Playback issue on Raspberry PI 3+ with RT kernel

[bollinim]

Hello,

i'm a satisfied user of gmediarenderer.
I first installed gmediarenderer on Rasbian OS and turned out to be a great configuration to play music (i really enjoy playing hi res local files and TIDAL streaming using Topping D90 MQA DAC, amplified with an old Arcam Alpha 9 amplifier and connected to B&W loudspeakers)
Then I decided to have a try with the RT Kernel (4.19.59-rt23-v7) on another Raspberry Pi3 to get even better music quality.
The outcome sounds to be a potential step further but i keep listening annoying pops every about 2-3 seconds during the playback while my DAC reports a continuous switch between bit rates (and when i play MQA the indicator switch between MQA and PCM accordingly).

I'm wondering how come. Is gmediarenderer in some ways not compatible with RT kernel?

Thank you in advance for your support.

Regards

[mill1000]

Can you prove this is an issue with gmrender-resurrect? As described I would assume the issue most likely lies elsewhere. Perhaps in the kernel's USB stack.

Can you confirm if this issue occurs if you use gst-play-1.0? What about speaker-test?

Additionally, on a personal note, I'm curious as to what you're hoping to achieve with the RT kernel in regards to audio quality. I suspect the RT kernel would slightly reduce latency but the quality should be solely determined by your DAC.

[bollinim]

Hi,
i think you have pointed your assessment in the right direction.
I've experienced the same issue with speaker-test.

Regarding my listening experience and my hopes.
Topping D90 MQA DAC sounds great (well balanced sound, very natural, support total MQA unfolding and DSD). I bought Arcam line and B&W loudspeakers at the end of 90s and the sound was exciting.
When my Arcam CD died i made a replacement with OPPO BDP 105 but musically speaking i wasn't happy with it, except for SACD playback (its DAC sounds too harsh too me). With Topping DAC i'm back to a more natural sound. If you don't already know it take a look at the reviews.

Gmediarenderer is a perfect playback tool:

• it consumes max 5-6% of CPU,
• it is stable and allow me to transport MQA streaming from TIDAL to the DAC using mController app fo iPad.
• It gets along very well with the Squeezebox server too (which is my music server platform)

I've read that reducing latency and jitter, RT Kernel has some impacts on playback quality (and technically speaking it really makes sense). So i thought that it worth for a try on a second Raspberry. It was easy to recompile and install the RT kernel.
Anyway i'm not sure how much this implementation makes a significant improvement in the real world, at least in the Raspberry world.

Maybe if i have some spare time i will try to figure out how to solve the playback issue.
I'd like to know if someone else could share a similar experience with better success.

Thank you, ciao

[mill1000]

Thanks. Well it appears your issues does not lie within gmrender-resurrect but elsewhere in your RT kernel setup. I think this issue should be closed then.