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Hello
Can any of the Caiman user tell me if the unit is suspectable to electrical noise/interference (fridge switching on etc). I am getting a random click (like a scratch on a record) in the right channel every so often (I would say at least once in a single song). It seems unlikely to be a fault due to its randomness but am not sure what it could be. I am reluctant to buy a mains conditioner as this may not fix the issue.
Cheers for any thoughts
Sounds like opamp instability, happened to me with certain opamps with 7520 with the caps cut.
If its looking like a possible issue with the unit I will contact the manufacturer
Cheers
Good idea. PM Stan (StanB) he will be helpful, I'm sure. ;)
Hey i got this issue as well. Its an intermittent thing that i want to troubleshoot myself but i havent got the time for it. Did you use yours with a computer as well?
Please share your outcome as i am interested in what is causing it
Hello
I am using a PC. running Windows 7. I am outputing digital coax through a M-Audio 2496 soundcard. Listening is through a naim amp to a little dot IVse headphone amp and sen hd650s. Before emailing the manufacturer I was testing last night. I also borrowed a cd player.
I found that when playing cds last night I was not able to reproduce the problem so if there was any cracking noise it was very quiet. Using the PC I found that at the start of every track there is a very faint crack as soon it started. Then every so often there was a audible crack. I unplugged everything to try my old DAC and nothing. I plugged everything back in and this time it didn't seem to want to replicate the problem after that. I was wondering if this was actually electrical noise coming from the PC as I am using coax and the Caiman is actually picking up every little sound. I must admit I am hearing things in the music which I never heard before (thats a good thing). I have ordered a cheap optical cable to plug into the motherboard just to see if the sound is illiminated.
Yeah i got the same thing as you do. From the brief moments i connected the caiman to the CD player i believe i did not hear this 'tick' sound as well. This is why at first i did not suspect it was the dac's fault and i think its the computer/caiman combo.
Currently i am using my laptop optical out straight to the caiman and i do hear this intermittent 'tick' once every 1-2 tracks. I'm suspecting its my laptop's problem but i've owned 2 dac's before the caiman that did not have this 'tick' problem. I got Vista on my laptop.
I do hope its not a hardware fault and there is some easy fix on this cos otherwise i have to ship it back across the globe.
I am tempted to change the opamp to see how it goes but if i do this then it would void the warranty so i think its best not to do it unless you are sure that dac is not faulty.
I am going to have another play tonight but will wait until the optical cable is used before jumping to any conclussions. If I am still getting the problem will email Stan and ask for some advice.
One thing I did do last night was changed the audio output on the PC. I'm at work at the moment so cannot remember exactly what it was but I had it set I think to 24 bit studio quality in the sound option in Control Panel. I changed that down to 16 bit CD quality. Please bear with me as I am no expert, so I may be highlighting irelevent options :).
Guys I know from experience that the Beresford will output a sight click when the digital output is interupted briefly.
In my case, I was getting it all the time when scrolling up and down menus on Apple TV because the ATV was sending 'click' for each Item I scrolled past. Unfortunately the digital output switched briefly on and off between each one causing a weird noise via the Beresford.
All I had to do was disable the 'Menu Click' on ATV but this wouldn't help you.
If you're using the ASIO4ALL driver on your PC (a good idea anyway) it is strongly recommended that you turn off all Windows sounds, I imagine they might contribute to a similar problem.
I also had this 'popping' problem when plugged in via USB, since I primarily use Coax / Optical SPDIF, this isn't an issue for me.
I've had clicks/pops when using coax and optical input with my Caiman and standard 7520.
I have to use fairly long cables between my PC and DAC (about 4-5 meters) and I believe my clicks are caused due to a combination of long/poor quality cables and high sampling rates. For example, if I use a good quality Mark Grant coax cable and set my sound card to output in 24bit 96KHz, I get the odd pop/click now and then but only a few times every hour. If I then switch to a cheap optical cable of a similar length I get lots of pops/clicks all the time. If I lower the sound card output to 16bit 44.1KHz I barely ever hear any pops/clicks with either cable. I guess I sometimes reach the bandwidth limits of the cables and some data is lost. Lowering the sample rate reduces the amount of data being sent, so the cables are able to cope better. That's my theory anyway. :)
So if possible I'd recommend you try swapping your digital cable for a better quality or shorter one. Mark Grant, Mr Beresford, TM3 and Mike Homar all sell good quality cables at reasonable prices. I think Mike only does coax, not optical. I could be wrong on that one though. some of these people even have money back guarantees, so there's no risk in trying.
