The 600 didn’t let you down? You were incredibly lucky there. I can’t remember how much I paid for that but Arcam never got to the bottom of the issues with that darn thing. I tolerated it for years as it cost me a lot of money and sounded great when it worked. I finally had enough and replaced it with (a worse sounding) Denon costing a third of the price with no bugs.
It’s interesting reading the issues on here. Incredibly similar to the 600. Distortion, hdmi handshake, problems changing between audio formats, a small number of people reporting no problems (not using it in the same way or using different equipment) A lot of the issues were only fixed on the 600 with a £500 3D hdmi board upgrade.
P.s. I’ve joined here as I’m considering a sa30 for Preamp duties and it has a lot I want from a preamp. I’ll continue with the Denon for HT/TV duties so I won’t use hdmi arc…am I brave enough to give it a go.
If you just want a preamp, than get a preamp. Using SA30 as one makes very little sense if you ask me.
There’s for example NAD C658, which has more or less same functionality, just lacks power amps. It’s also considerably cheaper. Very nice device, with BlueOS streaming app.
There’s also miniDSP SHD. Lacks HDMI, which you don’t need anyway, and is based on Volumio, which I don’t like. But otherwise it’s good device, and even cheaper than the NAD.
If you go for SA30, you gain nothing compared to the ones above. You will just pay more, and be using electricity (and heating up the room) for running SA30 power section, which will not be used, but cannot be disconnected/powered off.
I just got distortion for the first time since switching to wifi vs ethernet with Roon. It was bad and immediately obvious distortion. I was surfing around in Roon and went from a Tidal 44.1 MQA to a red book 16/44.1 track on my hard drive. I guess it lost lock as you mentioned. A quick switch to PVR analog direct , then back to Roon sorted it. But I have listened to hours and hours of Roon with no distortion since switching to WIFI on the SA 30.
Thanks for update @Ken.
So seems there is an improvement, but still not cured
Still wondering why for me it’s working fine now. Running out of ideas…
@Aventador_SVJ Ken was using ethernet, as probably most users here. I was also using ethernet before, and more or less since switching to wireless I haven’t had distortion. Now I’m trying to find out why others have distortion, and not me. Using wireless was one of the ideas, as potentially ethernet can introduce noise to digital (and analogue too) domain, if not filtered correctly (reason why some people can hear difference made by “audiophile switches”). This noise could cause jitter, causing dac to lose lock on the master clock, and leading to distortion. But that’s just an (educated) guess.
Could the type of shielding of the ethernet cable contribute to the distortion? I’m using a cat6 S/FTP cable to my SA30. The cable shieding is braid, pair shielding is foil. In this way the signal in the cable won’t pickup much interference from its environment. I had distortion only once. I may switch the cable with some low end cat5e utp cable and see if it makes any difference.
Like I said, way better than ethernet. With ethernet if I listened to Roon for an hour or 2 I can promise at least one distortion episode. With the ethernet removed and only using Wifi, I went 2 days with many long music sessions with no issues. But this one time, quickly switching tracks fromTidal MQA to red book from my hard drive via Roon seemed to trick it up. At least it was BAD distortion, not the crunchy type on the cymbals where you are not sure its distorting or its a crappy recording. There was no doubt. But quickly stopped with switching to analog direct and back. I think you are right, I think its losing lock, maybe from quick format changes. And ethernet must push it faster to its lock limits. My guess…
It’s no so much about ethernet as such, but more about anything that could “inject” some noise.
What else have you had connected physically to SA30? Was there anything except for power and speakers?
Also noise can come from the mains, if you have for example inverter AC connected to same socket, or you live in industrial area. But that would again mean poor filtering.
Anyway just trying to find a cause.
@jvs1 might be that using STP cables help, but I think it’s more about high frequency mode noise from switch itself on case of ethernet.
I didn’t connect anything else to the SA30: Wifi, mains (no issues with industry anywhere near where I live) and speakers.
I still think it’s the DAC or rather the DSP.
I’ve heard this type of distortion before and it occurs when you mismatch the sampling frequency on the DAC with that of the incoming signal.
i.e. incoming music file is at 44.1kHz and the DSP on the SA30 sets the DAC incorrectly at 48kHz.
It does not do this all of the time, so it is far from repeatable.
However, it does seem to affect higher resolution files more. i.e. 24 bit, 192kHz.
It could also be the number of bits.
i.e. the music file is 24 bits and the the DSP on the SA30 sets the DAC incorrectly at 16 bits, causing bit overflow.
I’m not sure what the latter would sound like but have real life engineering experience of incorrect sample rates and it sounds like the problem we are experiencing.
And have you had access point anywhere near SA30? Or any other potential source of interference?
My idea is, that some noise is causing jitter in clock signal, which makes DAC to lose lock on frequency. It will result in similar distortion or no sound at all.
Seemingly ESS DACs are prone to this.
It might also be a mix of different things. Hard to say.
I cannot confirm an ‘audiophile’ ethernet switch or cable could help. I’ve connected SA30 to a Silent Angel Bonn Switch (reclocking, TCXO, galvanic port isolation…) and a Wireworld Cat. 8 cable ‘for audio’ and a heavy distortion was still present. Do an experiment: unplug ethernet from the device when playing a track - it will continue playing for about 15 seconds without any network connection! It means there is a ca 4MB buffer, data is not streamed directly from the network. The device has enough time to reassemble IP packets, jitter should not be a problem with asynchronous stream. But I confirm - wireless connection is more stable and distortion appears less often. No idea, why…
If it helps I have a TPLink 4 port wireless extender and then connect a Chord Ethernet cable from that to the RJ45 socket on the SA30. Therefore i am streaming wirelessly but not using the built in wi fi unit.
I do get the distortion occasionally but very rarely now.
Well my SA 30 ethernet connection is to a Orbi satellite router, so essentially it was flying wirelessly via ethernet too. But I had regular distortion via the ethernet connection even though it was not directly wired to the router that is connected to the modem. But now that I removed the ethernet cable and and just using the Sa30’s built in wifi I have only heard distortion once. And I use the Dirac too. I am not saying that interference could not be getting into the SA30 via the ethernet cable, but its the only toy in the home that has trouble with the Orbi routers. As a matter of fact, the SA 30 is the only digital toy I have ever heard distortion like this, ever. And I have plugged in a lot of digital toys over the years. Arcam screwed the pooch on this one.
the pre outs on the Arcam can not be set to set level, like a tape out. The pre outs track with the volume control of the Arcam. They are there to hook up a separate 2 channel amp and the Arcam class G amp will be active as well.
