Also volume control via optical on LG TVs has additional toggle, so it should not affect PCM stereo
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Roland68
Major Contributor
Then this has to be made very clear at this point.
If current Denon devices have a jitter problem, it is unlikely to be due to the ESS DAC chips, but rather to Denon. If that is really the case and there is a jitter problem at all.
Either the digital audio signal is so bad that it is unusable, or the AVR is so poorly developed that it simply has no right to exist in this day and age. Especially not with the devices you listed in this price range.
It has already been said why the DAC chips in an AVR have nothing to do with it and it doesn't matter whether they are from AKM, ESS, Cirrus Logic, TI or others.
My Yamaha RX-V779 for under €1000 has been fed very poor material from all sorts of sources, including 2 and multi-channel audio, but so far I haven't had any problems. I'm not aware of any problems with AVRs that currently cost less than €500. With more expensive devices this would be ridiculous.
Although I am an AKM fan, half of my DACs have ESS chips (9018, 9028, 9038, 9039) and do not have any higher operating sensitivity than devices with other DAC chips.
Even cheap DAC boards from Aliexpress with ESS 9018, 9028, 9038 with cheap clock and direct i2s input don't cause any problems. Operated on old and simple XU208 XMOS, Amanero (replica) boards or simple SPDIF->i2s converters, with loose i2s connections of 10-25cm without dropouts, without great signal processing.
My experiences relate to over 100 dedicated DACs in the last few years in various projects and all price ranges (100€ to several 1000€) and an additional 20 DIY boards with ESS DAC chips from 5 - 60€.
Based on my experience, I cannot see any functional difference in real-world operation with ESS DAC chips compared to AKM or other manufacturers. I can't see any specific problems or differences in this and other forums either.
For me, the jitter problem with current DACs and AVRs has been solved for years.
It's just the way it is that individual devices are defective or have really poor functionality due to poor development/implementation. If you then draw the wrong conclusions, you will only make life unnecessarily difficult for yourself. Nobody would keep a car with design problems that constantly breaks down.
Apart from classic cars and collector's items.
Tanquen
Member
From where I'm sitting, it's completely and totally a fault of the AVR. I could be wrong and there may be a setting in the firmware that fixes both issues. I've been using AVRs with HDMI for a long time. I've never got one that just broke all of my equipment because it's tolerances were so high and everything I own, unbeknownst to me, is just putting out dirty digital data. There's no way anyone, average consumer or not, would think noisy inputs or inputs that can't detect a signal properly on their $3,500 AVR is acceptable.
Unfortunately, I no longer have my LG C9 TV, but I'm guessing it would not affect the eARC dropouts and it would not affect the dead video out.
A cable half the length didn't help, the older AVR works great. So Denon is going to come out and say if you don't want random blackouts you need to use a 3-ft $100 HDMI cable, between all devices or possibly replace all your devices? Denon is going to say, all your HDMI cables are just not up to snuff that's why any that you try are going to drop eARC while the old AVR did not. That is why randomly, video output is just going to take an extra few seconds when refresh rates or inputs change, or stop all together until you power cycle. These issues/behaviors are known to anyone that knows about AVRs? Then they need to start releasing specifications on how bad their inputs are.
I wonder if it could be something as simple as the tv manufactures being overly optimistic with their clock accuracy.
part of the protocol involves declaring clock accuracy, +- 1000ppm, +-50ppm, or variable.
part of the protocol involves declaring clock accuracy, +- 1000ppm, +-50ppm, or variable.
ZolaIII
Major Contributor
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@Roland68 well it's not Denon and are not clock oscilator cristals they used.
Diagnostic whose already done:
blog.hifiheadphones.co.uk
Solution is there also explained, simple relaxing synchronisation setting as a fix on the reciver side. Also all blame is fully on TV brand's as that doesn't fix bad performance.
Big companies are very slow when it comes to implementing fixes but they will do it eventually (Denon that is I don't think LG and Samsung can fix a broken implementation).
