Hi all,
I have an issue with my setup. I thought it is my AMP so I ordered a new one but problem still remains.
I have JDS Labs Atom AMP and Khadas Tone Board DAC.
When I am changing volume, on some songs I can hear crackling through my headphones. I tried to manually turn down volume of my DAC digitally under windows but problem is still there.
Do you guys know what is the issue and why I am hearing this?
Hi, please try the forum search, it seems this has been discussed
Yes I am, but didn’t find anything relevant.
try to change the USB cable and connect directly to the usb port of the motherboard
I just tried my AMP / DAC setup on a laptop and guess what?! The scratching during the volume change is gone! What can you guys suggest to me now? That is one really old laptop btw… but as we can see my high end pc is not going well with this DAC. It is completely silent during listening, no ground loop noise or anything, but there is scratching during volume change
if it works well on one of the PCs, then the reason is clearly not TB
Please tell me you are not being serious… please
I expressed my opinion, you need to understand why this happened with different PCs in different ways
Ok. Why it is not happening with another DAC in same environment? 
Using another DAC there is zero crackling switching between different PCs.
Buddy, it’s hard for me to say without seeing and listening, so I can only guess, you understand
@alminvrb by any chance can you provide an audio sample of the crackling ? because at majority of times, the sound can be traced back which component it originating from, and for testing purposes, I suggest trying to use one of the “hearing test” audio tracks, any deviations from the normal sound can be picked up there and you can assess the reason for the problem
During hearing test I can only hear it when changing the volume at the same time. It is completely silent in any other scenario.
This is not related to sound, this is some kind of extraneous interference in the speakers, usually this is due to the fact that a lot of electrical equipment is connected to the power line, which in turn negatively affects the analog audio output.
Yes, so DAC can not filter it properly. Still looking for solution.
Did you say that the sound from the laptop is clear, the laptop was working on battery power or on the network at that moment?
Tried both, battery and plugged in.
yes, but when playing sound that has a distinctive plane, hearing the defects in noise is much easier
hence we can try to see where the Interference may be coming from…
@alminvrb without an Audio sample its impervious to know the magnitude of the audio defect and whether its from the Dac or from software itself, in general knowledge we know its not pure analog signals here, its artificially created analog from digital signal levels…
there is going to be a little bit of crackle or pop when there is sudden change in magnitude of the signal, and there will always be a slight loss of signal integrity for a moment or so, we can’t make it zero, but we can make it as negligible as possible,
I have seen sometimes crackles and pops come from within software when audio suddenly starts playing, this is something that is very common, its like taking a car that’s still and then suddenly slamming the gas pedal, the speaker membrane can’t just handle that change and you will be prone to hearing a little pop or crackle at that moment, it won’t happen again, until there is a sudden change in magnitude, like changing volume etc., other things that can cause this is things like Interference as @Vladimir.v.v has said
the best way to know this for sure, is by testing the output of the Dac with a oscilloscope and trying to test the signal integrity, to see if there are any peak defects…
Hope you understand
stay safe and Good day!
Hello, I may have missed it, but what OS and version are you using?