Popping/clicking when switching tracks

[AdieH]

Hi all,

I've had this problem since I got my WiiM Mini about 3 months ago. Each time you click "next", or select a new track, in each case while another track is playing, there is a pause (which is normal) followed my a clicking/popping sound before it plays the selected track. There is no clicking/popping if you simply let the one track play and then move to the next, automatically.

I am using Qobuz (thru the WiiM app), but this also happens with Spotify connect.

Hardware is a Denafrips Ares II DAC with a QED cable optical cable.

The release notes from a few months ago identified this as an issue, but it said it was solved. I don't think it is. (The issue was described as:"Popping noise coming through speaker's when changing tracks when using optical output to DAC optical in").

When I logged a ticket (after the release notes claimed it was "solved") they said they are working on it, suggesting it was indeed, not solved. But, the issue persists.

Any ideas? Does anyone else have the same issue, or the same hardware, with no issue?

Cheers,

Adrian

 

[Mistabowjangles]

I however filed ticket #10567 for
Sample rate switch latency setting lost on reboot

i've been given a whitelist build that seems to have improved about 30% of my issues. not all gone but a lot of the white noise and pops reduced

until they fix the unlock statw on boot and unlock on volume set to zero, its not the polished article

 

[AdieH]

disheartingly this user has had this issue from back in september last year and at somepoint raised it before december also last year.

so now 6 months in and no fix. its quite obvious there is little honesty moving inbetween the manufactures and its customers here, and even less actual testing.

poor show.

Turns out the problem is my DAC and its firmware. I have an Ares II. The latest DAC firmware fixes the issue, but sadly it also changes the sound signature substantially so I have rolled it back.

I think some users have said the popping issue when switching tracks can be fixed at the DAC end or the WiiM end. I suppose the issue for WiiM is the burden of patching for each problematic DAC or trying to find a one size fits all approach.

The way I look at it is that we are buying are very cheap product compared to the competition that works supremely well most of the time in most situations. There’s a few unlucky ones like me, but I can live with it given the price. I’ll likely upgrade my transport at some point to a bluenode.

 

[Alexandr_2023]

Спасибо, TTC64. Я провел некоторые исследования, и я не думаю, что это та же проблема. Щелчок, который может быть устранен с помощью уменьшения сигнала Wi-Fi, звучит так, как будто он происходит во время воспроизведения - здесь это не так. Он щелкает только между треками, когда вы вручную нажимаете кнопки следующего трека или предыдущего трека. Как ни странно, есть клики, когда вы просто выходите из приложения, чтобы воспроизводить песни последовательно.

У меня все еще есть этот щелчок в момент воспроизведения файла с высоким разрешением (24/192). При игре 24/96 это не так, только при переключении с трека на трек!

 

[Mr Ee]

I’ll likely upgrade my transport at some point to a bluenode.

That's funny, 'cos I sold my node 130 when I got a pro.
That sale paid for 2 pros and a mini, with enough for another mini left over.

 

[Mistabowjangles]

Turns out the problem is my DAC and its firmware. I have an Ares II. The latest DAC firmware fixes the issue, but sadly it also changes the sound signature substantially so I have rolled it back.

I think some users have said the popping issue when switching tracks can be fixed at the DAC end or the WiiM end. I suppose the issue for WiiM is the burden of patching for each problematic DAC or trying to find a one size fits all approach.

The way I look at it is that we are buying are very cheap product compared to the competition that works supremely well most of the time in most situations. There’s a few unlucky ones like me, but I can live with it given the price. I’ll likely upgrade my transport at some point to a bluenode.

i have a 25year old £1500 theta pro progeney dac, that has worked with £1000 cd transports and £40 bluray players. everything i have ever attached has permenantly locked my dac from powet on. the wiim mini once booted can't even do this. that is not acceptable. with every unlock and relock i get a shed load of white noise followed by pops. the wiim at every turn, whether it be switching between phone applications, or changing album tracks, should not unlock the dac. even setting my phones volume to zero unlocks the dac. i have specified my dac at 44.1 and 16bit, as all my music is at this rate. in the absence of no sound or source the dac should always lock at that rate. that is the minimum it should do. after that, providing options for those who want their kit unlocked on no sound (although i have no idea they would want that to happen) provide the options to users to enable t on or off.

as for pricing, thats a hifi gig to steal from people. i've owned an apple airport express for £60 for the last 20 years and streaming has been flawless. it just doesn't have option for an external dac. whereas the wiim does.

