ALL volume fixed with USB-Out ? Why ?

Answered
Reinhard Haberfellner

You have praised your team for realising USB-Out on Node (130) very much. But in reality your solution, presented after 6 month wait, delivers USB-OUT to external DAC ONLY with fixed volume on all inputs , so that we can't use TV remote via eARC as up to now, nor TIDAL with volume control via APP . Are you continuing the development for a selectable solution like most software apps ( Audirvana a.s.o.) to decide for very best quality or best quality with convenience? 

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Comments

9 comments

Date Votes
  • Official comment
    Tony W.
    Product Support Manager

    Hi Richard

    Thanks for your feedback. You can easily toggle in the BluOS App, under Settings, Audio if you wish to switch output sources on the fly. As for the very best audio quality, it is best to remove as many devices from the Audio Chain as possible using the onboard Texas Instruments PCM 5242 Burr-Brown DAC, which has been implemented with a differential output design in an endeavour to cancel out as much unwanted noise as possible while carefully engineered specifically to provide a neutral response thus replicating the recording as faithfully as possible. If however, you do prefer adding or adjusting the tone control using a third-party DAC, COAX is still your best option for audio quality.

  • William Heck

    Hi Tony

    First, thanks to the entire Bluesound crew for enabling USB output. Yes, it took longer than expected -- but there was a pandemic going on, among other issues!

    So just to clarify regarding USB output:

    1. Given that there is a volume control, some digital processing of the original signal is occurring, right?

    2. Is there any way to change that to a straight pass-through? For the other digital outputs, one needs to set the output as "Fixed"; that option does not appear to be present for USB. Is that correct? Or am I just missing it?

    3. If there currently is no way to simply pass through the original digital signal (which is the most appropriate for a situation in which a high-quality DAC/preamp is in use), is a bypass or Fixed switch/control under consideration? Or can you make that a feature request for the future?

    Of course, as you point out one could use the COAX (or optical) out. But for some of us, USB would work out better if available. 

    Thanks in advance for your help!

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  • Tony W.
    Product Support Manager

    Thanks William - will pass your feedback on to the entire team (contrary to popular belief I am not a developer myself...)

    That being said it's all actually the opposite of what you said. USB Audio Output is always fixed - there is no volume control when USB is selected while the default sources do have that ability. The reason is that, at least to my understanding from the development team, is it IS all pass-through and why other sources are disabled. The only exception is MQA has to be rendered first by the NODE.

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  • William Heck

    Hi Tony

    I'm a bit confused, but I think I see where the problem arises:

    Start by using the Coax output (USB disconnected) running to an external DAC. In the Settings/Audio controls, i can toggle Fixed Output ON (the volume control is locked) or OFF (volume control works).

    Now in the BluOS controller,do NOT leave the Settings/Audio page. Disconnect the Coax output and connect the USB output. The Fixed Output control is still there,and it works.If you set Fixed Output to OFF, the volume control still works, even though you are using the USB output.

    If you then leave the Settings/Audio control screen, then go back to it, the Fixed Output control no longer shows up. The volume control (circle with a speaker icon) in the player control area at the bottom of the screen) still works. If you mess around a bit (can't remember the exact sequence), that volume control becomes locked.

    So here is the *real* question: for any of the digital outputs (coax, optical,USB), if Fixed Output is engaged (and the volume control is indeed locked), is the digital stream being passed through without processing? By that I mean is the digital stream exactly what is being received from the streaming service, no digital volume control, no DAC/ADC reconversion, etc? Or maybe that's true of USB but not Coax/Optical?

    I'll leave it to the development team to decide whether that backdoor way to have a volume control on the USB output is a feature or a bug. :^)

    BTW, happy new year!

     

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  • Stefan Wimmer

    Hi William, thanks for the explanation. The bug is still present and drove me nuts until I found your message... Maybe, after two years, one should be able to fix this?
    Cheers, Stefan

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  • Tony W.
    Product Support Manager

    I'll leave it to the development team to decide whether that backdoor way to have a volume control on the USB output is a feature or a bug. :^)

    It's neither - it's an incomplete communication message from the third-party downstream DAC not providing handshake information when connected. It mostly happens when the downstream DAC does a form of Digital to Digital Conversion such as upsampling. Our development team has taken the stance to not assume data when none is present but leave it NULL just in case as they feel it is the most correct answer in these cases.

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  • Stefan Wimmer

    I can't get any input to pass through when the USB output is fixed. Don't quite understand what the problem is.

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  • Tony W.
    Product Support Manager

    Hi Stefan

    I have escalated your issue to our Support Crew. They will be in touch via e-mail to help directly troubleshoot your issue.

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  • Alexander

    Hi Tony, 

    I am using this old thread but I am not sure if that is ok.

    I connected my new Holo Audio CYAN2 DAC to my Node(N130) via USB and I also have the problem that the volume is fixed. However, on the audio fora I read that volume control is possible with other external DACs using USB (Topping for example). 

    Reading your reply from a month ago, it suggests that there is possibly an USB comms issue between the Node and the CYAN2 that results in Fixed Output. That would imply that volume control is possible and the statement from 2 years ago is incorrect! 

    Can you confirm that volume control is possible with an external DAC using USB or is it still impossible (Fixed Output)? If it is possible, how can we find out what is going wrong?

    It looks like the CYAN2 is properly identified as "Holo Audio UAC2.0 Gen2.1". I can see this in the Audio settings in BluOS.

    Note that I can use volume control using the optical Toslink interface. That works fine.

    Thanks, Alexander

     

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