[bakufu]

my source set up consists of a salk streamplayer III running roon server feeding a schiit yggdrasil dac.

over the last few weeks i've had some odd behavior:  on attempting to play a high-res file (anything > cd resolution) the roon status bar will race through the disk (1-2 seconds) and not play the music.  after some experimentation i've provisionally concluded that the USB cable was the culprit, although why this should affect only high-res files and only intermittently i have no idea.

has anyone else experienced similar problems?  am i mistaken in my analysis of the cause?  can USB cables fail in this way?

[newzooreview]

Yes, data moving via USB Audio is transmitted through the USB cable as an analogue signal with no error correction. USB Audio is not the same as data moving to and from a hard drive, where error correction is part of the standard and the devices can resend bits that don't come through correctly. USB Audio is time-sensitive, so no error correction is used. The USB receiver in the DAC has to correctly identify each bit and reconstitute a digital signal that goes to the DAC.

So a bad USB cable will often cause errors with high-res files while handling lower resolution files ok. The USB receiver chip in the DAC needs to identify a lot more Start of Frame markers for every second of playback in a high-res file compared to a low-res file, so a USB cable with a bit of noise in the high frequencies can cause the DAC to hiccup and fail even though it can still manage low-res playback.

You could certainly try a new cable, but there is always the possibility that the USB output on the SalkStreamer or the USB receiver chip in the DAC is starting to fail.

Have you updated the SalkStreamer to be compatible with the current Roon version? I recall a thread on the Salk forum about doing that since the latest Roon version required something to be updated in the SalkStreamer.

[newzooreview]

Positive Feedback solicited technical explanations from a variety of USB cable makers which gives a fuller and more accurate explanation.

https://positive-feedback.com/audio-discourse/why-usb-cables-can-make-a-difference/

[bakufu]

thanks for the detailed explanation.

yes, i have applied the latest roon update to the salk player.

i also swapped out the USB cable i've been using and with very limited testing the problem seems to have disappeared.

if this was in fact the cause, it would be the first time i've had a cable failure in any of my equipment.

[newzooreview]

I hope that takes care of it.

I've never had a bad USB cable cause problems, but I've had dropouts/failure to play for high-res files in my Roon setup. It was resolved by moving my Roon server from a Mac Mini to a dedicated Roon ROCK server. In that case as well the CD quality files played just fine.

Happy listening! 

[bakufu]

i hope so too.  i hate the idea of having a USB port fail.  i thought that might have happened to my m1 mac mini, which would have reduced direct USB connection by half, this version of the mini having only two USB ports (what a stupid decision on apple's part.)  fortunately i was able to bring it back to life by resetting the SMC.  btw, i'm very satisfied with the salk server.

[Mike-48]

i also swapped out the USB cable i've been using and with very limited testing the problem seems to have disappeared. if this was in fact the cause, it would be the first time i've had a cable failure in any of my equipment.

It does happen. I pulled my hair out for a week before I found a bad Ethernet cable causing audio trouble. Another time, there was intermittent distortion in one channel that was near impossible to track down. It was a bad weld in a Blue Jeans speaker cable. They fixed it for me (while oddly claiming there was no problem), and when it came back, it was just fine.

Cable problems are indeed rare, and that's what makes them so difficult to find. They are not the first thing to come to mind.