signal from Zenith III?

[Willard]

I am having troubles with the active speakers (Dynaudio Focus 10s) to which my Zenith Mk III is connected via a Cat 6 cable. Sporadically, from time to time, the main Focus loses or drops the signal. The Dynaudio advisor has asked me to make sure that the signal coming to it is a standard PCM digital signal - 24 bit / 44.1, 48, 96, 192 Khz. Is this the case always for the Zenith? Forgive my technical ignorance! The Dynaudio man tells me that if the Focus receives anything it is not prepared to handle, a cutout like this will happen. Hence his question. I'd be VERY surprised if the Zenith were misbehaving, much less so if interference via the Cat 6 were the culprit.

Information and/or suggestions would be most welcome.

Willard

 

[Stephen Healy]

I am having troubles with the active speakers (Dynaudio Focus 10s) to which my Zenith Mk III is connected via a Cat 6 cable. Sporadically, from time to time, the main Focus loses or drops the signal. The Dynaudio advisor has asked me to make sure that the signal coming to it is a standard PCM digital signal - 24 bit / 44.1, 48, 96, 192 Khz. Is this the case always for the Zenith? Forgive my technical ignorance! The Dynaudio man tells me that if the Focus receives anything it is not prepared to handle, a cutout like this will happen. Hence his question. I'd be VERY surprised if the Zenith were misbehaving, much less so if interference via the Cat 6 were the culprit.

Information and/or suggestions would be most welcome.

Willard

Hi Willard, if the only connection between the ZENith and Focus 10s is Cat 6, then no - that's not a PCM signal, its just a network data connection, so i assume you are using either UPnP or perhaps Roon for the actual playback control.
The only PCM digital inputs that i can see on the Dynaudios are the Coaxial and Optical inputs. The problem here is that the ZENith only has USB out, so you would need a DDC (Digital-Digital-Convertor) to turn USB into either Coaxial or Optical.
But this should not really be necessary, the Dynaudios appear to be DLNA streaming devices, so their own app should see the ZENith as a UPnP server, or as i say perhaps you are using Roon and this should also be fine.
Also keep in mind that if the speakers are wirelessly connected to one another, and do not have an interlinking cable between them, then maximum resolution supported is 24/96 - anything higher will likely drop out or simply not play.

 

[Willard]

Thanks, Stephen, very much. I have configured the Zenith for UPnP, which the Dynaudios accept. I do have a cable (Chord) linking the speakers for precisely the reason you give. I'm still chasing the problem of an occasional dropout of 3-5 seconds. My Dynaudio advisor suggested I make sure the main speaker is on the right so that the commands sent from the primary to the secondary don't falter. I'll see if that makes a difference.

 

[Stephen Healy]

Thanks, Stephen, very much. I have configured the Zenith for UPnP, which the Dynaudios accept. I do have a cable (Chord) linking the speakers for precisely the reason you give. I'm still chasing the problem of an occasional dropout of 3-5 seconds. My Dynaudio advisor suggested I make sure the main speaker is on the right so that the commands sent from the primary to the secondary don't falter. I'll see if that makes a difference.

Thanks for the extra information. Can't quite account for the dropouts unless this is due to network issues. To make sure i understand:
Dynaudio Main Speakers is connected by Cat6 to ZENith STREAMER 'port'?
And the ZENith LAN port has an Ethernet going back to your router, or a switch?

 

[Willard]

Dear Stephen, thanks some more! You've got the facts: Dynaudio main speaker connected by ethernet Cat 6 to the streamer port of the Innuos; the Innuos is connected by ethernet from its LAN port to my router (actually a node in my mesh network). The mesh software (ASUS Zen) reports and excellent connection to the router. Additional: this evening no dropouts for the TV optical connection to the Dynaudio, no dropouts for the music sent from the Innuos. The change was to move the primary speaker to the right, secondary to the left, as advised. I'll be withholding my judgment for a day or two more.

 

[Willard]

Further report. A very helpful audio engineer at Dynaudio advised me to change the sound output signal of the LG TV from auto to PCM; subsequently no further dropouts from that source. I moved the speakers as he directed; dropouts from the Innuos are now greatly reduced in number but still occur. He speculated that the Innuos might be sending signals the Focus cannot handle, that is > 192 kHz. Testing with a sound track Sense tells me is 44.1 kHz produced a dropout on one playing but did not on three subsequent ones. I'm inclined seriously to doubt that the Innuos could send any high-frequency spikes. Does the finger point to the cat 6 cable?

 

[Willard]

Addendum to the previous, and getting way out of my depth. The Dynaudio man points out that the Focus requires PCM; the offending tack, like much of my audio collection is FLAC. He wants to know if the Innuos can output PCM. Would converting my FLAC files to WAV be a solution? Or am I looking at an additional piece of hardware? I hope these are interesting questions!

