McIntosh d1100 USB
 

Anybody here using USB input on their d1100? If you are, I would love to know if it works perfectly for you, or if you have any issues. I am facing two minor issues

1) When playing any album, roughly the first half second is lost

2) When playing an album, transitioning between tracks has intermittent issues. Specifically, sometimes at the end of one track and before the next, the DAC loses lock on the signal. When this happens, I lose the very first part of that next track, similar to issue 1. This only happens between some tracks and on some albums, but I can reproduce it readily with many different albums.

I have done a lot of testing. I have tried Windows with the McIntosh ASIO driver, Apple MacBook Air, and also my raspberry pi acting as Roon Bridge. I have tried several software packages as well. They all have the same issue. One exception is that when using JRiver, if I change the settings so that it adds 2 seconds of silence at start, it seemingly solves the first problem, but not the second. Also, I am not a JRiver user, and don’t want to be.

I would love to hear mostly what other people’s experiences are with the d1100 USB input. Mine runs firmware 1.02 and is controlled by my c1100, although it behaves identically in pre-amp mode also.

Thank You.

I use MCD1100’s DAC via USB a lot. I don’t know whether/how MCD1100 and D1100’s DAC+USB implementations are related, but they might be related, so I would like to share my experience here.

The issue I am facing is a very faint whistle like noise from inside the machine, between two tracks, in USB mode.

It seems to me that the DAC does some “reset” operation between tracks, because I hear the exact same sound when turning the “input” knob.

Sometimes this behavior is due to how the album is ripped. Ripping software and settings chosen when ripping can produce these issues. Can you expand further on the albums that you mention?

Well, for issue #1, all albums. Here are 3 great test albums, where missing the first half second is very obvious

- Beatles - Please Please Me (You miss part of the 1,2,3,foooowa!)
- Beatles - Hard Day’s Night (First part of iconic chord)
- AC/DC - Highway to Hell

Issue 2 is all over the map. I will also mention that my previously owned Bryston BDA3 had neither of the issues. Same hardware, same software. All my CD’s were ripped bit perfect with dbPwerAMP. It also happens with high resolution downloads, and DSD sources from my SACD rips, so it is not a rip specific file problem

I have done all the tshoot one can possibly do, so this isn’t even really just about that. I genuinely want to know if I am the odd guy out here, or if this is simply how the DAC behaves.

Thanks,

Joey

McIntosh d1100 USB
 

Issue #1 is normal operation for D1100. Mine does same thing.

And I betcha all current McIntosh DACs.

IIRC, basically this is McIntosh’s “fix” for the issue of different sample rates from successive songs hitting the dac which causes (or may cause) some sort of artifact, I believe a chirp or some other type of digital noise. They chose to truncate the first milliseconds (half a second??) so this digital artifact is not reproduced.

It is annoying but I’m used to it now. This is NOT isolated to USB but occurs with coaxial and AES too in my system.

I will have to check and see if MCT connection is same thing.

McIntosh d1100 USB
 

It has absolutely nothing to do with your rips.

Chirp, yes that’s what I heard. And I agree it’s not related to the gap settings of CD ripping, because I have the same issue when streaming Tidal.

I have the D1100 and I noticed this behavior as well. Interestingly enough, The Beatles were also part of my troubleshooting

In my testing, I only found issues in albums that were ripped from CD using EAC, dbPoweramp, etc. Filesets purchased from HDtracks, 7digital, etc had no skipping or transition issues. I have seen the DAC lose lock on these filesets, but it doesn't affect the audio at all.

If your Bryston had perfect playback on the album's you mention, then I guess this is how the D1100 DAC behaves .

Thanks. What is your experience with behavior between tracks? BTW, we have nearly identical system, nice!

Do you have the issue when spinning CDs and SACDs?