Moment of clarity here. All I did was send a couple emails. If anything your hard work bringing the issue to their attention and documenting a likely fix spurred them to action (I'm guessing they didn't knock this out in the time I was emailing them). All I likely accomplished is spurring them to respond. Regardless, good news for all.
Well, here's some news. I tried streaming a ripped SACD and it worked with the old A6 just fine. No crackles or pops. I then tried a different transport (Cambridge Audio 651BD - same architecture as the Oppo BDP-93). No pops or crackles on DSD. So, it appears the issue sits somewhere at the intersection of my old Oppo BDP-83 and the Eversolo A6. It appears the A6 DSD implementation isn't fundamentally flawed as it works just fine with streamed DSD content. It's also fine with DOP stripped from HDMI with the CA transport. The Chinese DOP extraction box appears to work just fine. I don't know if the issue is some flaw specifically in my BDP-83, all BDP-83s, or Oppos in general. It wouldn't appear to be the Mediatek chipset at least as implemented in the 651bd. Further I don't know that the issue is NOT the DPLL bandwidth in the ESS chipset, as I haven't yet had the chance to test the BDP-83 with another DAC that had the ESS DPLL adjustment implemented. It's entirely possible that it would correct the issue I experienced with DSD output from my BDP-83. So anyhow, if anyone has any additional information on what does/doesn't work, I'd love to hear it.
I'm disappointed to report the DPLL bandwidth adjustments did not fix the intermittent noise issue when feeding the A6 DoP via coax input. Back to the drawing board for me. For background, I am the DoP is coming from an Oppo 103 modded with a Vanity 103HD board that takes the DSD digital signal from the SACD directly and wraps it in a PCM shell to send DoP out of the Oppo.
How did you adjust DPLL bandwidth? I'm guessing this is an Oppo issue, then. Best bet migbt be to try a different transport with the Chinese (or other) extractor.
The DPLL bandwidth adjustment was included in the latest update. I'm not home right now but I believe it was in audio settings/RCA output/DPLL. If anyone is near their A6 they could check this for us.
This is MAJOR good news and I had also been feedback'ing (and documenting it in DMP-A6 and 6ch HDMI out experience) the issue to EverSolo ever since I bought my A6. Must try ASAP!
It is already available in the latest official FW 1.4.01? or should I wait for the next round of updates?
Fired the system up today, and what do you know, even with the Cambridge player in the pops and crackles are back. Cranked up the DPLL bandwidth for DSD to 15, still no love - pops and crackles. No idea why they disappeared for a bit but they're back. Doesn't appear to be an Oppo issue after all. Dammit.
Yeah I didn't detect any difference in any of the DPLL settings at all. Hopefully Eversolo is still working it out and it will/could still be effective in the future.
I have better results when I start the OPPO first, put it in HDMI IN mode and then start the EverSolo. The OPPO must be actively waiting for a HDMI handshake instead of popping up unexpectedly -- if turned on after the A6. But after ~15mn of playing several 5.1ch tracks from various albums last night, the clicks came back even though the HDMI DSD Multi-ch was not re-negotiated.
I'm curious as to your connection chain with the Oppo and DMP-A6. Are you connecting the HDMI output of the DMP-A6 to the HDMI in of the Oppo? Is there an HDMI extractor in the connection chain? I thought you were playing DSD files from ripped SACDs with a hard drive.
OK, got it. Kind of a different problem from what we're trying to achieve. Mjay71 and I are trying to use an external player as a SACD transport, output DSD via HDMI, extract the DSD as DoP, and feed it into the A6. The two of us are using 3 different transports and two different extractors. We're getting a DSD signal to the A6, which displays the right DSD signal when playing, but we're getting pops and crackles in the sound which are NOT evident sending PCM (and using the same extractor to pull that from HDMI). The working hypothesis is that there's a defect in the A6 DAC implementation that's creating the problem. People have reported this setup working with other DACs, so it's not unreasonable. Strange that you're hearing pops and crackles using the 205 as the DAC. What's your DSD source? Is it local files or streaming? Have you tried the A6 DAC for decoding those? Do you get pops & crackles when playing SACDs on the 205? I get no pops/crackles when using a non-physical SACD source of DSD and using the A6 DAC. To my mind this kind of raises the question as to whether the issue isn't the DAC in the A6, but possibly something in the signal path that's introducing the issue if sending a signal out introduces pops & crackles as well...
Oh wow, I really didn't get it! That sounds quite convoluted. Why not simply rip the SACDs with the 103 and play them directly from the A6 as ISO or DSD files? As for me, I do not use the DAC in the A6 at all, only the USB and HDMI out with the internal player with 2 external DACs (stereo and multi-ch). The A6 wouldn't decode multi-ch DSD anyway, it would only allow 2ch replay.
People always ask that. There's a subset of us for whom flipping through discs and dropping physical media into a player is quite satisfying. The difficulty of getting this to work as intended is starting to sway me toward ripping them, though. I'm running a dedicated 2 ch system so I'm always combining down to 2 ch.
I like physical media too (got a bunch of vinyls) but I'm also considering that OPPO is out of business for years now. Using the optical block of my OPPOs will age them faster than using them only when really needed. Ripping+streaming is one way to keep them alive and useful a little longer. It's a trade-off. And with ripping you get zero jitter, it's a file in RAM.
I have a large collection of DVD-A, CD, Blu-ray Audio and SACD discs. I'd seen mention of ripping the discs for a number of years and totally dismissed it. Thought playing discs was the best and only way. Then I started with ripping my SACDs with my 103 and putting all of the files on hard drives. Then I figured out how to rip DVD-A and Blu-ray discs along with CDs. I have many of my favorite albums in all of these formats (stereo and multichannel) ripped but have a ways to go. Now it's so easy to play my favorite albums with the DMP-A6. Just pickup my iPhone and 100's of albums are right there. So much easier than looking through my media closet for a disc that I can't recall where it was stored. So for me it was well worth the effort of ripping the discs and the sound quality is just as good IMO. As @GeNeRiKz mentioned the wear and tear saved on my Marantz SA-KI Ruby (stereo) and Oppo 203 (multichannel) is great as well.
