[hurricane51]

It was most likely from the begining that the issue was something local to your system, thanks for reporting back to confirm that.

High quality sound is important to me, has been for decades (on this forum "audiophile" has a negative connotation used for those with some idiot ideas about digital processing that they agressively rant about, so I'm not going to call myself that!). Frankly I have never heard any benefit from higher and higher bitrates, for my ears at least the CDDA standard hit a sweet spot for what is percievable. There are differences in recordings and mastering for sure, I can hear the difference made by audio equipment including CD transports and digital interconnect cables etc. (as near to snake oil as I go).  So do check first that the pursuit of high bitrate music audio sources is something that you care about and can hear, and then if it is you need to get yourself a system setup fast enough to handle it.

I'm not telling you what you can hear, only you know that, just suggesting you check.

Not that bitrate seems to be the cause here, but I just watched a 4K movie file with a bitrate of 55 Mbps with no issues.

[hurricane51]

It was most likely from the begining that the issue was something local to your system, thanks for reporting back to confirm that.

High quality sound is important to me, has been for decades (on this forum "audiophile" has a negative connotation used for those with some idiot ideas about digital processing that they agressively rant about, so I'm not going to call myself that!). Frankly I have never heard any benefit from higher and higher bitrates, for my ears at least the CDDA standard hit a sweet spot for what is percievable. There are differences in recordings and mastering for sure, I can hear the difference made by audio equipment including CD transports and digital interconnect cables etc. (as near to snake oil as I go).  So do check first that the pursuit of high bitrate music audio sources is something that you care about and can hear, and then if it is you need to get yourself a system setup fast enough to handle it.

I'm not telling you what you can hear, only you know that, just suggesting you check.

Not that bitrate seems to be the problem here, but I just watched a 4K movie with a bitrate of 55 Mbps with no problems.

Not that bitrate seems to be the cause here, but I just watched a 4K movie file with a bitrate of 55 Mbps with no issues.

[hurricane51]

Ok, I think I've found the cause. I had an extra chassis (new) for my media drives, exactly the same model. I installed it and transferred the drives and the songs now play perfectly. This is very strange because over the past few months I've tried playing music from a variety of drives, flash drives, SSDs, hard drives in a docking station, using different USB ports, using USB hubs, and they all had the same problem. But just swapping the chassis with an identical unit and everything's better? Very puzzling.

Anyway, I've only tested it for one day, so I'll see what happens over time.

[HeresJohnny]

Is it a WD MyBook?
Also, if you use Windows you'll be able to speed up USB drives a bit by disabling LastAccess. Run this from an elevated command prompt:

Code:

fsutil behavior set disablelastaccess 1

[hurricane51]

Is it a WD MyBook?
Also, if you use Windows you'll be able to speed up USB drives a bit by disabling LastAccess. Run this from an elevated command prompt:

Code:

fsutil behavior set disablelastaccess 1

It's on Windows and goes all the way back to Eden. It's a multi-disk chassis (Icy Dock Black Vortex), but as you can see I've tried many different sources and interfaces, not just USB. Read the whole thread if you are interested. Since it seems to be fixed I have my fingers crossed.

[hurricane51]

OK, I've lived with this problem for years, but I have a friend who's now got the same problem. I decided to dive into it and start troubleshooting it from the start.
I started with an entirely clean install of KODI 19.3. After I configured the System sound settings, the first thing I did was play some songs. I experienced the same problem on the new install.

I happened to play a 24-bit, 48kHz version of "The Yes Album". Every song had the delay. When I played the 16-bit, 44 kHz version, none of them delayed. A CLUE!

I thought it might be a 24-bit problem, but it turns out to be a 48 kHz (or 96 or 192 kHz) issue. ALL of the songs with the delay were 48 kHz (or a multiple). It didn't matter whether they were 16-bit or 24-bit. However, the reverse was not true: Not all of the 48 kHz songs had the delay. Most of The Beatles catalog of 48 kHz songs played fine.

I'd be interested if anyone else has this problem. As for now, I'm going to see what I can do to fix it.

[Buschel]

Which file formats are used? Maybe some of the differences in behaviour you observe (e.g. Beatles at 48 kHz play fine) depend on the audio codec.
Another point is the sample rate you are outputting. Does this follow the file's sample rate, or is it fixed?

[hurricane51]

Well, the sampling rate is either 48 kHz or a multiple of that (96 kHz, 192 kHz). 44 kHz plays fine. I don't see a setting anywhere in KODI to manually configure sampling rate, and why would I want to specify that anyway? The player should adapt to any standard sampling rate. There IS a setting for Resample Quality (Fast, Medium, Slow) but none of these settings makes a difference. The format is FLAC. 

I might mention that KODI is the only player where this occurs. I've tried 5 different players and all play these songs without any trouble.

