Innuos MKII - USB Skipping with Roon

[austinpop]

Hey @FrankMA and @BigAlMc,

 

This had completely slipped my mind, but I suddenly remembered a problem I had when I originally got my Zenith SE. It would not even recognize my Ayre Codex DAC, although it worked with some other DACs. This was cable independent, although I never tried the 2nd USB port.

 

Innuos and Ayre looked into it, and while there was the usual mutual finger-pointing, the likely culprit was the USB controller on the SE - they used the onboard controller on their mobo. Turns out it is super-picky about USB spec-compliance, and they (Innuos) have had issues with multiple DAC USB chipsets.

 

I mentioned this in my review at the time, under the heading "SE functional quirks."

 

Their proposed solution at the time was to use an iFi iPurifier2 in the the path. Mark Sossa, the US distributor actually sent me one to try, and it certainly worked.

 

In the end, it was a moot point for me, as it was always my intent to use a USB device (SOtM tX-USBultra) in the chain, and that also worked.

 

I suspect the same issue is at play here.

[austinpop]

3 minutes ago, BigAlMc said:

I get the same issue as Frank despite having a TX-USBultra in the path. Lush > TX-USBultra > Sablon > Directstream.

 

Oh wait - nvm then.

[PeterSt]

3 minutes ago, BigAlMc said:

Frank - might be worth holding off to see if the Lush^2 resolves skipping on my system.

 

Alan, officially we won't be able to make it for tomorrow. Maybe not even Tuesday, but that could maybe work. So you will have yours Wednesday or Thursday (1 day shipping). I don't know whether that is sufficiently OK for @FrankMA...

[BigAlMc]

Just now, austinpop said:

 

Oh wait - nvm then.

 

Hey Rajiv, 

 

Yeah, I was about to say I recall you having that handshake issue but I get the same with the TX-USBultra in situ. 

 

On the bright side I'd assumed my system being overly complicated was partly to blame. At least Frank having the same assuaged that guilt! No consolation for Frank admittedly! 

 

Cheers, 

Alan

[PeterSt]

4 minutes ago, austinpop said:

This had completely slipped my mind, but I suddenly remembered a problem I had when I originally got my Zenith SE.

 

Thank you so much Rajiv.

 

@FrankMA, very good that you sent me that email. I had see the thread title all right, but never looked into it.

Now it's rolling, with the help of the others.

And no finger pointing here (I sincerely hope). Hopefully just solve it, yes. Is there hope with the Lush^2 ... not sure at all. To me it feels more robust for these matters, but technically (the resistance thing) it should not help. But Alan will be able to tell soon.

 

Peter

[BigAlMc]

1 minute ago, PeterSt said:

 

Alan, officially we won't be able to make it for tomorrow. Maybe not even Tuesday, but that could maybe work. So you will have yours Wednesday or Thursday (1 day shipping). I don't know whether that is sufficiently OK for @FrankMA...

 

Thanks Peter, 

 

No great rush for me but thanks. Let's see what Frank says. 

 

Out of interest any thoughts on why this skipping issue occurs with Roon but not with LMS on the same hardware? 

 

@FrankMA I appreciate you're desperate to get your new investment performing gloriously but meantime there is the other USB port workaround.

 

Also you should really give the LMS player a go as it just sounds better than Roon due to the playing from memory. @austinpop confirmed the same a while back. The UX isn't as good but the SQ is terrific.

 

Cheers, 

Alan

[austinpop]

3 minutes ago, BigAlMc said:

I get the same with the TX-USBultra in situ. 

 

Yes, if it happens with the tX-USBultra in situ, then ipso facto it must be something else. Mea culpa for making an ad hoc suggestion. 

 

[BigAlMc]

1 minute ago, austinpop said:

 

Yes, if it happens with the tX-USBultra in situ, then ipso facto it must be something else. Mea culpa for making an ad hoc suggestion. 

 

 

Can't believe I'm getting dissed in Latin! ?

