Popping noises with usb dac

[ddgtr]

Hello everyone,

Here is my problem: I am trying to stream FLAC files from my laptop or desktop running XP and foobar2000 via usb to a Bryston BDA1 DAC then on to a preamp and 2 channel amp.

I get these little popping noises at irregular intervals. Same thing happens with both my laptop and destop, but not with my wife's laptop. Did some research and others were saying to disable other usb devices on the usb bus, I went in the Device manager section and did that, plus killed some processes to no avail. Even disabled all wireless cards, etc...

Can someone point me in the right direction as far as what specifically might cause this and how I can fix it??

Thank you very much in advance!

 

[Remeniz]

I used to get the same thing when I reduce the buffer size to reduce the latency when working with audio software. Although this was on an old PC and part of the reason why I upgraded to a faster spec.

I'm not familiar with this particular DAC but I understand how they work and what can happen if your computer cannot work quickly enough to fill the audio buffers with digital audio infomation, to be processed by the DAC chips. And this usually happens when you ask the DAC to work at high sample rates or reduce latency by reducing the buffer sizes.

Check your settings and see if you make adjustments. Because you have to compromise between audio sample rates/buffer sizes and latency.

EDIT:

In fact i've just read the specs of this nice piece of equipment.

Here...

And i'd say drop the sampling frequency down to 44.1K and play audio through it while increasing the sampling frequency until you get audio drop outs.

When you get the drop outs thats your limit.

 

[ddgtr]

Remeniz, thank you so much for the help. Some of the stuff you are talking about is way over my technical level... Here is how I have foobar 2000 set up:
buffer length is 1410ms (they recommend 1000 to 2000), output data at 16bit (have the choice to do it at 24 and 32bit also), target sampling is set at 44.1k.

I cannot do much with my Bryston dac in terms of changing settings. All I have available is a choice to upsample usb input or not. Tried it both ways with same result.

Any suggestions? Thanks again!

 

[Remeniz]

Whats the specs of your desktop and laptop?

 

[ddgtr]

dual core intel pentium, 2gb ram, 400gig hard drive hp pavilion desktop, built in realtek sound card