If you want to use optical cables at 24/96 then you need high quality ones, preferably multi-stranded glass fibre types. These have very high bandwidth capabilities but hardly anyone sells them at reasonable prices other than the places I listed above.
Most other optical cables (even very expensive branded ones) use a single plastic fibre. The only benefit of this is that they are more rugged and flexible, other than that they are worse in every way.
I hope that helps. :)
Hello
Cheers Highfidelityguy thats exactly what I had. I now have my output back at 16bit and all is working great (2 days and no clicking). My coax is 5m (QED). I thought it would be better with a long digital cable than analogue. However that said I must admit I was hard pushed to really tell the difference between 16 bit and 24 bit especially with the music I have (mp3). So very happy that all is working great. I changed the 16 bit to 24 bit a few weeks ago and then never gave it a thought. It would also explain why the clicking wasn't there when I first started using the unit. Will look to moving the pc nearer to reduce the cable length.
Hopefully this is the same issue for sum1 and it is not his caiman.
Cheers for everyones help
On a side issue the bass really seems to have tightened and become firmer as I have used the unit. Whether this is a perceived changed as I have got used to listening to the unit or an actual improvement I don't know but the excellent sound quality of the caiman was highlighted when I reverted back to my old DAC.
Hi Spud, I'm glad I could be of help. I thought your problem sounded suspiciously like mine. :)
I too thought the same thing as you that using a long digital cable would be better than using long analogue cables. I still think this is correct but long digital cables can still be problematic it seems. While digital cables aren't as susceptible to EMI (especially if you use optical), digital signals seem to be less tolerant in some ways. For example, think back to when all TV broadcasts were analogue; you could get problems with interference that caused distortion to the picture and/or sound but it generally worked, even if the picture was really grainy or ghosted. Now think about modern digital TV broadcasts; you don't get hissing sound, picture ghosting or any thing like that but if the signal gets affected by some bad weather it totally screws up the picture and sound. You get pixelation or complete loss of the picture, the sound stops and starts and you get horrible clicks, pops and screeches from the sound. This makes the digital broadcast un-watchable. If you switched to analogue while this was happening you might notice a little graininess to the picture but other than that it's perfectly watchable. It seems that analogue signals can be distorted heavily but still be watchable/listenable to a degree but digital signals either work or they don't. So in some ways it seems we have taken a step back in performance as technology has progressed.
Digital signals are more suitable for being transmitted over long distances providing the transmission medium is up to the job. With TV broadcasts the medium is the air and that's affected by atmospherics. With electrical or optical transmission the medium is the cable and while these aren't usually affected by outside interference they are dependent on the quality of the cable, the connectors and the joins between these. You can get all sorts of problems with mis-matched impedances, internal reflections etc etc. Most consumer grade digital and analogue cable/connector designs are heavily flawed and no amount of gold plating and other fancy marketing claims make up for that fact. Most well known cable brands use cheap off the shelf cables and just make them look posh by adding shiny connectors and nice braiding. It's sad but that's the truth. There's a few good threads in the forum on the subject of good cable makes and what makes a cable good. If you're interested in finding out more about cables and learning how to cut through the marketing BS I'd recommend you check those out. Cables are one of the areas of Hi-Fi where I feel it's important to be able to do that as it can save you a lot of money.
Anyway, sorry about the long waffling post, I get carried away sometimes. :doh:
Enjoy the music. :)
hmm the 16 bit option did help but its still not a final fix for me although i have to agree that it reduces the frequency of the problem. I am already using Stan's optical cable so that should not be an issue as well. Oh well i guess i have some troubleshooting to go.