/PDIF out of their TVs for LG to care. But yes, ASR has many threads where people start by blaming their DAC only to find out that since the AKM fire, most S/PDIF receivers are much less tolerant of the nonsense coming out of these TVs.

Depends on how you see it. I do blame the DACs: Is the signal from my TV crap? Sure, but that is not the main purpose of a TV and even my DIY spdif receivers are capable of working with it without any problem. But my former 250 eur topping DAC which only job was receiving audio signals, could not. Same with my Sony CD player. Why? Who's job is to be robust enough?

 

[DVDdoug]

I amazes me that these bugs haven't been worked-out!!! S/PDIF has been around a LONG time (I don't use it anymore, or at least not currently).

 

[unpluggged]

My next TV will be a Sony.

I have zero issues with my LG G4-series (not that one — the OLED TV) Toslink output, whenever I use the miniDSP Flex (my usual setup) or the RME ADI-2 Pro FS R.

But some cheap DACs are notorious for using too picky S/PDIF receivers that do not sync reliably to many sources.

 

[boomerang]

Rme uses AKM chips. My former Topping D90LE also had AKM and had no problems with LG toslink.
The newer D90SE has Ess chips.
As some other more expensive dacs have, since the fire in the AKM factory.
So it is not a matter of a low or high price in my opinion.
Ess chips seem to be less forgiving for "out of range" toslink signals.

 

[unpluggged]

So it is not a matter of a low or high price in my opinion.

It's not about price, it's about costs. If ESS S/PDIF receivers are not up to the task, then costs had been cut during their development compared to more reliable implementations. Either this, or it's incompetence.

BTW, I do not know which S/PDIF receiver chip does the miniDSP Flex use (but evidence points to them using ESS converters, so it's likely the receiver is also an ESS one, which might indicate the sync issues depend on the specific implementation thereof), and the RME does not use an AKM S/PDIF receiver chip (or any other discrete S/PDIF receiver), based on the PCB photos, likely implementing the ADAT/S/PDIF/AES interfaces in the FPGA, just as they do with USB.

 

[boomerang]

" not up to the task"
What I've read is that it is the other way around.
Ess chip does everything right, LG toslink "signal is out of range"

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Why? Who's job is to be robust enough

Postel's Law: "conservative in what you send and liberal in what you receive". By this definition, both are failing to comply with Postel's Law.

BUT we know that there are DACs whose default S/PDIF PLL works fine with every source other than LG TVs. This demonstrates that they are sufficiently liberal in what they accept in all cases other than LG TVs. The implication is that LG TVs are insufficiently conservative in what they send. So they are the guilty party (we also know from detailed analysis that they include unsupported data in their output!).

 

[MCH]

Postel's Law: "conservative in what you send and liberal in what you receive". By this definition, both are failing to comply with Postel's Law.

Quote all the relevant parts of my post: a TV is a TV, an audio DAC is an audio DAC.

BUT we know that there are DACs whose default S/PDIF PLL works fine with every source other than LG TVs.

Where have you that from? I have never seen such claim + is a claim very difficult to make unless you have a good collection of transports.
I have read a lot about this when I had that issue with the D30pro (and I had like 5 sources and iirc only one worked) and everyone was reporting the same issues in a large variety of devices.

This demonstrates that they are sufficiently liberal in what they accept in all cases other than LG TVs. The implication is that LG TVs are insufficiently conservative in what they send. So they are the guilty party (we also know from detailed analysis that they include unsupported data in their output!).

Again, a TV is a TV, and there are plenty of other receivers that have absolutely no problem with them.

And I end where I began: a matter of opio, and mine is clear.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Quote all the relevant parts of my post: a TV is a TV, an audio DAC is an audio DAC.

Where have you that from? I have never seen such claim + is a claim very difficult to make unless you have a good collection of transports.
I have read a lot about this when I had that issue with the D30pro (and I had like 5 sources and iirc only one worked) and everyone was reporting the same issues in a large variety of devices.

Again, a TV is a TV, and there are plenty of other receivers that have absolutely no problem with them.

And I end where I began: a matter of opio, and mine is clear.

Wiim Pro distortion on spdif input

Hi there Had my Wiim pro for about a week now and I'm interested to hear whether others are seeing any of the same issues. I'm using it for spdif input from my Samsung TV (for all video streaming platforms like Netflix, etc and DVD/Bluray) and for streaming Amazon and Tidal over wifi, both...

audiosciencereview.com

Troubleshooting - JDS Labs Customer Support

Troubleshoot common issues in the audio chain, including connections, sources, and headphones for both amps and DACs.

jdslabs.com

 

[boomerang]

Got an Hdmi extractor from Audiophonics.
Seems to work for 98% of the time. Only an occasional drop out.
That is for Tidal video, YouTube Music, Fire TV, Netflix.
Funny though, that PlayStation 5, hooked to the LG tv via Hdmi of course, audio drops out more frequent.
Can someone explain that?
Thinking about an Apple TV 4K for streaming, audio via the extractor.
Using the LG as a monitor only from then on.
Sad having to reduce such a great TV set to a simple monitor just because LG is not willing to solve this audio problem for years now.
Disqualified.

 

[boomerang]

Apple TV 4k over HDMI extractor = even worse.
Tested that, very disappointing.