MQA dropouts project s2

Help and Support Compatibility Lists
,
#1

Hi! I just got a project s2 digital dac connected to a raspberry pi 4. I’m running volumio and tidal connect. So far I have been very satisfied with the experience. After reading a few of the topics in here I noticed a bug reported stating that mqa dropouts occur when using the S2 dac. Today the same thing started with mine. Anyone figured out what causes this and/or how to fix it? I’m pretty sure I noticed someone from the volumio team saying he uses the same dac so maybe volumio is aware of the problem? Such a shame if this can’t be fixed, I just got it and apart from this annoying issue the DAC sounds really nice.

Hope anyone can help me out here.
Thanks.

#2

My experience (3 ruined Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 digital) was almost certainly caused by changing from and to MQA and other source/format. And after it starts, only gets worst (again, in my experience).
My setup was MyVolumio on Raspberry Pi4 with 4GB with iFi iPower, Pre Box S2 Digital with Accubox USB and Ruark powered speakers.
One of the times, it hapened with the dac conected to the PC, so I think it’s a problem with the dac and not Volumio/Raspberry.
In the first instances it would get back to normal after turn off and on again, but after that it would became permanent. The problem seems to be one of the frequency clocks stop working.

#3

I can confirm the issues, it is definitely the DAC, it has difficulties recognizing and decoding the mqa stream, it seems to switch mqa on and off. This is on an RPi and Odroid N2 where the same setups with a Khadas Tone2 Pro appear to work without those issues.
A bit of googling showed me that there are issues with the pro-ject box, but there are no more firmware updates, due to the manufacturer and designer falling out with each other.

#4

Man, just my luck… Finally found a DAC I really enjoy listening to. To be honest, MQA was part of the reason I bought it, but still it also sounds great. Not too convinced about MQA yet though, some tracks sound really good but others not so much. Don’t care so much for the elevated volume when mqa turns on. At least I was hoping to be able to test this over a longer period. Maybe mqa can win me over now that more and more tracks become available. Going to let it play in my system for a bit longer, if it gets any worse I’ll have to try and get something else… Thanks for the feedback guys.