Delay on audio playback with FiiO e10 USB DAC

Question

Hello,
My USB DAC playback is not working correctly. When I start the playback of any music stream, it takes a while (around a second or less) before I actually hear anything. The problem also occurs if short silent periods are present in the audio file/stream. The only way I can listen these problematic files/streams without the skipping is by keeping the master channel active all the time by playing some other audio along with problematic stream.
I have had this problem on openSUSE 12.3 too, and I was not able to solve it there either.
On Windows 7, however, this very same problem occurs only if I choose to use any of the 24 bit audio depth settings for the DAC.
Here is a screenshot to demonstrate the Windows scenario:
http://s10.postimg.org/xzwx302jd/fiio_delay.png
I have been trying out various things things without success, such as:
From Arch's PulseAudio wiki:
- Glitches, skips or crackling
- Setting the default fragment number and buffer size in PulseAudio
- Laggy sound
- Realtime scheduling
Here is some general information about my current Arch system and sound settings:
OS: Arch Linux x86_64
Kernel Release: 3.14.1-1-ARCH
WM: KWin
DE: KDE
Processor Type: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz
Sound settings: ALSA + PulseAudio
This problem did exist even before I installed Pulseaudio.
aplay -l :
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC898 Analog [ALC898 Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 1: ALC898 Digital [ALC898 Digital]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 9: HDMI 3 [HDMI 3]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 3: Audio [DigiHug USB Audio], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 3: Audio [DigiHug USB Audio], device 1: USB Audio [USB Audio #1]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
pacmd list-cards (the last entry only)
index: 3
name: <alsa_card.usb-FiiO_DigiHug_USB_Audio-01-Audio>
driver: <module-alsa-card.c>
owner module: 9
properties:
alsa.card = "3"
alsa.card_name = "DigiHug USB Audio"
alsa.long_card_name = "FiiO DigiHug USB Audio at usb-0000:07:00.0-2, full speed"
alsa.driver_name = "snd_usb_audio"
device.bus_path = "pci-0000:07:00.0-usb-0:2:1.1"
sysfs.path = "/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.7/0000:07:00.0/usb5/5-2/5-2:1.1/sound/card3"
udev.id = "usb-FiiO_DigiHug_USB_Audio-01-Audio"
device.bus = "usb"
device.vendor.id = "1852"
device.vendor.name = "GYROCOM C&C Co., LTD"
device.product.id = "7022"
device.product.name = "DigiHug USB Audio"
device.serial = "FiiO_DigiHug_USB_Audio"
device.string = "3"
device.description = "DigiHug USB Audio"
module-udev-detect.discovered = "1"
device.icon_name = "audio-card-usb"
profiles:
output:analog-stereo: Analog Stereo Output (priority 6000, available: unknown)
output:iec958-stereo: Digital Stereo (IEC958) Output (priority 5500, available: unknown)
off: Off (priority 0, available: unknown)
active profile: <output:iec958-stereo>
sinks:
alsa_output.usb-FiiO_DigiHug_USB_Audio-01-Audio.iec958-stereo/#0: DigiHug USB Audio Digital Stereo (IEC958)
sources:
alsa_output.usb-FiiO_DigiHug_USB_Audio-01-Audio.iec958-stereo.monitor/#1: Monitor of DigiHug USB Audio Digital Stereo (IEC958)
ports:
analog-output: Analog Output (priority 9900, latency offset 0 usec, available: unknown)
properties:
iec958-stereo-output: Digital Output (S/PDIF) (priority 0, latency offset 0 usec, available: unknown)
properties:
.asoundrc :
pcm.!default {
type hw
card 3
ctl.!default {
type hw
card 3
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Last edited by voodur (2014-04-23 22:24:35)

Answer 1

emeres wrote:Does this behaviour continue with pulseaudio killed? Use alsa directly to narrow the problem down first.
Yes. It did exist even before I installed pulseaudio.
emeres wrote:Check different resolutions, sample rates and channels. Try to determine the lowest buffer and period size, that the DAC accepts.
If by this you mean this, I went through that guide and it did not make any difference.
I found out that sometimes some audio formats, such as wav or mp3 do not produce this flaw. I gathered stats about this here. VLC was used for playback and displaying the information. Amarok behaves similarly.
emeres wrote: You probably load snd-usb-audio module with no options. Try loading it with "nrpacks" using different settings (default is 8, try 1, 2).
I am not sure if this is the way to do it, but I followed this guide and added file: "usbsound.conf" to "/etc/modprobe.d/". usbsound.conf has line: "options snd_usb_audio nrpacks=2". I tried changing the nrpacks to various values and booted after every change, but it did not make difference to the audio skipping.
What could it be that .xm (and every other tracker music format) and .ogg files are not playing like mp3 or wav?
Sorry for delayed reply and about that image
Last edited by voodur (2014-05-06 12:37:57)