Pops and Clicks in music with USB out on the WIIM Ultra

[Tilock]

I've been using a laptop to stream Tidal/Qobuz and a local lossless collection to my Yamaha CD-S2100 SACD player which has USB/COAX/OPT inputs and a 24/192 ESS DAC. Worked great except neither Tidal or Qobuz allow external control from a remote device so I was using Chrome remote desktop. Works alright but it's slow and has some bugs.

Picked up a WIIM Ultra during the black Friday sale to simplify things with the intention of using USB out to the Yamaha as before. Set it up which was nice and easy. Integrated it with my phone and tablet and was very happy with the interface. The DAC in the Yamaha picked up whatever sampling rate was playing and displays it on the display.

Listened to it last night using Qobuz and I thought I was occasionally hearing the occasional pop/click but the music was very busy and I wasn't 100% sure. There was the occasional obvious click during the quiet lead out which seemed to happen before switching tracks but I convinced myself it was the known issue of sampling rate switches when changing rates even though I had fade in/fade out enabled.

Then I came to a song (Eva Cassidy - Autumn Leave on the Nightbird album) that I've listened to a lot and has a lot of quiet passages. I heard pops that sounded just like you'd expect on a dirty record album. They are intermittent and don't always happen at the same time. It is not a drop out like you'd expect from jitter/sync issues but an additional sound over the rest of the music. There doesn't seem to be any general reduction in quality overall.
There is no EQ/ROOM correction enabled.
Testing done so far:

1. Played the hard copy CD album on the same CD player. Perfect.
2. Played the same song through Tidal using USB out on WIIM. Still has pops.
3. Reconnected the laptop using the same USB cord/input and ASIO drivers in the Qobuz app. Perfect. So it's not an issue with the DAC in the player.
4. Used the Optical out on the WIIM to optical in on the CD player. Perfect.
5. Changed the DPLL settings for the CD player DAC. No effect.
6. Changed the Vrms output in the WIIM. No effect.
7. Played the song on a completely different device through both tidal/Qobuz apps. Perfect.
8. Reset the WIIM and checked the USB connections. No effect.

I'm wondering if anyone else has run into this problem and if so if they found a fix? Given that the optical out is working fine it seems like the issue is isolated to the USB output on the WIIM. The song is normal CD quality 16/44.1kHz so the sample rate was the same between the two outputs.
I don't even know what could cause this type of corruption of the signal with digital data.

Thanks for your time!

 

[harkpabst]

Sounds strange. Do you happen to also use the USB input, so there's any USB hub in place?

If not, send feedback to WiiM through the WiiM Home app (from the "More" tab). Maybe there is something to be found in the device logs.

 

[Tilock]

Sounds strange. Do you happen to also use the USB input, so there's any USB hub in place?

If not, send feedback to WiiM through the WiiM Home app (from the "More" tab). Maybe there is something to be found in the device logs.

No, no inputs at all being used and only the single output. Same cable that I used from laptop to CD player DAC. I agree. It's very strange. I'm not even sure how it's possible considering how the data transfer should work but I'm 100% sure it's happening.

 

[Tilock]

I've recorded the sound with my UMIK-1 mic. Listen to the silence just before she sings "The falling leaves..." the optical recording is clean but there's a distinct pop in the USB output recording. Note that the pops aren't in the same place every time but this is what I'm hearing.

WIIM – Google Drive

drive.google.com

 

[harkpabst]

Just listening to the downloaded WAV files through my phone right now, using Hi-Fi Cast. The pop is very obvious.

It sounds like the sound is somewhat muted right before the pop occurs, which is further puzzling me.

While the root source of the issue should certainly be discovered (and hopefully fixed): What's the particular reason to route the Ultra's output through the CD-S2100 and not the other way around?

 

[Tilock]

Just listening to the downloaded WAV files through my phone right now, using Hi-Fi Cast. The pop is very obvious.

It sounds like the sound is somewhat muted right before the pop occurs, which is further puzzling me.

While the root source of the issue should certainly be discovered (and hopefully fixed): What's the particular reason to route the Ultra's output through the CD-S2100 and not the other way around?

I like the DAC implementation in the CD-S2100 better. It has a much more robust power supply as well(it retails for $3000USD). I recently did a comparison of the SMSL DO300EX, SMSL DO100 and Topping E70 to the DAC in the Yamaha and while they were all very good and very similar when the volume was increased they all ended up sounding brighter and more sibilant than the Yamaha. I did a little experiment to justify this subjective opinion and without looking at the volume levels increased them individually to the point where the sound became irritating and hard to listen I checked the dB level at my listening position. Every time I was able to increase the volume from the yamaha the most. The rest of the positions was mostly random between the others with the DO300X coming second 3 out of 5 times. I started with the levels matched and left the volume fixed(or disabled) at the DACs using my pre-amp to change the volume.

 

[harkpabst]

... when the volume was increased they all ended up sounding brighter and more sibilant than the Yamaha

Surprising. Did you do a similar test with the Ultra?

 

[Tilock]

Surprising. Did you do a similar test with the Ultra?

No, I haven't had a chance to test with the Ultra. I believe it's using the same standard implementation of the ESS9038Q2M DAC chip as the ESS9039Q2M that the SMSL DO100 uses though. My testing obviously wasn't perfect since I knew which DAC was playing when I did it so it's possible my opinion is wrong but at the very least I could not detect any deficiencies in the Yamaha DAC so why replace it. I bought the ULTRA purely to replace the laptop as a streamer and possibly play around with the room correction.

The yamaha has completely separate and isolated power supply sections for the digital and analogue sections and custom single stage I/V conversion circuit. Which might explain the differences.

 

[harkpabst]

I bought the ULTRA purely to replace the laptop as a streamer and possibly play around with the room correction.

Perfectly valid approach.

If your Ultra and the CD-S2001 don't get along well, then the WiiM Pro would have served the same purpose (no USB out there).

 

[Tilock]

Perfectly valid approach.

If your Ultra and the CD-S2001 don't get along well, then the WiiM Pro would have served the same purpose (no USB out there).

I agree. The main reason I went with the ultra were USB output and frankly the looks/screen. If you remove the USB then I would have bought the PRO.