Intermittent stutter or glitch during computer playback of FLAC files

[Decibel_116]

I am using a new Dell laptop which is dedicated for music playback. Most of my FLAC files originated from CDs ripped using WMP-10. During playback there is an intermittent very small skip or stutter in the music. It is small but extremely annoying. It happens whether I am using WMP-10 or Foobar2000 for playback. I have checked the resources history in the Task Manager app and I see nothing where I am running out of memory (causing caching to the HDD). It has a SkyLake I3 processer, 6Gb RAM. I am running a USB connection out to a Chord Qutest DAC at present. Any ideas what is happening here?

 

[eizner23]

1) Does the stuttering occur when playing back through the laptops speakers? (not using the Chord DAC but onboard DAC)

2) Most OEM preinstalled lots of junk. Go through Control Panel > Programs and Features and uninstall anything you wont use.

3) windows has many services running you wont need. do a CTL + R and type MSCONFIG in the RUN box. Then under Services tab uncheck services as described here
MSCONFIG also has a Startup tab you can disable crap from loading at startup.

 

[Yamaki]

I had a similar issue with jitter with my setup. NAS ===USB===>Music Server===USB===>DAC===XLR===>pre-amp

I installed Wyred 4 Sound "Recovery" USB reclocker and, voila, jitter was gone. The path is now:

NAS ===USB===>Music Server===USB===>USB Reclocker===USB===>DAC===XLR===>pre-amp

 

[Decibel_116]

1) Does the stuttering occur when playing back through the laptops speakers? (not using the Chord DAC but onboard DAC)

2) Most OEM preinstalled lots of junk. Go through Control Panel > Programs and Features and uninstall anything you wont use.

3) windows has many services running you wont need. do a CTL + R and type MSCONFIG in the RUN box. Then under Services tab uncheck services as described here
MSCONFIG also has a Startup tab you can disable crap from loading at startup.

I have not tried it with the onboard Realtek sound hardware. I will try your suggestions with MSCONFIG. THANK YOU for your reply!

 

[Decibel_116]

I had a similar issue with jitter with my setup. NAS ===USB===>Music Server===USB===>DAC===XLR===>pre-amp

I installed Wyred 4 Sound "Recovery" USB reclocker and, voila, jitter was gone. The path is now:

NAS ===USB===>Music Server===USB===>USB Reclocker===USB===>DAC===XLR===>pre-amp

Thanks for the suggestion. I will do the MSCONFIG to make sure I don't have any unnessary SW running in the background. I will also look into the USB Reclocker. I need to understand what it does.

Many thanks for the replies.

 

[Yamaki]

A USB reclocker (or "RUR" as it's been coined on the Computer Audiophile forum) restores the original integrity of the USB signal. That signal can be compromised by processors in your computer/NAS/PC source causing "jitter" in the signal.

A reclocker deals with that noise passed from the computer to your USB DAC that ultimately degrades the sound of your music. It performs two major functions:

1. Isolate and provide cleaner power to your USB DAC
2. Supply a more precisely clocked source for the USB encoded data

I could go on about Femto clocks and such but that's probably more than you want to know about. All I can tell ya is that as soon as I installed the Recovery in my data stream the SQ improved considerably.

 

[ldatlof]

I thought jitter had to do with the clocking of the data stream while stuttering was caused by some sort of interruption to the data stream.

 

[Decibel_116]

So the MSCONFIG changes seemed to have solved the issue. The computer runs noticeably faster as well as a bonus.

Thanks for the help.

 

[drew_t]

6 gigs of RAM is pretty under-spec’d for a Windows 10 machine.