• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Topping D10 DAC - crackling on fast-forward or changing song

taisho

Member
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 7, 2020
Messages
56
Likes
76
Location
Poland
Hello,

I managed to diagnose this issue as NOT connected to my JDS Labs Atom amp because it's exactly the same on my speakers. So it must be the DAC or Windows problem or I don't know. Present on VLC, iTunes, Youtube - it's all the same.

I recorded a soundtrack playing from my headphones. During the first several seconds it's normally playing. Then I'm using keyboard arrows to fast-forward it. You can notice the first crackle noise at the very start of the song. Then when fast-forwarding, the crackle is sometimes hard to notice and sometimes it gets really bad. Example place where the crackle occurs in Audacity (light blue vertical area):

1604237008829.png


Here is the recording in .wav of crackle sound only. Get your volume low to make sure it's not too loud:
https://we.tl/t-6UyUmwPA89

And here is the full recording:

https://we.tl/t-RmXGpKDJ4H

I'm never able to notice this problem when the song is just playing apart from the very start and the very end of it, though on these "edges" of the soundtrack it's more gentle than when fast-forwarding.

Sometimes we tend to pursue inaudible improvements, but this is a very audible problem that I would like to solve, crucial when I'm looking for diamonds in a huge collection.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that this also happens when changing track volume - the bigger the change - the worse pop/crackle happens, though this one is heavily track-dependent, very prominent for example here (not my kind of music by the way):

 
Last edited:

L5730

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Joined
Oct 6, 2018
Messages
669
Likes
436
Location
East of England
Sounds to me like normal behaviour I've experienced with most software players.
See if you have a digital sound wave, and then interrupt it, the wave no longer joins properly and there is a digital 'click'.

Foobar2000, for example, does have a few settings which mitigate this, sort of quick fade in/out, so the join in the two digital audio waves is at 0 dB or close to and thus inaudible.
The click at the beginning, hmm, sample rate change?

How are you changing the volume? In the player program (VLC, YouTube etc..) or in the driver control panel for the DAC?
 
OP
T

taisho

Member
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 7, 2020
Messages
56
Likes
76
Location
Poland
I've done some tests and it didn't matter how I change the volume - directly clicking on the application's volume bar or using a keyboard scrolling wheel that changes system volume. In the end, some tracks show very little problems when adjusting volume. Some are real sinners like the one that I linked.

From other causes that make this crackle much more prominent, there is fast-forwarding, changing song, stopping it, resuming or starting. I must deny that the problem happens because of two adjacent digital waves with a different structure. I demonstrated samples and a supporting Audacity screenshot, showing an altered part of the sound. It is followed by a brief moment of silence and then clear, faithful recording.

I read a lot about Windows 10 update that caused this kind of problem, so in a couple of days, I will be running tests on a Windows 7 machine to hopefully see no issues there and eliminate the DAC as a sole culprit. I tried like all possible Windows sound settings that according to the internet had a chance to solve this problem.
 
OP
T

taisho

Member
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 7, 2020
Messages
56
Likes
76
Location
Poland
I've tested D10 + speakers and D10 + amp + headphones on Windows 7 machine, using the exact same tracks - the result was the same. Additionally, I checked the default setup of this W7 machine: good quality non-integrated soundcard + speakers. The result was also exactly the same.

The conclusion is that I must have grown overly sensitive to this kind of problem after going through thousands of soundtracks, constantly fast-forwarding. Maybe there are devices able to mitigate this, but at least it looks like something that everyone struggles with. Of course, it is more annoying on headphones, with the crackle/pop going straight into your ears, but similarly noticeable on speakers.
 

L5730

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Joined
Oct 6, 2018
Messages
669
Likes
436
Location
East of England
Some software will do a fade down/fade up on pauses and skipping. I think Foobar2000 does this when using DirectSound mode. Other software may or may not.
As I said, I think it's normal behaviour :confused:.

If you open an audio editing program, cut a song in places and butt the parts together, the samples and thus resulting waveform could be significantly distorted so that it makes a clicking sound. It's normal. That's why we fade clips together or redraw the samples.

All little nuances will be more annoying on headphones than speakers. It's by nature of how the sound gets to our ears. There's a good reason folks use headphones for surgical editing, it makes things easier to hear.
 

infinitesymphony

Major Contributor
Joined
Nov 21, 2018
Messages
1,072
Likes
1,806
Foobar2000, for example, does have a few settings which mitigate this, sort of quick fade in/out, so the join in the two digital audio waves is at 0 dB or close to and thus inaudible.
@taisho, try adjusting the seek & manual track change fade in and out times.

sS4kB.png


What you're describing are clicks caused by discontinuities (large and sudden gaps between samples).

discontinuity.png
 
OP
T

taisho

Member
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 7, 2020
Messages
56
Likes
76
Location
Poland
Thanks for the help guys, Foobar is now my default player.

It was able to completely eliminate the problem with 100 ms fade, I will try to lower it later and see what happens, rather out of curiosity because now it's all fine. I wish there was a global audio setting for this, so for example YouTube can also benefit, but let's not be greedy and enjoy what we have. My goal was to go through thousands of soundtracks relatively fast and without annoyance, finding some real gems. Now I can continue my quest.

There is no setting for automatic track change in the newest version anymore, but the "Seek" is what I was really seeking, anything else is simply a nice bonus.
 
Top Bottom