Diagnostic whose already done:
JDS Labs Optical input drop-outs with LG/Samsung TV's | hifiheadphones.co.uk
While using the optical output from an LG C8/C9 or Samsung TV in conjunction with a high-performance DAC, you may experience audio dropouts several times per minute.
blog.hifiheadphones.co.uk
Big companies are very slow when it comes to implementing fixes but they will do it eventually (Denon that is I don't think LG and Samsung can fix a broken implementation).
@Roland68 well it's not Denon and are not clock oscilator cristals they used.
Diagnostic whose already done:
Solution is there also explained, simple relaxing synchronisation setting as a fix on the reciver side. Also all blame is fully on TV brand's as that doesn't fix bad performance.JDS Labs Optical input drop-outs with LG/Samsung TV's | hifiheadphones.co.uk
While using the optical output from an LG C8/C9 or Samsung TV in conjunction with a high-performance DAC, you may experience audio dropouts several times per minute.
Big companies are very slow when it comes to implementing fixes but they will do it eventually (Denon that is I don't think LG and Samsung can fix a broken implementation).
That sounds like something written by a sales/marketing person not an engineer. It reads like nothing more than blame shifting, and looking for brownie points from customers!
ZolaIII
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Sales marketing guy wouldn't show you measurements would he? If you don't believe your own eyes that's problem that I can't solve. Regarding me it's highly commendable when budget manufacturer like JDS does a real job and have their own audio analysis equipment instead talking nonsense.
wyup
Active Member
The problem is not dacs OR AVRs not having advanced jitter rejection. The problem is the TV that has loads of jitter. You cannot count on an advanced dac with wide jitter rejection.
However, jitter rejection is not the solution, it has its own PLL noise with it. The tv should output a good enough spdif signal not to require advanced jitter rejection, only standard with standard devices. Best performance is with a good clock signal, so you don't need to dial more jitter rejection to compensate. That is why these dacs have this setting in the first place, to avoid jitter reconstruction if the signal is good enough, because it has its 'toll', namely phase noise and more importantly, latency.
Denafrips Ares is know to have a lot of latency for dejitter, making video unsynced with audio and rendering unusable for video, and you can't set 'de-jitter strength'. I know because a friend bought one and it is unusable for his tv out. His tv can add latency for audio, but not video.
However, jitter rejection is not the solution, it has its own PLL noise with it. The tv should output a good enough spdif signal not to require advanced jitter rejection, only standard with standard devices. Best performance is with a good clock signal, so you don't need to dial more jitter rejection to compensate. That is why these dacs have this setting in the first place, to avoid jitter reconstruction if the signal is good enough, because it has its 'toll', namely phase noise and more importantly, latency.
Denafrips Ares is know to have a lot of latency for dejitter, making video unsynced with audio and rendering unusable for video, and you can't set 'de-jitter strength'. I know because a friend bought one and it is unusable for his tv out. His tv can add latency for audio, but not video.
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The would if they got handed data from an actual developer or engineer.
I've have to regularly do this myself. I get a potential issue to dropped in my lap, I have to research it, determine root cause, and identify if it can be fixed, and who should fix it. On numerous occasions I've seen sales, marketing or various mid level management types cherry pick parts out of my reports to suit their agenda!
ZolaIII
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They give valid scientific methodology (used equipment, measurement methodology) for experiments. You have to work on your understanding of mentioned things or just persue doxa as that's what you are doing now.
This really, really looks bad:
And once again next time buy Panasonic TV (tho even they started cutting corners with entry level models now made by Westel Turkey as OEM).
I'll mention it one more time as some people seem to think there was never an issue, then I'll bow out: Yes, the blame is on the crappy optical out (physically and the software implementation it seems like) on LG TVs (and maybe some others), but it's a verifiable fact on my end from testing three different ESS-based DACs when connected via optical that they have severe and endless dropouts every 5 to 25 seconds to the point where everything is unwatchable. Using a DAC that has an AKM or CL chip alleviated the issue.. eARC (on my tv) does not exhibit the issue when connected to an ESS DAC because it's not using the optical port. I am referring to standalone DACs and not AVRs.