 

[Bismarck]

i have a 25year old £1500 theta pro progeney dac, that has worked with £1000 cd transports and £40 bluray players. everything i have ever attached has permenantly locked my dac from powet on. the wiim mini once booted can't even do this. that is not acceptable. with every unlock and relock i get a shed load of white noise followed by pops. the wiim at every turn, whether it be switching between phone applications, or changing album tracks, should not unlock the dac. even setting my phones volume to zero unlocks the dac. i have specified my dac at 44.1 and 16bit, as all my music is at this rate. in the absence of no sound or source the dac should always lock at that rate. that is the minimum it should do. after that, providing options for those who want their kit unlocked on no sound (although i have no idea they would want that to happen) provide the options to users to enable t on or off.

as for pricing, thats a hifi gig to steal from people. i've owned an apple airport express for £60 for the last 20 years and streaming has been flawless. it just doesn't have option for an external dac. whereas the wiim does.

BTW the Airport Express has an optical output which can be used with an external DAC…

 

[Mistabowjangles]

BTW the Airport Express has an optical output which can be used with an external DAC…

having owned one for 20years i can 100% assure you mune doesn't.

BTW the Airport Express has an optical output which can be used with an external DAc

BTW the Airport Express has an optical output which can be used with an external DAC…

having owned one for 20years i can 100% assure you mune doesn't

BTW the Airport Express has an optical output which can be used with an external DAC…

 

[Mistabowjangles]

ha. thanks i didn't appreciate it did. i guess 20yrs ago was more than impressed with its ability stream on command via analogue. and with no obvious spdif port assumed no optical out. so i shall order a mini toslink and see how it compares.

 

[Bismarck]

ha. thanks i didn't appreciate it did. i guess 20yrs ago was more than impressed with its ability stream on command via analogue. and with no obvious spdif port assumed no optical out. so i shall order a mini toslink and see how it compares.

I have 5 of them. The output port is a combo analog/mini toslink. The internal DAC is not so bad, but of course going optical to a good external DAC is completely another story...

 

[Mistabowjangles]

I have 5 of them. The output port is a combo analog/mini toslink. The internal DAC is not so bad, but of course going optical to a good external DAC is completely another story...

does it exhibt the same issues as wiim.

like in my case unlocking the dac on zero (phone volume) as it also does when switching between phone applications. does it hold a lock from boot ?

 

[Bismarck]

does it exhibt the same issues as wiim.

like in my case unlocking the dac on zero (phone volume) as it also does when switching between phone applications. does it hold a lock from boot ?

In my use case, I have never seen this behavior. But your mileage may vary...

 

[Mistabowjangles]

In my use case, I have never seen this behavior. But your mileage may vary...

and can you confirm this applies to the original v1 direct plug in express ?

 

[Bismarck]

and can you confirm this applies to the original v1 direct plug in express ?

As I already said, I have 5 Airport Express: 2 are of first-generation and 3 are of second-generation.
All of them are connected via optical output to external DACs and, of course, used as Airplay targets (Airplay 1 for the first-generation ones and Airplay 2 for the second-generation ones).
I have never heard popping or clicking when switching tracks, so I have never done any experiment about this.

 

[Mistabowjangles]

As I already said, I have 5 Airport Express: 2 are of first-generation and 3 are of second-generation.
All of them are connected via optical output to external DACs and, of course, used as Airplay targets (Airplay 1 for the first-generation ones and Airplay 2 for the second-generation ones).
I have never heard popping or clicking when switching tracks, so I have never done any experiment about this.

thanks.

