Roon + Toslink + Loxjie A30 newbie doubts

[pnobrega]

Hey.

Finally got my fist setup working. So I have a pi with a Justboom digital HAT connected via optical to a Loxjie A30. I'm also using a 60 day trial of RoonLabs (darn this thing looks awesome).

So, I started playing some albums I have, some in DSD and some in Flac.

1. In roon my device was configured as using DSD over PCM and I noticed I couldn't hear music. Well, I could hear it, but very very low. Looks like none of my devices support DSD, so I need to use DSD to PCM in Room (making it a High Quality path and not lossless). Newbie newbie newbie.

2. When playing some albums I saw this issue in Room:

So the music starts playing but stops and skips. It was brought to my attention that the optical cable could be the issue. I checked and all this albums are 24/192. I've started googling and saw posts about limitations of TOSLINK. But also some saying that that was an old issue, and tosklink should support those resolutions.

So, any tips, thoughts?

Side note: using coax is not and option, because I connect my turntable to the RCA and Loxjie engineers had the brilliant idea of sharing the port.

 

[radix]

I use a Raspberry Pi with the HiFi Berry Digi2 Pro toslink output. I have it to an Inday toslink switch to spdif RCA to BNC to Neumann KH750/KH80 speakers. Roon is set to 192/24 max. It plays great! I do not know exactly which bitrate it is selecting for the material, it only says 192/24 source. You will not get DSD unless you do DSD over PCM, which is not supported by these speakers, so I don't use it.

I do not know of that Loxjie supports DSD at all, much less over PCM. It likely may not have a decoder for it.

I have another Raspberry Pi that I use USB to a miniDSP SHD. That will do 192/24 or native DSD. Also works great.

Before I got the Neumann's, I had an old Logitech 5.1 system on the computer that only supported 96/24. When I had it set to the wrong bit rate (192/24), it sputtered and had a ton of digital noise.

Personally, I don't think I can hear any difference between 96/24 and 192/24 or DSD. I probably can't hear much difference between 44/16 or 48/16 for that matter, but I've not tried serious listening tests.

Most everything I stream nowadays is either FLAC or old mp3 that I ripped from CD (I'm slowly re-ripping to FLAC. Hurray for DBPowerAmp!) or its Quboz through the Roon interface.

Marc

 

[radix]

BTW, I use inexpensive toslink cables from Amazon and a "best seller" RCA to BNC cable from B&H for the spdif. They work just fine for all data rates. Newer AES3/toslink/spdif do have a 192 mode. All devices need to support it.

Also, what Raspberry Pi do you use? I think anything except a 4 will have problems with 192.

The "loading slowly" is most likely a source problem, not toslink. What is feeding the Raspberry Pi? Is it Internet? Is it wifi?

Also, where did you setup the Roon core? I run mine on a NAS following their directions about using an SSD for the Roon database. You might want to test the connection from the Roon core to the Raspberry Pi and from the Roon core to wherever your source files or internet connection is.

Marc

 

[pnobrega]

BTW, I use inexpensive toslink cables from Amazon and a "best seller" RCA to BNC cable from B&H for the spdif. They work just fine for all data rates. Newer AES3/toslink/spdif do have a 192 mode. All devices need to support it.

Also, what Raspberry Pi do you use? I think anything except a 4 will have problems with 192.

The "loading slowly" is most likely a source problem, not toslink. What is feeding the Raspberry Pi? Is it Internet? Is it wifi?

Also, where did you setup the Roon core? I run mine on a NAS following their directions about using an SSD for the Roon database. You might want to test the connection from the Roon core to the Raspberry Pi and from the Roon core to wherever your source files or internet connection is.

Marc

Hi. Thanks for your shares.. I really appreciate them. Like I you mention, I also think my ears are not very picky and can't tell any difference . I'm just trying to get the best of what I have and learning in the process.
About the Room core it's in a intel 11th gen and installed in a pcie SSD, so that's ok. Also the devices are connected by ethernet, tho I tested the pi over 5ghz wifi. Speeds and connection doesn't seem to be the issue. The pi is a pi 3b+, and that's I bought the HAT, because of the usb shared bandwidth .

I know the HAT supports 24/192 so I had doubts... Am I'm not sure, but going to confirm later when I get home, but when roon plays DSD and converts to PCM it converts to 192khz and plays fine...

I have to do more testing... But I'm also considering setting max resolution for 192/24, it's more than enough. But this albums, that are 192/24 giving issues are messing with me. I've read that could be the optical cable or the toslink transmitter / receiver.

I've already asked in the Loxjie A30 thread to see if anyone knows if the Loxjie optical receiver can handle 192/24.

 

[MCH]

Maybe here you can find some info:
https://audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/recommend-toslink-cable-for-24-192.25214/

 

[Eetu]

Perhaps you can do one of the following:
1) try another cable
2) sell the RPi + HAT and replace them with RPi 4 and use USB
3) let Roon resample 192 files down to 96kHz with no audible impact

 

[radix]

What operating system do you have on the Pi? RoPieee or volumio? If you are using a general Linux OS, that might be a problem too. You want to use an optimized kernel.

