Devialet Chat

Today I again tried AIR 2.1.4-beta1. This time white noise occurred every time the PC went into screensaver mode. Later in the day I was using iTunes and occasionally the music flicked into white noise and then reverted back to music. With previous versions of AIR, I have found that if I used iTunes and set everything to 16/44.1 (AIR GUI and PC settings) then I do not get the white noise issues. To be clear, I spent a short time today sorting some stuff out in iTunes play lists, but had left all settings (PC & AIR) at 24/192, so I am guessing that at 16/44 this may not have happened. Either way, there remains some issues.

So it looks like AIR 2.1.4-beta1 is an improvement to a degree, but not a robust cure.

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Quote from the SoundStage Global interview:

"As I was having lunch with Pierre-Emmanuel Calmel, Devialet's cofounder and the inventor of the company's revolutionary ADH (Analog Digital Hybrid) amplifier technology, he reached over and picked up a colleague's Apple iPhone 6 to first praise but then criticize it. He applauded its shape, size, weight, and feel, but then he pointed to the camera lens and said, "I don't believe Steve Jobs would have allowed that." He could tell by my confused look that I didn't understand, so he pointed out that the lens protrudes slightly from the body, which makes the phone not only ever-so-slightly thicker than Apple claims, but also awkward when you rub your finger over it. It was obvious that Pierre-Emmanuel saw this as a design flaw, as he felt it should be aligned with the area around it. "I think he would have challenged his engineers to find a solution," he concluded."

Well I think it's time Monsieur Calmel looked to his own companies issues and challenged his own engineers rather than gloating at Apples camera design. I can only imagine what Steve Jobs reaction would be if his engineers spent this much time not fixing the dual mono configurator issues and the not working properly slightly dodgy AIR. (God rest his soul)

End of rant, I guess I'm a bit fed up today after spending another weekend as a Devialet beta tester!

(21-Dec-2014, 18:41)Confused Wrote: [ -> ]Today I again tried AIR 2.1.4-beta1. This time white noise occurred every time the PC went into screensaver mode.
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End of rant, I guess I'm a bit fed up today after spending another weekend as a Devialet beta tester!

First of all, thank you for testing the BETA version!
Secondly, after what interval is your screensaver set to kick in? I thought you'd initially said you were able to play 192/24 for about 90 mins? Or was the screen saver delayed by your using the computer at the same time as playing music?
Also, when you say that the noise coincides with screensaver, do you restart your PC after each occurrence? If not, my experience is that once you get the white noise, it's prone to repeat itself within a short interval, unless the PC is rebooted.
Again, the only way to prove the correctness of your theory is to disable the screen saver. If the problem disappears, that must be it. If not, there must be something else with the timing matching your screen saver.

In the old days, it was a well known 'joke' among system administrators to install a CPU-consuming polyglot screensaver. Once the screensaver kicked in, it was over and out for connected users. Could someone with the beta please check in performance monitor what happens when the screensaver kicks in ?
If I had the beta, I would gladly do it my self.

It is not screensaver-linked under 2.1.3 using Mac. It is simply time contingent with that correlated with format: 16/44.1 on ethernet taking the longest time [typically 3 hours] and 24/88.2 (and presumably higher) taking the shortest time [typically 15 minutes].

To eradicate entirely it looks like one needs a full reboot. Then the clock starts again.

is there any thing set to reduce power or turn off in the power management settings, i.e spin down hard disk? Maybe ensure set it to high performance and ensure nothing's set to turn off after a certain time. If the system is active, say streaming music, then it shouldn't but you never know.

(22-Dec-2014, 03:30)AlexS Wrote: [ -> ]

(21-Dec-2014, 18:41)Confused Wrote: [ -> ]Today I again tried AIR 2.1.4-beta1. This time white noise occurred every time the PC went into screensaver mode.
...
End of rant, I guess I'm a bit fed up today after spending another weekend as a Devialet beta tester!

First of all, thank you for testing the BETA version!
Secondly, after what interval is your screensaver set to kick in? I thought you'd initially said you were able to play 192/24 for about 90 mins? Or was the screen saver delayed by your using the computer at the same time as playing music?
Also, when you say that the noise coincides with screensaver, do you restart your PC after each occurrence? If not, my experience is that once you get the white noise, it's prone to repeat itself within a short interval, unless the PC is rebooted.
Again, the only way to prove the correctness of your theory is to disable the screen saver. If the problem disappears, that must be it. If not, there must be something else with the timing matching your screen saver.

