McIntosh d1100 USB

[j3brow]

I will have to check and report back. I’m not home at the moment. I can’t recall if it happens with the MCT input on D1100 which is how I connect my spinner, MCT450, to my D1100.

[joey_corleoni]

Originally Posted by brownbear

Do you have the issue when spinning CDs and SACDs?

For the record, I don’t have the issue when spinning physical CD, but I use optical for that. I don’t have a McIntosh SACD transport to try. So, for me the issues are isolated to USB, which is what I use to play 100% of my digital music. I only tried a physical CD player to be thorough.

Joey

[brownbear]

I don't have the issue with physical CD either, I use a coax connection here.

Over USB, I guess I'm lucky to only get this issue once in a blue moon. The Beatles US Albums (Beatles 65) rip comes to mind as having this issue, but the same album (almost)on the Beatles in Stereo rip or Beatles in Mono rip does not have the issue on my system. The "I'm a" on I'm a Loser is cut off on only 1 of the 3 versions.

[j3brow]

It does it with MCT input too. Every track. It doesn’t matter the input.

It is simply built into the DAC. It mutes the output when it encounters silence .... between tracks or when skipping tracks.

The only reason you don’t hear it EVERY time is because the song starts in such a fashion where the mastering or actual notes are not there during that brief McDAC mute.

If you listen close you can pick it out on many tracks.

For instance, I just picked Tom Petty’s Wildflowers album via MCT450 (MCT cable). It’s most notable on track 5, “It’s Good to be King”. That track immediately starts with a cymbal crash which is completely absent when played back on the D1100.

Steamed it via Spotify on my phone to confirm the missing cymbal.

I can also hear the unmuting as a subtle “slurring” of the leading edge of first notes when a new track starts. Listen for it, you will hear it.

I knew this going in on my purchase and I am still glad I own the D1100. In the end, it doesn’t ruin my experience, quite the opposite, the D1100 sounds splendid!!

[joey_corleoni]

Originally Posted by j3brow

It does it with MCT input too. Every track. It doesn’t matter the input.

It is simply built into the DAC. It mutes the output when it encounters silence .... between tracks or when skipping tracks.

The only reason you don’t hear it EVERY time is because the song starts in such a fashion where the mastering or actual notes are not there during that brief McDAC mute.

If you listen close you can pick it out on many tracks.

For instance, I just picked Tom Petty’s Wildflowers album via MCT450 (MCT cable). It’s most notable on track 5, “It’s Good to be King”. That track immediately starts with a cymbal crash which is completely absent when played back on the D1100.

Steamed it via Spotify on my phone to confirm the missing cymbal.

I can also hear the unmuting as a subtle “slurring” of the leading edge of first notes when a new track starts. Listen for it, you will hear it.

I knew this going in on my purchase and I am still glad I own the D1100. In the end, it doesn’t ruin my experience, quite the opposite, the D1100 sounds splendid!!

Thank you for the feedback. I agree with you 100% that the d1100 sounds awesome, especially paired with the c1100. I really like the sound of the DAC. Sadly, I'm struggling with this. I am an album guy. This is distracting from the album experience. It may be a deal breaker for me.

Maybe I am a perfectionist, naive, or whatever you want to call it, but I personally expect a reference DAC in this class and price point to be pretty perfect when it comes to playback. The ability to play albums without missing fractions of a second on all available inputs seems to be a pretty basic expectation. I know that I put a lot of effort, time, and money into achieving bit perfect playback. That all goes out the window, as soon as you start missing the start of tracks.

Looking forward to hearing other people's experiences.

[brownbear]

Originally Posted by joey_corleone

Thank you for the feedback. I agree with you 100% that the d1100 sounds awesome, especially paired with the c1100. I really like the sound of the DAC. Sadly, I'm struggling with this. I am an album guy. This is distracting from the album experience. It may be a deal breaker for me.

Maybe I am a perfectionist, naive, or whatever you want to call it, but I personally expect a reference DAC in this class and price point to be pretty perfect when it comes to playback. The ability to play albums without missing fractions of a second on all available inputs seems to be a pretty basic expectation. I know that I put a lot of effort, time, and money into achieving bit perfect playback. That all goes out the window, as soon as you start missing the start of tracks.

Looking forward to hearing other people's experiences.

I agree. Why would they choose a fix for sample rate changes among successive tracks over albums with the same sampling rate? I'm with you Joey in that I listen to albums as opposed to songs on shuffle. To have the issue on physical CD and SACD playback is even more crazy, although I have yet to hear a song on CD where the note starts right at 00. I can't wait to find one a try it though.

That being said, I am going to check out some of the tracks mentioned here and report back my findings.

[benmoree]

Originally Posted by j3brow

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.

Found this from a review of the D1100 when a reviewer noticed a similar behavior. I hope this helps.

Manufacturer's Comment: "The “fade-in” issue described in the review is a result of the DAC chip being used for both PCM and DSD audio. If the fade in was not present, DSD tracks could make a popping sound when they started playing. To avoid this, a very minute fade in was added."

[Cajunpepe]

It does it with my MCT450 connected using the MCT connector, but not a coax cable. It is annoying and Mac knows about the issue.

It is unacceptable that an $11k dac/transport combo can’t properly play a cd or sacd without cutting off the first 1/2 second...after all, that is its sole purpose.

[j3brow]

Here is a comment that Chris Connacker of Computer Audiophile made regarding the D1100 muting :

“The issue boils down to the fact that the DAC chip is normally muted until it receives non-silence data. But, this non-silence data can't be just any non-silence data, it must be at a minimum volume level for the DAC to unmute. When the track reaches a certain volume level, the DAC unmutes and quickly fades-in to the music. In other words, the fade-in is triggered by a minimum amplitude, not by the start of a stream of USB data. Many DACs use a similar mute technique to reduce or eliminate pops on sample rate switches, but this is the only DAC I've seen that requires a minimum amplitude to unmute the volume.”

[Masterlu]

Cajunpepe... Welcome to AA!