[alsa-devel] Problem with DoP mode in Chord 2qute USB audio
Hello,
I am working with owner of Chord 2qute on the following problem (FYI long discussion at http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/pc-based/310578-chord-2qute-dop-challenge.htm...):
Regular 176.4/24 PCM plays OK, however 176.4/24 DoP produces random 1-2 sec sound interruptions every several tens of seconds. Tested players - squeezelite, MPD. The soundcard has its own power supply.
I googled out several reports of simlar problem with this soundcard, mostly on linux (did not see any problem report for OSX).
alsainfo: http://www.fyn13.dk/diy/alsa_output_chord_2qute_4.4.0-62.txt
lsusb -v : http://www.fyn13.dk/diy/chord_lsusb.txt
hw_params and stream0 files are identical for both 176.4/24 PCM and DoP:
/proc/asound/card1/pcm0p/sub0/hw_params: access: RW_INTERLEAVED format: S32_LE subformat: STD channels: 2 rate: 176400 (176400/1) period_size: 1764 buffer_size: 7056
/proc/asound/card1/stream0: Chord Electronics Ltd 2Qute at usb-0000:00:14.0-2, high speed : USB Audio Playback: Status: Running Interface = 2 Altset = 1 Packet Size = 224 Momentary freq = 176402 Hz (0x16.0ce0) Feedback Format = 16.16 Interface 2 Altset 1 Format: S32_LE Channels: 2 Endpoint: 5 OUT (ASYNC) Rates: 32000, 44100, 48000, 88200, 96000, 176400, 192000, 352800, 384000 Data packet interval: 125 us
We checked for XRUNs, none were produced during the interruption in DoP playback.
Powerful 4-core CPU Intel Pentium 4405U @ 2.10GHz, idle > 99% of time in DoP playback.
However, the IRQs rate of the onboard XHCI controller is 8k/s for both PCM and DoP playback which corresponds to 1 IRQ every 125us frame. The rate drops to almost zero when playback is stopped in the player - clearly it is related to the soundcard. Could this perhaps be a sign of the problem? Please is there a way to lower the rate, like the old removed param nrpacks of the usb-audio driver?
I suspect a buggy XMOS firmware. I very much appreciate any suggestion or help, either with fixing in software, or further diagnostics to support potential claim to the manufacturer.
Thank you very much. With regards,
Pavel.
On 8/3/17 10:00 AM, Pavel Hofman wrote:
Hello,
I am working with owner of Chord 2qute on the following problem (FYI long discussion at http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/pc-based/310578-chord-2qute-dop-challenge.htm...):
Regular 176.4/24 PCM plays OK, however 176.4/24 DoP produces random 1-2 sec sound interruptions every several tens of seconds. Tested players - squeezelite, MPD. The soundcard has its own power supply.
I googled out several reports of simlar problem with this soundcard, mostly on linux (did not see any problem report for OSX).
alsainfo: http://www.fyn13.dk/diy/alsa_output_chord_2qute_4.4.0-62.txt
lsusb -v : http://www.fyn13.dk/diy/chord_lsusb.txt
hw_params and stream0 files are identical for both 176.4/24 PCM and DoP:
/proc/asound/card1/pcm0p/sub0/hw_params: access: RW_INTERLEAVED format: S32_LE subformat: STD channels: 2 rate: 176400 (176400/1) period_size: 1764 buffer_size: 7056
/proc/asound/card1/stream0: Chord Electronics Ltd 2Qute at usb-0000:00:14.0-2, high speed : USB Audio Playback: Status: Running Interface = 2 Altset = 1 Packet Size = 224 Momentary freq = 176402 Hz (0x16.0ce0) Feedback Format = 16.16 Interface 2 Altset 1 Format: S32_LE Channels: 2 Endpoint: 5 OUT (ASYNC) Rates: 32000, 44100, 48000, 88200, 96000, 176400, 192000, 352800, 384000 Data packet interval: 125 us
We checked for XRUNs, none were produced during the interruption in DoP playback.
Powerful 4-core CPU Intel Pentium 4405U @ 2.10GHz, idle > 99% of time in DoP playback.
However, the IRQs rate of the onboard XHCI controller is 8k/s for both PCM and DoP playback which corresponds to 1 IRQ every 125us frame. The rate drops to almost zero when playback is stopped in the player - clearly it is related to the soundcard. Could this perhaps be a sign of the problem? Please is there a way to lower the rate, like the old removed param nrpacks of the usb-audio driver?
I suspect a buggy XMOS firmware. I very much appreciate any suggestion or help, either with fixing in software, or further diagnostics to support potential claim to the manufacturer.
Suggestions: - try with regular PCM @ 176.4Khz 24 bits to rule out issues in the way DSD is depacked from the stream - look into the ASYNC endpoint handling. It could be that the host doesn't provide enough data and the device buffer is emptied at some point. USB doesn't clearly define in how much time the host needs to adjust to feedback information, the implementation may have defined its buffer depth assuming a quick correction.
Thank you very much. With regards,
Pavel.
Alsa-devel mailing list Alsa-devel@alsa-project.org http://mailman.alsa-project.org/mailman/listinfo/alsa-devel
Hi,
Suggestions:
- try with regular PCM @ 176.4Khz 24 bits to rule out issues in the way
DSD is depacked from the stream
Regular 176.4/24 was tested against the DSD/DoP, it works just fine, eventhough it produces the very same alsa params (the same data stream) as DoP.
- look into the ASYNC endpoint handling. It could be that the host
doesn't provide enough data and the device buffer is emptied at some point. USB doesn't clearly define in how much time the host needs to adjust to feedback information, the implementation may have defined its buffer depth assuming a quick correction.
Could it be different for the two streams if both have the same period/buffer params, the same altsetting, the same stream bandwidth? IIUC the alsa USB driver does not distinguish between regular PCM and DoP of the same bitspeed, at least I could not find anything in the API when the player sends already DoP-encoded PCM samples (which it does).
Would it make sense to monitor the USB (kernel) communication with wireshark to see whether the async feedback from the soundcard differs for PCM and DoP?
Is it OK that the controller throws IRQ every frame?
I very much appreciate your help.
With regards,
Pavel.
participants (2)
-
Pavel Hofman -
Pierre-Louis Bossart