Hi everyone, I have been streaming music through my Vivaldi upsampler (and clock/dac) using the network connection with good results. I recently bought a Lumin streamer. When I use the AES connection on the Lumin into the AES on the upsampler, the music randomly clicks a tiny bit throughout the song and then the music volume will get lower and muffled for about 5-6 seconds (usually occurs only once per song) and then returns to normal. In the past, when I’ve had the wrong clock settings on my Vivaldi stack, the sound would cut out religiously every 3-4 seconds but this is only happening once per song. This happens randomly, can happen at the beginning, middle or near the end of the song. The USB connection works fine, just problems with the AES. (The AES sounds much better than USB). I even tried a different cable, with no difference.
Does anyone know what could be causing this? I was thinking maybe a clocking issue but the Lumin doesn’t have a clock input to connect the wordclock to. It shouldn’t need one though, right? Also, I have the upsampler set to Auto Wordclock even with the streamer, this is correct? Thanks for all of your help!
I am not a Vivaldi owner but can tell you from my experience that it is most probably because the Lumin is not clocked by you dCS Vivaldi clock. Please check the manual or consult dCS tech if there is a way to set the reference clock to the AES input. If this cannot be done and your Lumin unit does not have a clock in, you will have to insert a reclocker, such as Mutec to alleviate this problem.
Thanks @hifimckinney. I set the upsampler’s clock to Audio instead of wordclock and that seems to solve the problem, although the manual states there is a lot of jitter associated with this. Just happy to not have it cut out. Thanks so much!
The reason is that when Vivaldi is set to a synch setting ( W1, W2) but the source has no wordclock input the devices are not in synch so that every period of time there will be a timing glitch. When Audio setting is used instead the combination of units does not use the external clock and be synchronised. It’s not as good however. Please see the Wordclcok user manual in the introductory pages where you will see the Golden Rule for clocking.
I do not know why you have bought a Lumin when you already have a streamer anyway .
I also experienced this with my new Aurender N20 streamer. I don’t have an upsampler so you would think it would be annoying, but… I also set the DAC to “audio” and the problem was solved. In fact, I heard that the N20 sounds better without dCS clock, of course for my old ears. So the Vivaldi clock is now for sale. (12,000 euros).
If the source component doesn’t have provision for an external wordclock then you MUST set the input sync to “Audio” rather than W / W1 / W2 as (as @PAR has already said) the DAC HAS to be running to the same sync as the source.
The problem is that the Aurender N20 has an external clock input. As soon as I connect it to the Vivaldi Clock and set the DAC to “W” everything plays fine without dropouts. But… the N20 with XLR on the Vivaldi DAC and on “audio” sounds (to me) a lot nicer, more spacious and more depth. I also thought, this can’t be true, but after a full week of running like this, I prefer this combination/setting. Maybe I’ll try an Aurender Clock in the future, but first want the Apex upgrade on my DAC.
Did you try M (Master) on the Vivaldi DAC while using it’s wordclock output into Aurender’s N20 wordclock input? This way the Vivaldi DAC uses it’s own stable clock while the wordclock output carries a clock at the same rate as the incoming data, so the source can lock to the DAC. This is the recommended setting if you have a Vivaldi Transport but not a Vivaldi Clock, it functions identically with Aurender
With Aurender W20SE and dual AES/EBU into Vivaldi Apex this is by far my preferred combination/setting.
I tried that too Rob, but that sounded a lot worse. The N20 apparently has a very good clock. I can’t draw any other conclusion at the moment. With the W20 that will indeed be different again.
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