Subito
pfm Member
My Bluesound NODE had been utterly flawless since I bought it in early November, but with the latest BluOS update (3.16.3) I’ve begun to get occasional dropouts lasting 2-6 seconds or so when listening to Qobuz. At first I thought it was an issue on Qobuz’s end, but I also run Qobuz on my iMac through Audirvana and that has no dropout issues.
(FYI, I don’t experience dropouts when listening to my iTunes library on the SSD drive attached to my NODE or when listening to streamed Tunein radio programs.)
I did some online investigating and apparently Bluesound added the “Audio clock trim” setting option back to the BluOS software—it was not part of the NODE 2021 as delivered (3.14.22 or thereabouts). Apparently this option was originally designed to accommodate external DAC usage. As Bluesound explains the feature:
“Enable to reduce jitter and increase audio clock timing precision when using an external DAC.
Note: Not all DACs can handle this. If audible clippings or dropouts occur, disable Audio Clock Trim to avoid BluOS's accuracy setting from interfering with the external DAC's firmware.”
But I’m using the internal DAC, so it’s not clear why this would cause dropouts. I turned off “Audio clock trim” (which newly appeared in 3.16.2 and was turned on by default) and so far the dropouts seem to have ceased, but I’ve only been testing this for a couple of hours.
Has anybody else run into this dropout issue using the internal DAC? Bluesound originally claimed the NODE 2021 didn’t include the “Audio clock trim” option because it wasn’t needed: “The new NODE has a different DAC and does not require the Audio Clock Trim function, hence it does not show in the Bluesound App.”
But apparently Bluesound changed their mind as of the 3.16.2 update. My guess is that the “Audio clock trim” feature ultimately proved necessary for some external DACs and that’s why it was added back to BluOS, but somehow it messes up the internal DAC (which as noted above doesn’t need it, according to Bluesound). If that’s true, Bluesound shouldn’t have activated the “Audio clock trim” feature by default, and they should specifically explain this issue in their support docs.
I don’t mean to make a mountain out of a molehill, but the huge appeal of the Bluesound NODE for me was that it just works. (No faffing about with Raspberry Pi setup and configurations, etc.) So the prospect of my NODE getting buggy every time there’s a software update is concerning.
Anybody else running into this problem (or any others) after updating the BluOS?
(And sorry for such a long post/rant!)
(FYI, I don’t experience dropouts when listening to my iTunes library on the SSD drive attached to my NODE or when listening to streamed Tunein radio programs.)
I did some online investigating and apparently Bluesound added the “Audio clock trim” setting option back to the BluOS software—it was not part of the NODE 2021 as delivered (3.14.22 or thereabouts). Apparently this option was originally designed to accommodate external DAC usage. As Bluesound explains the feature:
“Enable to reduce jitter and increase audio clock timing precision when using an external DAC.
Note: Not all DACs can handle this. If audible clippings or dropouts occur, disable Audio Clock Trim to avoid BluOS's accuracy setting from interfering with the external DAC's firmware.”
But I’m using the internal DAC, so it’s not clear why this would cause dropouts. I turned off “Audio clock trim” (which newly appeared in 3.16.2 and was turned on by default) and so far the dropouts seem to have ceased, but I’ve only been testing this for a couple of hours.
Has anybody else run into this dropout issue using the internal DAC? Bluesound originally claimed the NODE 2021 didn’t include the “Audio clock trim” option because it wasn’t needed: “The new NODE has a different DAC and does not require the Audio Clock Trim function, hence it does not show in the Bluesound App.”
But apparently Bluesound changed their mind as of the 3.16.2 update. My guess is that the “Audio clock trim” feature ultimately proved necessary for some external DACs and that’s why it was added back to BluOS, but somehow it messes up the internal DAC (which as noted above doesn’t need it, according to Bluesound). If that’s true, Bluesound shouldn’t have activated the “Audio clock trim” feature by default, and they should specifically explain this issue in their support docs.
I don’t mean to make a mountain out of a molehill, but the huge appeal of the Bluesound NODE for me was that it just works. (No faffing about with Raspberry Pi setup and configurations, etc.) So the prospect of my NODE getting buggy every time there’s a software update is concerning.
Anybody else running into this problem (or any others) after updating the BluOS?
(And sorry for such a long post/rant!)