 

[oldmanhifi]

I have my Roon core running on a mac mini connected to the Loxjie A30 via Toslink. It's output is set to 24/96 through the Mac's midi control app. Roon also has an advanced setting to set the output paramenters. I believe that 24/96 is the recommended limit for Toslink connections. I would suggest you try setting the output from Roon to 24/96 PCM and see if that solves the problem.

 

[PeterMac]

Same problem with Loxjie A30, maybe this is not problem but hardware limitation, I also wanted to play DSD via USB connection, but Loxjie looks like do not support DSD decoding, so I tried to DSD over PCM mode in SACD plugin for foobar2000 set to output 88.2kHz, 176,4kHz, 352,8kHz also not work, unsupported format. Works only 44.1kHz.

Looks like Loxjie support only 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 96kHz, 192kHz, 384kHz.

DSD over PCM conversion is: 44.1kHz, 88.2kHz, 176,4kHz, 352,8kHz

I do not tried via optical, but for sure will be same situation. Only solution in my setup is connect via RCA analog to my Xonar STX II soundcard.

 

[pnobrega]

What operating system do you have on the Pi? RoPieee or volumio? If you are using a general Linux OS, that might be a problem too. You want to use an optimized kernel.

Using ropieee..


Ok.. Some more testing tonight... And some conclusions:

1. My toslink cable (kabeldirect) doesn't have any issue with 192/24.
2. Loxjie toslink receiver CAN handle 192/24

Today every 192/24 album played nice with no issues... I rechecked my connections and the only reason I found for the failing was the connection.
My ethernet cable on the pi wasn't good.. So the Pi was using 2.4ghz wifi.. After fixing that and even using 5ghz wifi i had no issues with the albuns at 192/24. Loxjie was showing the correct 192khz.

About DSD, officially the Loxjie doesn't not support and since my HAT also doesn't i only hear noise (with optical). The Loxjie shoes 176khz but no sound.

Tho not advertised by Loxjie, using the USB, with foobar i can listen to DSD.

 

[pnobrega]

Same problem with Loxjie A30, maybe this is not problem but hardware limitation, I also wanted to play DSD via USB connection, but Loxjie looks like do not support DSD decoding, so I tried to DSD over PCM mode in SACD plugin for foobar2000 set to output 88.2kHz, 176,4kHz, 352,8kHz also not work, unsupported format. Works only 44.1kHz.

Looks like Loxjie support only 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 96kHz, 192kHz, 384kHz.

DSD over PCM conversion is: 44.1kHz, 88.2kHz, 176,4kHz, 352,8kHz

I do not tried via optical, but for sure will be same situation. Only solution in my setup is connect via RCA analog to my Xonar STX II soundcard.

Unless I'm seeing it bad I was able to play DSD over USB. This guy also mentions he was able to play

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...loxjie-a30-amplifier-review.17547/post-569300

 

[PeterMac]

pnobrega - but this is DSD over PCM not real DSD decoding. Also in this mode only work at 44.1kHz, nothing higher.

 

[kchap]

pnobrega - but this is DSD over PCM not real DSD decoding. Also in this mode only work at 44.1kHz, nothing higher.

It is DSD. DSD64 is packed into a 24/176.4 frame, DSD128 is packed into a 24/352.8 frame and so on. Personally I can't see the point of transporting an audio signal in format DSD. It's so wasteful of bandwidth you may as well transport the signal in real PCM.

 

[PeterMac]

kchap - but Loxjie plays DSD over PCM only at 44.1kHz, when I set 88.2 or higher it not work.

 

[kchap]

I'm not a user of DSD but the standard says it's encoded in a minimum frame 24/176.4 frame. If may be displaying as 44.1 because the DSD sampling rate is always expressed as multiples of 44.1. DSD128 is 128 times 44.1.

 

[PeterMac]

in SACD plugin in foobar2000 you set constant sampling output for PCM.
44.1kHz is too low, no benefits from DSD, 88.2 have minimum sense.

 

[kchap]

Is Foobar is converting to PCM, not DSD over PCM?

 

[PeterMac]

DSD over PCM.

With my Xonar STX II works fine all sampling rates. With Loxjie only 44.1.

 

[kchap]

Sadly can't explain it.

 

[PeterMac]

I tried to play normal flac test file 88.2kHz in Foobar2000 in WASAPI mode also not work with Loxjie.
96kHz file plays fine.
Test files:
https://www.audiocheck.net/testtones_highdefinitionaudio.php

So, probably no chance to play DSD i DoP or PCM in higher sampling rates on Loxjie A30.

Also found answer from SMSL SA300 user (same DAC)

There are some restrictions on the USB input of the SA300.
In the spec table, it supports from 44.1kHz to 384kHz, but in reality, only 44.1kHz 48kHz 96kHz 192kHz 384kHz can be played. An 88.2kHz 176.4kHz 352.8kHz signal will cause an error and cannot be played.