The screensaver was on it’s default setting, 10 minutes. To further clarify, when I first tried AIR 2.1.4-beta1 on Saturday morning, it actually ran through the screensaver activating with only a slight stutter in music playback, then continued to run for about three hours total, the clean run was ended because the screen became activated (a nudge of the mouse is all you need), when the screensaver again activated, full white noise occurred.

Trying again on Sunday, white noise occurred the very first time the PC went into screensaver mode. This was repeatable after a full PC shutdown / reboot. For a while I set the screensaver activation to 2 minutes, in order to rapidly repeat the test, same result, white noise coincident with screensaver mode activating, so no, not a coincident timing issue.

I have now disabled the screensaver completely. I should have a few more opportunities over the holiday period to try some long runs with AIR 2.1.4-beta1. I’ll post any significant observations in due course.

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(22-Dec-2014, 10:41)Rufus McDufus Wrote: [ -> ]is there any thing set to reduce power or turn off in the power management settings, i.e spin down hard disk? Maybe ensure set it to high performance and ensure nothing's set to turn off after a certain time. If the system is active, say streaming music, then it shouldn't but you never know.

On Sunday I tried all available power management settings, from high performance to power save. There was one case when in "power saver" mode that it did manage to go into screensaver mode without white noise, but just once, three or four other times, straight to white noise. In "high performance mode", white noise ever time.

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(22-Dec-2014, 07:36)IanG-UK Wrote: [ -> ]It is not screensaver-linked under 2.1.3 using Mac. It is simply time contingent with that correlated with format: 16/44.1 on ethernet taking the longest time [typically 3 hours] and 24/88.2 (and presumably higher) taking the shortest time [typically 15 minutes].

To eradicate entirely it looks like one needs a full reboot. Then the clock starts again.

Interestingly, with all previous versions of AIR, I too found that the white noise events were time dependant, with clean running time decreased with 24bit material. This very consistent “coincident with screensaver” effect is unique to the new AIR 2.1.4-beta1. I have always had a bit of a glitch in the smooth running of music when the screensaver mode activates, but this pattern of behaviour is new.

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(22-Dec-2014, 04:05)Georgethesixth Wrote: [ -> ]In the old days, it was a well known 'joke' among system administrators to install a CPU-consuming polyglot screensaver. Once the screensaver kicked in, it was over and out for connected users. Could someone with the beta please check in performance monitor what happens when the screensaver kicks in ?
If I had the beta, I would gladly do it my self.

Would checking the performance monitor actually tell you anything? The point being that to check the performance monitor, you would need to kick the machine back out of screensaver mode? So at the point you would really want to see what’s running, the screen would by default be blank.

If you are interested in trying AIR 2.1.4-beta1, it might be worth sending a query to Devialet to see if they will send you a copy.

@Confused, what kind of screensaver are you using? Is it something exotic, not just turning the screen black? Is your CPU dual (or more) core? I'm just amazed that the screen saver (which may indeed have an impact on CPU utilization) has such a drastic effect. There must be something wrong either with it, or with the PC in general. Do you also run an anti-virus on your PC?

(22-Dec-2014, 16:44)AlexS Wrote: [ -> ]@Confused, what kind of screensaver are you using? Is it something exotic, not just turning the screen black? Is your CPU dual (or more) core? I'm just amazed that the screen saver (which may indeed have an impact on CPU utilization) has such a drastic effect. There must be something wrong either with it, or with the PC in general. Do you also run an anti-virus on your PC?

It's a 2014 HP Intel i5 quad core "all in one" touchsreen desktop PC. 100% standard. The screensaver is just the default mode of the screen going blank. I'm running Kaspersky.

Is it possible that the screen server kicking in is just an indication that the computer is "idle", and that something else is configured to run under that condition (e.g. a virus scan)?

(22-Dec-2014, 17:18)thumb5 Wrote: [ -> ]Is it possible that the screen server kicking in is just an indication that the computer is "idle", and that something else is configured to run under that condition (e.g. a virus scan)?

Yes, so I would first disable the screensaver (as @Confused was going to), to rule out/in this possibility, and then temporarily disable the anti-virus, if disabling the screensaver does not help.
I ran into a case where Windows Defender (kicking in when it thought my computer was idle, installing the latest definitions and running a scan) caused a stutter in JRiver playback. (Not white noise in my case, but @Confused did observe that his problem sometimes would manifest itself as a stutter).
If this turns out to be the anti-virus, there are instructions on how to make it JRiver friendly, on their forum.