 

[Mistabowjangles]

As I already said, I have 5 Airport Express: 2 are of first-generation and 3 are of second-generation.
All of them are connected via optical output to external DACs and, of course, used as Airplay targets (Airplay 1 for the first-generation ones and Airplay 2 for the second-generation ones).
I have never heard popping or clicking when switching tracks, so I have never done any experiment about this.

fired up my 2007 macbook checked out the airport utility and no sign of any config options for optical / analogue. it was 20 years ago, cant recall reading anything on optical out at the time. so with no config, i've assumed it was only ever analogue and i've let its do its thing ever since and never revisted it. so thx for that heads up.

 

[Mistabowjangles]

As I already said, I have 5 Airport Express: 2 are of first-generation and 3 are of second-generation.
All of them are connected via optical output to external DACs and, of course, used as Airplay targets (Airplay 1 for the first-generation ones and Airplay 2 for the second-generation ones).
I have never heard popping or clicking when switching tracks, so I have never done any experiment about this.

mini toslink came yesterday. 20yrs later it
all worked. thats when the good news ends

the bad news. airport express on no airplay signal does not lock my theta dac. so from every new play, when airplay goes low which generates a state of unlock (incl. boot) results in noise.

this seems to be a feature of airplay, and there doesn't appear to be a ios solution to keep airplay high. therefore any architecture looking to implement an airplay system must provide an active clock when no airplay is found at source. this was the early conclusion i came to with wiim and is with their 'engineers.

the various encoding and decoding delays in a.e, do appear to help with the white noise and pops etc when compared to the wiim thou.

 

[Bismarck]

mini toslink came yesterday. 20yrs later it
all worked. thats when the good news ends

the bad news. airport express on no airplay signal does not lock my theta dac. so from every new play, when airplay goes low which generates a state of unlock (incl. boot) results in noise.

this seems to be a feature of airplay, and there doesn't appear to be a ios solution to keep airplay high. therefore any architecture looking to implement an airplay system must provide an active clock when no airplay is found at source. this was the early conclusion i came to with wiim and is with their 'engineers.

the various encoding and decoding delays in a.e, do appear to help with the white noise and pops etc when compared to the wiim thou.

Yes, you are correct: when an AE does not playback anything, the optical output is paused.
I think this is normal behavior and, yes, also the Wiim operates similarly (after the standby timeout).
Such a behavior has no adverse effect on my DACs: they simply mute and that's all.
Hence, I am afraid that it is just your DAC to exhibit a strange behavior...

 

[onlyoneme]

Yes, you are correct: when an AE does not playback anything, the optical output is paused.
I think this is normal behavior and, yes, also the Wiim operates similarly (after the standby timeout).
Such a behavior has no adverse effect on my DACs: they simply mute and that's all.
Hence, I am afraid that it is just your DAC to exhibit a strange behavior...

SMSL PO100 Pro for example stays with digital output "on" and transmits empty samples. TVs usually stays "on" as well but mark samples as invalid.

 

[Mistabowjangles]

Yes, you are correct: when an AE does not playback anything, the optical output is paused.
I think this is normal behavior and, yes, also the Wiim operates similarly (after the standby timeout).
Such a behavior has no adverse effect on my DACs: they simply mute and that's all.
Hence, I am afraid that it is just your DAC to exhibit a strange behavior...

obviously not just my dac. otherwise this thread (as others) would only have my contributions, the evidence says otherwise.

a cd tansport locks my dac when not playing anything. no matter the the cost of the transport. my dac is doing exactly what is built to do.. a £40 bluray player when attached to my dac can manage this.

 

[Bismarck]

obviously not just my dac. otherwise this thread (as others) would only have my contributions, the evidence says otherwise.

a cd tansport locks my dac when not playing anything. no matter the the cost of the transport. my dac is doing exactly what is built to do.. a £40 bluray player when attached to my dac can manage this.

Out of curiosity, have you tried and set "Enter standby mode in" to "Never" ?
This should avoid that the Wiim digital output switches off when not playing anything...