[mansr]

32 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

What you're experiencing there is 100% certainly a case of too much resistance over the end to end trajectory from sender to receiver (and back btw). Although I wouldn't care less about you returning the Lush because it does not work for you, I would care much more for a new one which 99% sure also won't work. Offering money back, also not a problem, but again it doesn't help you really.

Giving him the money back helps him in that he no longer has paid for an item that doesn't work.

 

32 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

I think if you look back on your trials, you can already see it is not 100% easy to blame the cable alone. Thus, it is the combination. This, btw, is not related to the specs of the cable but to how the bandwidth of the spec plays a role here and how many so-called on spec cables wouldn't work either. Easy for me to say and impossible for me to prove, but say that I tried a few, always requiring the more close to full bandwidth of the USB2 spec to begin with (because 32/768).

Stop making excuses. Things stop working when he uses your cable. Ergo, your cable is broken. You've admitted that it isn't spec compliant, so it should be no surprise that it doesn't always work. Now do the right thing and give the man his money back.

[PeterSt]

1 minute ago, BigAlMc said:

Out of interest any thoughts on why this skipping issue occurs with Roon but not with LMS on the same hardware? 

 

Might you use XXHighEnd then you would be able to make up the answer yourself - this can happen easily. But it is more complicated to explain and in any case this is why  asked "Radio only ?".

Radio (of Roon) will use a different USB buffer size. And if that is settable, the issue could maybe be solved with that. So say that the buffer length is small, then the communication over the required speed should ... I think always work out (I could have it the wrong way around). If the buffer is long, the speed corrections eventually may arrive too late, already because the buffer could be longer than half of what's possible.

LMS would just use an other buffer size.

 

Another option is that the whole processor is hogged (by Roon) and that the driver doesn't receive enough time slice to do its work. But this is more of a long shot.

[PeterSt]

2 minutes ago, mansr said:

Stop making excuses. Things stop working when he uses your cable. Ergo, your cable is broken. You've admitted that it isn't spec compliant, so it should be no surprise that it doesn't always work. Now do the right thing and give the man his money back.

 

What about you f*ck out of here and before you go, tell us what your actual problem is. I'll denote it off topic for you. Go troll elsewhere with your miserable attitude.

 

[mansr]

2 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

What about you f*ck out of here and before you go, tell us what your actual problem is. I'll denote it off topic for you. Go troll elsewhere with your miserable attitude.

Wow, can't handle someone not fawning over your cables, huh?

[BigAlMc]

Gents chill out. 

 

@mansr - Peter already offered Frank a refund so your hostile tone is neither warranted nor particularly welcome.

 

Let's try and keep it helpful to try and solve the Ops issue rather than turning it into another of 'those' threads. 

[BigAlMc]

23 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Might you use XXHighEnd then you would be able to make up the answer yourself - this can happen easily. But it is more complicated to explain and in any case this is why  asked "Radio only ?".

Radio (of Roon) will use a different USB buffer size. And if that is settable, the issue could maybe be solved with that. So say that the buffer length is small, then the communication over the required speed should ... I think always work out (I could have it the wrong way around). If the buffer is long, the speed corrections eventually may arrive too late, already because the buffer could be longer than half of what's possible.

LMS would just use an other buffer size.

 

Another option is that the whole processor is hogged (by Roon) and that the driver doesn't receive enough time slice to do its work. But this is more of a long shot.

 

Roon allocates a different buffer size than LMS. Yeah that seems plausible, although way over my head technically. 

[FrankMA]

This happens with Radio and Shuffle

[FrankMA]

1 hour ago, BigAlMc said:

 

Thanks Peter, 

 

No great rush for me but thanks. Let's see what Frank says. 

 

Out of interest any thoughts on why this skipping issue occurs with Roon but not with LMS on the same hardware? 

 

@FrankMA I appreciate you're desperate to get your new investment performing gloriously but meantime there is the other USB port workaround.

 

Also you should really give the LMS player a go as it just sounds better than Roon due to the playing from memory. @austinpop confirmed the same a while back. The UX isn't as good but the SQ is terrific.

