2. pc-audio
  3. 1121914011

Clicking noise with M-Audio Audiophile USB

I just got an M-Audio Audiophile USB, and the quality of the music from my pc is definitely better than the internal card. However, no i have a worse problem than before. When i play music on my computer through my home stereo there is a significant clicking noise that comes out of my speakers about every five seconds. It's hard to decribe the exact sound in words, sort of a noisy distorted click about every five seconds. I know the problem lies with the M-Audio card cause my speakers sound perfect when i'm not playing music through the computer. Is this problem due to the fact that the card is externally connected to the computer with a usb cable. Before I got this product i was wondering whether a usb hookup is a good thing. I wonder if my suspicions were correct. The cable length is about 10-12 feet, so it's not extremely long. I also noticed, that when my CPU is working really hard, the music I'm playing on my computer sounds horrible, full of distortion and completely unlistenable. But even when all i'm doing is playing music through winamp, i get that terrible click every 5 seconds or so. What's my problem here?
eighthcircuit

Showing 1 response by jax2

jax2
3,031 posts
 
Did you mean the USB cable is 10-12 feet? If so, I believe that may be approaching the limitations of the USB connection which is about 16 feet as I recall. You can use a repeater after that, but the first thing I'd try is a shorter cable. As Arni suggests, make sure if the M-Audio is getting power from the USB port, and that you are plugging directly into your computer and not into a hub or into your keyboard. I assume you are using the M-Audio as the DAC rather than to just stream the digital to an external DAC. Did the M-Audio come with software? If so have you checked all the settings? If the sampling rate were off you would not have clicking but a bunch of static. I use a Waveterminal USB device to stream audio from my computers to my DAC. I'm on a Mac and don't have any problems at all using my computer at the same time as I am streaming music. Only under the most memory-intensive applications on my laptop do I ever get a glitch now and then. On the desktop not a peep, but that is running about 1.5 gigs of RAM. I think the USB should be entirely adequate for streaming music. as there are many devices that do rely upon that interface.

Good luck! Keep us posted on what you figure out.

Marco
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