Cause: In short, the optical output of symptomatic TVs exhibit high jitter and harmonic distortion throughout the audible frequency range. The default jitter rejection values used by ESS based DACs recognize the extreme noise as signal errors, so the DAC automatically attempts a re-lock of the incoming S/PDIF signal.
As stated above, ESS has a really good jitter rejection which in normal circumstances is great. JDS labs had noticed the issue and issued an alternate firmware to change the PLL implementation on the ESS-based DACs to help alleviate some of the issue. You can click the links early on in this post and clearly see an AP report showing horrible jitter from the optical port.. that's not marketing to sell more products, that's marketing to show what they're doing to fix the issue for people affected by it, which is pretty cool from that company (note: I have never once owned or used a JDS Labs product). Sadly, there are no alternate firmware for Topping/SMSL to help with the ESS PLL.. but I've moved on and have everything hooked up in a totally different way anyways.
Cause: In short, the optical output of symptomatic TVs exhibit high jitter and harmonic distortion throughout the audible frequency range. The default jitter rejection values used by ESS based DACs recognize the extreme noise as signal errors, so the DAC automatically attempts a re-lock of the incoming S/PDIF signal.
As stated above, ESS has a really good jitter rejection which in normal circumstances is great. JDS labs had noticed the issue and issued an alternate firmware to change the PLL implementation on the ESS-based DACs to help alleviate some of the issue. You can click the links early on in this post and clearly see an AP report showing horrible jitter from the optical port.. that's not marketing to sell more products, that's marketing to show what they're doing to fix the issue for people affected by it, which is pretty cool from that company (note: I have never once owned or used a JDS Labs product). Sadly, there are no alternate firmware for Topping/SMSL to help with the ESS PLL.. but I've moved on and have everything hooked up in a totally different way anyways.
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Tanquen
Member
My new X6800H has eARC dropouts and the X6500H does not. Not the same issue?
I meant on my tv I do not have issues using eARC, but I didn't do extensive testing like I did with optical.
Is there any objective verifications of this?
And are we actually talking about jitter, or just the clock rate being so far out of spec that the clock recovery can't lock onto it.
If you click the link in the post, it shows an AP report on both 44.1 and 48khz exhibiting super high harmonic distortion. The 48khz one is a lot better, so I am not sure if it's audible.. but the massive dropouts every 5-30 seconds are definitely audible
Troubleshooting - JDS Labs Customer Support
Troubleshoot common issues in the audio chain, including connections, sources, and headphones for both amps and DACs.
wyup
Active Member
There are Samsung support threads with audio dropouts over optical since 2017. It is 2024 and still there.
My dacs dont have these dropouts on a 2009 Samsung TV. It is not acceptable.
Tvs are computers running Linux. Tizen runs Pulseaudio. Linux is a good platform, It should be fixable. Thread priority or such.
I entered a command prompt by IP from apps developer mode but you can only uninstall user or system software packages, not acess to the filesystem or config services.
The OS is quite protected. Apps would reinstall by themselves again.
My dacs dont have these dropouts on a 2009 Samsung TV. It is not acceptable.
Tvs are computers running Linux. Tizen runs Pulseaudio. Linux is a good platform, It should be fixable. Thread priority or such.
I entered a command prompt by IP from apps developer mode but you can only uninstall user or system software packages, not acess to the filesystem or config services.
The OS is quite protected. Apps would reinstall by themselves again.
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With respect, there is more to a computer than just software! For example if the internal clock/oscillator is substandard no amount of software updates is going to fix that!
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wyup
Active Member
But a TV is a hardware specialised in multimedia reproduction. It can't have bad basic audio sync.
Any processor's Hardware Event Timer or HPET is accurate enough not to need custom oscillators. It is a matter of OS configuration fix. Any cheap motherboard provides onboard audio and most have spdif pinout adaptor.
if it was that's simple you would be saying!
The fact that it's been going on for multiple years and effects multiple models, suggest its not something that can be fixed with a settings update. Its most likely hardware related, or the manufactures just don't care.
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