 

[Stephen Healy]

Okay, a few things being conflated here I'll try to explain.
TV Audio: In this context 'PCM' i suspect is just two-channel (2.0 or 2.1) which the Dynaudios can process. 'Auto' would have been trying to play 5.1, which probably is incompatible.
WAV/FLAC - these are just containers, when played they are both delivered in a PCM format but only when using the USB output on the ZENith.

The point here is that my original reply is still relevant; PCM playback from the ZENith can only be achieved out of the USB output. The Dynaudios have no USB input. Thus, you need a DDC converter. Something as basic as this would technically do the job, though you can indeed buy more 'HiFi' ones:

AU-D6-384 - USB to Coax Digital Audio Converter: 24-bit 384kHz - CYP

The USB Digital Audio Converter is specially designed to take the audio output from a USB Audio Class 2.0 source such as a Laptop or PC and convert it to high quality 2 channel linear PCM coaxial digital output (S/PDIF) for use with an external amplifier or active speakers with a coaxial digital...

cypeurope.com

 

[Willard]

Dear Stephen,
Continuing thanks. And yet... It seems that when in the Sense app I configure the Dynaudio UPnP streamer's setting with the Hegel H390 profile -- which I stumbled on less than a hour ago -- I get flawless results. I am beginning to wonder if the Dynaudio advisor is oversimplifying for my benefit, or I am simply misunderstanding. Something somewhere is getting lost in translation. Ultimately all that matters to me is that the system works, as it is doing now so very well, though I do want to understand what is involved. Apologies for my misunderstandings and confusions. I wonder, is a 'Dynaudio Focus' profile a possibility?

 

[Stephen Healy]

Dear Stephen,
Continuing thanks. And yet... It seems that when in the Sense app I configure the Dynaudio UPnP streamer's setting with the Hegel H390 profile -- which I stumbled on less than a hour ago -- I get flawless results. I am beginning to wonder if the Dynaudio advisor is oversimplifying for my benefit, or I am simply misunderstanding. Something somewhere is getting lost in translation. Ultimately all that matters to me is that the system works, as it is doing now so very well, though I do want to understand what is involved. Apologies for my misunderstandings and confusions. I wonder, is a 'Dynaudio Focus' profile a possibility?

To be honest i did find it curious that the Focus only accepted PCM - i rather strongly doubted that, as all these kinds of wireless speakers usually have streaming support (AKA not PCM) which is why i did ask originally which control app you were using. Indeed, SenseUPnP should hopefully work fine as well. A profile just for the Focus may be possible if it turns out there are specific setting alterations needed, but if it flawless as you say then probably a 'don't fix what ain't broke' approach is fine and use the Default Profile which is our best attempt at a 'one size fits all' profile.

 

[Willard]

Thanks again. So far so good--with the Hegel H390 profile. I began with the Default profile but experienced dropouts with it, so began experimenting with the others. So far (emphasis here) performance with the Hegel has been flawless. But I'm thinking that it might be a good idea to come up with a profile named 'Dynaudio Focus', perhaps identical to the Hegel, perhaps tweaked, if only to save Focus owners the hassle I've experienced. I admit it's been fun, but other others' mileage might differ.

 

[Stephen Healy]

Thanks again. So far so good--with the Hegel H390 profile. I began with the Default profile but experienced dropouts with it, so began experimenting with the others. So far (emphasis here) performance with the Hegel has been flawless. But I'm thinking that it might be a good idea to come up with a profile named 'Dynaudio Focus', perhaps identical to the Hegel, perhaps tweaked, if only to save Focus owners the hassle I've experienced. I admit it's been fun, but other others' mileage might differ.

It's worth caveating that SenseUPnP is somewhat experimental. In a normal UPnP streaming situation, it is the job of the renderer (Focus 10s) to supply a control app and 'pull' the music files from a UPnP server (ZENith). In an effort to bring convenience to our customers who preferred Sense over other apps, we tried to reverse this process so that the server via its own app (Sense) can 'push' audio to UPnP receivers (like the Focus 10s). Largely this works okay, but it's not quite how UPnP is meant to work which is why you have some of these stability issues. We are planning a revision to the SenseUPnP framework in forthcoming software update 3.1. Appreciate the feedback about results with your Dynaudios nonetheless.

 

[Willard]

The Sense app, like the Zenith hardware, is brilliantly designed. I cannot adequately express how delighted (i.e. blown away) I am by the music that results. It's a quantum leap beyond what came out of the Focus speakers when the music was being pulled from a network NAS I was using. Bravo!