DIYHiFi.org

If you see that much CPU utilization it's abnormal even considering USB is 100% host-controlled (polled). Maybe not if your CPU is an Atom or something.

It can also depend on the USB host controller and driver used. I haven't had anything but good experiences with the Intel host controllers integrated into ICH8, ICH9, and ICH10.

You were transcoding as well, Carlos? Probably the codec eating CPU time.

If what you say is true, then sensitivity to cables become a subject of its own in relation to bit perefection being imperfect..

You said here that you had no interest in why this should be the case.

I am interested, hence my reaction to posts claiming that this is the 'one brain' interface for computer audio and that others are 'broken', whatever broken means.

Exactly, I transcode the audio codecs that my TV doesn't support (including FLAC).
I was ironic in saying the CPU was at 15% when decoding 24/192 flac to WAV and sending through the network to the TV. It is obviously a low CPU usage for such an old, single core PIII machine.
Sending a 1080p Full HD video through the network to the TV (no transcoding), the CPU usage is very low (less than 5%) and the network usage is between 10 to 15%.
A good network card (which doesn't take much CPU, like my Intel PRO/1000) even when working at 100Mb/s, is enough for all this, even on an old machine.

I find it strange that some say USB(2) does not handle 24/192 very well, it should handle it without glitches, specially on a modern machine - even an Atom CPU...

_________________
Carlos Filipe

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction." Albert Einstein

Charles, read my post again. Read my last post too, above this one.
I don't think USB has problems at 24/192.
My question was for those who say it does.

_________________
Carlos Filipe

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction." Albert Einstein

Carlos, the problem can manifest as anything you can imagine here, glitches and total loss of audiostream included.

But then again, I think it is now safe to say that these problems are past. And no, this past wasn't that long ago.

Carlos,

Don't use a server arrangement. Put everything on your PC, surf while you listen, paste a web page using Word, and see if your experience anything. This is how I gauge interface robustness.

Oh, don't use a large-eee buffer to avoid it, as this changes SQ adversely.

There is an eye catching series of shots here:

http://www.aqvox.de/usb-power_en.html

Cut your V+ on your usb cable for a unit not requiring bus power (or supply your own 5V) and see if you hear a difference. On a good system, this can have a MAJOR effect. This is why I said what I said.

Oh, run Prime 95 as well.

You said I posted crap. What is this? You hadn't even understood his post.

Indeed, surfing the internet is not that "light" these days.
Many pages are "heavy", too much javascript.
Watching a video on youtube, with that Flash bloatware, is very CPU intensive, unless you have good, recent video card with mp4 hardware decoding.

Btw, when I want to save a web page, I save as a single .mht file. Why use Word?
Off-topic: Office 2010 is much faster and lighter than previous versions (2007, 2003, etc.).
IE9 is much faster than any previous version.
I think that Microsoft is improving, since Bill has retired. (!)

_________________
Carlos Filipe

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction." Albert Einstein

I save as a single .mht file. Why use Word?
Off-topic: Office 2010 is much faster and lighter than previous versions (2007, 2003, etc.).
IE9 is much faster than any previous version.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Use Word when I want to archive on a topic after editing the text. PDF makers don't always work or scale correctly

Office 2010 is aweful, full of icons that make me dissy. I prefer Word 2000 - slightly slower than 2010 but simple to view and lighter weight. All these secretarial features are useless to me.

I uninstalled IE9 'cause it just tries to copy some Safari features. The Icons are too small and I prefer IE8.

Hi,



It is my experience that USB does not have as such problems with 192/24.

Various solutions (we tried pretty much all of them as per 1/2 year ago) all can stream audio reliably with nothing better than a P42.8GHz (the lowest desktops we have), Pentium Mobile 1.7G Laptop and some description of Macbooks running Snowleopard.

PM1.7 and Atom 270 do have some issues when playing Hi-Rez while browsing through albums in heavily graphically intensive frontends, but pure, playing only, zero issues.

Of course, one has to check that there no rouge drivers causing high latency, but if this is the case not only USB playback suffers. So I really do not see why USB especially should have problems, in PC playback over other methods.

Getting Bitperfect High Resolution on PC or MAC is quite easy now, but it still takes some work. I suspect the "problem with USB is simply that people wrongly assume it is "plug and play".

I had a USB Dac of mine with a reviewer, who said it sounded okay, but nothing special next to his CD Player. Turns out he had just plugged it into a generic windows machine and was using windows media player in default setup to rip (to MP3 of course) and play back, plus he complained downloaded "High Rez" track where not working (no Flac Playback on WMP of course) probably the DAC was no High Rez as I claimed...

Once I told him how to correctly set things up things changed radically and it was only installing and correctly setting up JRMC, which is normally a 10 Minutes affair, but he simply had not even considered such stuff necessary. While clearly feeling a little sheepish he quipped: "But isn't USB supposed to be plug'n'play.", I thought modern computers where build for multimedia?"

I suspect that most of the problems ascribed to "USB" are simply people setting up their Audio PC & DAC with about as much care as they take plugging in a mouse, if that much...

Ciao T

_________________
Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but you don't know why.
Guruhood is when you know everything and everything works accordingly.

I set up my stuff with great care.

But you have hit it on the nail, usb audio is not universal and it is better to have drivers that set things up correctly.

I peronally DO not like JRM, why all this video and bloated stuff for audio.

What kind of reviewer was that, from some PC magazine?

_________________
Carlos Filipe

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction." Albert Einstein

HiFace Evo is missing from the comparison.

Hi,



Well, for JR to have a sellable product that people will pay money for it has to be there.

No need to use the video features though.

In terms of audio quality with a user interface that is is not the equivalent of wearing it hairshirt and easy setup it stands alone in my experience...

Ciao T

PS, the reviewer was an audio guy, but with zero experience and exposure to high quality audio vai PC, so basically the same as your average audiophile. It was not really his fault for having wrong expectations, it was his fault for RTFM though...

_________________
Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but you don't know why.
Guruhood is when you know everything and everything works accordingly.

I have just come across this:

<USB audio streaming corrupted by high DPC latency spikes in Windows 7 64-bit. Is anyone on this?

I have access to four computers (two Dells, two I built myself from high quality components), and on three of them I have trouble with outboard USB audio streaming under Windows 7, which is corrupted by pops and clicks accompanying high DPC latency spikes. The machines all play sound properly from their native sound cards.

I have been using two outboard USB DACs -- a Headroom Desktop Ultra DAC and a Musicstreamer+. On a Dell XPS 420 running Windows 7, I get pops and clicks. On an AMD Phenom II 965BE system I built on an Asus EVO mobo with 8gb of DDR3 memory, I get clean sound. On an Intel i7-930 system I built on an Asus mobo with 6 gb of DDR3 memory, I get pops and clicks. On a Dell Latitude E6500 laptop with a dual core Intel processor and 4 gb of DDR2 memory, I get pops and clicks.

I used high quality power supplies (e.g., Seasonic X650) and other similar components in the systems I built. I have spent hours updating drivers, disabling devices, modifying settings (including wifi, etc.), and other troubleshooting without being able to reduce or eliminate the problem. I never had this problem when I was running Windows XP.

Given the rash of complaints I have found across the internet about DPC latency spiking interfering with onboard and outboard audio under Windows 7, I'm left to conclude that it is a Windows 7 kernal problem.

Is Microsoft working on this issue at the OS level? It seems there is a fundamental problem in Windows 7 that makes it a terrible choice for people looking for a high grade music server for audiophile applications.
February 6, 2011>

Link:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... d5fbde55d6

Burying head in sand means not listening to issues. This is how products fail in the market place.