I am having a problem with noise intermittently (sometimes it happens multiple times a day and sometimes I can go days without it happening) getting into my system (Vivaldi Apex stack with no transport). From the listening position it is a high pitched hiss that slowly goes up and down in pitch and slowly changes phase. If you get up close you can hear a buzz from the mid range but the hiss is what I hear from my seat. When I unplug the ethernet from the back of the upsampler the noise slowly fades away (I’m assuming due to a buffer?) and comes back when I plug it back in. But the weird part is if I toggle the upsampler in and out of standby the noise stops, usually for the rest of the listening session. I can toggle the DAC in/out of standby and that works too. (I usually just use the remote to toggle the whole stack so I don’t have to get up.) Mind you I’m not turning the units completely off and on, just quickly toggling standby. We’ve tried all kinds of different cables and turned off everything that we can think of and removed anything electrical that is not necessary but no go. I guess it might be coming from a neighbor? I’m just sick that I put in this high-end system and I can’t enjoy it. Any ideas?
Have you tried an un-shielded Ethernet cable from your router to the Vivaldi? My thinking is that you seem to isolated the issue to the Ethernet input so I’m wondering if there is an earth problem in your house and the shield (if you are using a shielded cable) is carrying the noise into your system via the chassis of the Vivaldi.
Probably but I’ll double check. We’ve tried many different ethernet cables even el cheapo ones that couldn’t possibly have been shielded. Just a clear plug crimped on to a generic cable. If anything it mad it worse (louder). The thing that blows my mind is toggling the units stops the noise. Wouldn’t external interference just come right back when this unit was taken out of standby? One other thing I forgot the mention is that when the noise is happening if you mute the DAC the noise doesn’t stop. But if you toggle the DAC (or upsampler) in/out of standby it does. Weird!
Of course it will stop the noise as he said that when he removes the Ethernet cable the noise disappear. Shutting down the router or removing the ethernet cable is the same.
What I would suggest would be changing the router instead. Or try a kind of hi-fi router like Sotm gear…
I was in fault finding mode to identify the reason, understand it and fix it. But that’s just me. You could of course eliminate all electrical connection via the Ethernet but using and ADOT…
… with a compatible router.
It something I plan to try but only for upgrade reasons.
Noise just started this Fall/Winter. This is my second Upsampler as the first had a bad rs232 port. So I thought we had another bad unit but my dealer brought out an Aurender and hooked it to the DAC via usb and the noise was there too (and much louder.) I confirmed that I am using an unshielded ethernet cable (maybe I should try a shielded cable?) I thought it might be something to do with something that happens when the weather gets colder. I turned off my garage heater to no effect. I just turned off the floor heat in my master bath to see what that does. That’s all I can think of. I turn off the HVAC when I listen so it’s not that. We’ve removed a wifi satellite unit that was nearby but that didn’t change anything. I’ve tried plugging the Upsampler directly into the router and through a switch but no go. I’ve replaced the Transparent power cables (they were very stiff and heavy and always pulling out of the sockets on the Transparent power conditioner exposing some of the metal of the prong, should never have bought them!) with the dCS cables that came with the units but no change. One thing that I want to know is why does the noise stop when the units are toggled in and out of standby? Seems if it was an external source the noise would continue when the units came back out of standby? Also it’s weird that muting the DAC doesn’t stop the noise. Anyway thats where we are today.
Do you have your Upsampler set to upsample to DSD or are you listening to DSD files?
If you do / are then can you try selecting different DSD filters and see if that changes what you are hearing regarding the hiss?
If you do / are can you change the Upsampler to upsample to DXD and play some non-DSD audio tracks and see if the issue reoccurs?
Are you using the DAC into an integrated / preamp or are you driving power amps directly?
When the hiss starts, is it affected by the volume control on the DAC or is it constant?
Exactly - this is what I’m trying to examine. One of the thoughts is that high frequency DSD noise could be kicking something downstream of the DAC into instability because muting the DAC kills any audio coming out of it dead and wouldn’t give a ramping down.
I have my system set to upsample to DXD with DSD passthrough. I do not have a preamp. I am currently using the filters recommended in the manual. I do have some DSD files but play mostly PCM. I don’t know whether the noise happens with DSD files but I will pay attention to that in the future. It does seem that the noise started with the installation of the new Upsampler but that may be a coincidence. I did have an incident shortly after the replacement unit was installed where I went to play and it sounded weird…like it was’t playing all the frequencies. I thought I had a wrong filter but checked the manual and it should have worked. I changed the filter to another and then back to the original and it sounded fine. This hasn’t happened again. I haven’t tried changing the volume when the noise occurs…I will try that next time.
Update: My dealer is bringing out their DAC to see if that solves the problem. Sadly they don’t have an upsampler. But at least we can eliminate one component. I think they want to hook my DAC into their system to see what happens noise wise.
Played a DSD128 album tonight and the noise showed up after about 25-30 minutes (and sounded the same as PCM.) I’m sorry I forgot to check if changing the volume effects it. I paused playback and toggled the stack in/out of standby and continued an extended listening session with no recurrence.
Well the problem is solved and my dealer is a little red faced. It seems when they replaced my faulty Upsampler they wired the clock backwards so the DAC and the upsampler were always on opposite clock banks. I’m surprised it played at all! My eyes aren’t good enough to read the displays on the units from where I sit and Mosaic said Auto Wordclock for both so I though everything was cool. I guess lesson learned…double check everything. I’m just glad it’s resolved and I can get back to enjoying my stack.
I am glad your problem is solved, I was following your story and the last idea I had in mind to solve your problem was moving your house 10km further away from the nuclear power plant sitting in your neighbourhood
But hopefully the solution was much simpler