 

Cheers, 

Alan

According to Innuos the data port is of inferior sound quality. But I have that an the LAN so I’m not dead in the water by any means. Of course I had to go buy a decent lan cable (wireworld). Didn’t have

[FrankMA]

1 hour ago, BigAlMc said:

Gents chill out. 

 

@mansr - Peter already offered Frank a refund so your hostile tone is neither warranted nor particularly welcome.

 

Let's try and keep it helpful to try and solve the Ops issue rather than turning it into another of 'those' threads. 

Thanks Al. Agree wholeheartedly

[FrankMA]

1 hour ago, PeterSt said:

 

Alan, officially we won't be able to make it for tomorrow. Maybe not even Tuesday, but that could maybe work. So you will have yours Wednesday or Thursday (1 day shipping). I don't know whether that is sufficiently OK for @FrankMA...

That would work for me as well

[FrankMA]

Sorry I am a burnt distracted from my post. At a Red Sox game and the wife cannot understand why i’m Worried about my music server ?

[BigAlMc]

21 minutes ago, FrankMA said:

Sorry I am a burnt distracted from my post. At a Red Sox game and the wife cannot understand why i’m Worried about my music server ?

 

Haha - no worries. Been there with the wife not understanding. Especially when I mention cables ?

 

As fictional Red Sox great, Sam Malone would say:

Cheers! 

Alan 

[yellowblue]

I ordered two Lush 2 cables yesterday. I asked Peter to pause the order until it is clear if the Lush 2 will work without problems in my chain: Zenith SE > txUSBultra > Chord Dave.

[FrankMA]

16 hours ago, BigAlMc said:

I thought it was a radio issue. 

 

@FrankMA have you had the skipping issue with the radio off? 

 

@PeterSt thanks for the quick response. I sold my ISO Regen but I get the same issue as Frank despite having a TX-USBultra in the path. Lush > TX-USBultra > Sablon > Directstream.

 

Frank - might be worth holding off to see if the Lush^2 resolves skipping on my system. Might also be worth trying other cables. You're in the US, right? 

 

I have a Curious and an Audioquest carbon kicking around. I could test them to try to prove/disprove the Lush culpability. 

 

Cheers, 

Alan

I did have the skipping with Radio off and in Shuffle mode

 

I don't have an ISO Regen to try at the moment

 

Maybe the Lush 2 will solve the issue. I am in the US

 

Thanks guys

 

 

[PeterSt]

57 minutes ago, FrankMA said:

I did have the skipping with Radio off and in Shuffle mode

 

Frank, if I interpreted you correctly, you seem to say that when the skipping is in order, it is literally about skipping. Thus, that the tracks actually don't play at all, but skip through to a next track right away. And on and on and on (in shuffle mode).

 

a. I wonder whether this indeed is the case (so needs confirmation);

b. If so, I wonder whether e.g. Alan got it like that.

 

 

[FrankMA]

1 hour ago, PeterSt said:

 

Frank, if I interpreted you correctly, you seem to say that when the skipping is in order, it is literally about skipping. Thus, that the tracks actually don't play at all, but skip through to a next track right away. And on and on and on (in shuffle mode).

 

a. I wonder whether this indeed is the case (so needs confirmation);

b. If so, I wonder whether e.g. Alan got it like that.

 

Hi Peter,

I'm 99% sure there is no output (I'll check again). Just song skipping. In Radio & Shuffle mode. 

 

[PeterSt]

Quote

I'm 99% sure there is no output (I'll check again). Just song skipping. In Radio & Shuffle mode.

 

(text is inside the quote of my text in the previous post)

 

@BigAlMc, so Alan, is that what is happening to you too ?

 

Can anyone determine what the common denominator is between Radio & Shuffle mode ? Possibly it is related to gapless or something. Or what about a variable which just overflows because of the longer term playback (I suppose Shuffle never stops, like Radio).

 

And/but, how does the quality of a USB cable relate to this ? ... weird thing.