[Buschel]

Well, the sampling rate is either 48 kHz or a multiple of that (96 kHz, 192 kHz). 44 kHz plays fine. I don't see a setting anywhere in KODI to manually configure sampling rate, ...

You can set this under Setting > Audio > Output configuration > Fixed. In this mode the number of channels (as selected) and the sampling rate ("Limit sampling rate") are fixed. Any deviating configuration is then converted.

... and why would I want to specify that anyway? The player should adapt to any standard sampling rate.

Exactly, the player should, but not every player does. Some players might cause trouble with switching sample rates (dropouts, clicks, noise). But it is good to hear the device you refer to is working as expected.

The format is FLAC. ... I might mention that KODI is the only player where this occurs. I've tried 5 different players and all play these songs without any trouble.

I am not aware of any trouble with FLAC, only Musepack has some problems due to some speciality of this format. The decoder uses ffmpeg which should work w/o any major trouble. So, I would take a deeper look at Kodi's audio output configuration. Which mode of "Output configuration" are you currently using?

[hurricane51]

EXCELLENT! Setting it to Fixed worked. Doesn't seem to matter either 44 or 48 kHz, so I wonder which would be better. 16-bit music is mostly 44 kHz, but MP4 movies are mostly 48 kHz, if not much higher. I'm guessing if I don't have any trouble with upsampling the 44 to 48, that's the preferred mode? And will HD audio (like DTS HD MA at 192 kHz be negatively affected? Or am I just wasting time by speculating and should just try it and see?

[Buschel]

I would rather set it to 44 kHz. This way most of your music is not touched / resampled. The audio streams for videos I would expect to be routed as bitstream (passthrough) anyhow. So, only the residual 48 kHz music tracks would be resampled.

Another option is to use the mode "Optimized", which would keep the settings you triggered for the very first playback and keeps them until restart. But you might end up with resampling your 44 kHz music just because you once chose 48 kHz track at the beginning.

What Operating System do you have Kodi installed on?

[hurricane51]

It's Windows 10. I tried both Optimized and Best Match in the past and neither solved the problem. I just didn't understand the problem clearly enough and I didn't imagine that setting it to Fixed would address the problem.
And thanks for the help. It's removed a niggling problem I've suffered, and removed a complaining "client" at the same time.

[hurricane51]

OK, there's a problem. With Output Configuration set to Fixed, Passthrough is not available. My receiver sees multichannel audio but not the proper format (TrueHD, DTS HD Master Audio, etc.), so it handles it as Dolby Surround (or one of the many sound options it has). Setting it to Optimized or Best Match enables passthrough, but then the delay problem returns. Seems I can't have my cake and eat it too. I guess I could manually remember to change it when watching movies, but that seems clumsy.

[Buschel]

Somehow this sounds like your DAC/AVR causes delays when enabling a certain sample rate. If you keep this "Fixed", this does not happen and the DAC/AVR stays on the once chosen mode. I would expect "Optimized" to work as well though. This should keep the audio settings of the first track which is played. So, you play a 48 kHz track and start with a gap. But all tracks following from the playlist should not show gaps again as the DAC/AVR keeps the mode. But in this case you might cause unwanted resampling because the mode depends on what you first played.

Details about the audio settings are explained in this post.

[hurricane51]

Having read the article you referred to, I have a couple of questions (lucky you). My KODI box is running Windows 10 with enough CPU power not to have that as a factor. My friend likewise, although he's got a completely different PC. I'm outputting from the HDMI port to an HDMI port on a newish receiver capable of 7.1 with all the necessary decoding options. I need a few terms clarified:

DAC = Digital/analog converter which is hardware inside the receiver, correct?
AVR = Audio/video recorder? (which I do not have)
Green light = ?

If I select an album that has 10 tracks all in exactly the same sampling rate (48 kHz), they will all delay at the start. Whether Optimized or Best Match is selected, they all have the delay.
If I select a playlist that has a mix of 44.1 and 48, then what happens is every time a different sampling rate is encountered, that track has the delay, then if the next track has the same rate no delay, then a change to a different rate, the delay occurs and so on. In this case, it doesn't matter what the sampling rate is -- any change and that track will delay. Optimized and Best Match both behave this way.

44 kHz - No Delay
44 kHz - No Delay
48 kHz - Delay
48 kHz - No delay
44 kHz - Delay
44 kHz - No Delay
44 kHz - No Delay
48 kHz - Delay

This is from testing only a few times, but it seems repeatable. From what I've learned, Best Match SHOULD work in this case, correct?

Now the kicker: I only experience the delay when the KODI box is plugged directly into the receiver. On my work PC, with the speakers plugged directly to the motherboard, there is no delay. However, this has been a problem with three different receivers from three different manufacturers.

Even if I don't get it working as it should, being able to eliminate the audio delay with Fixed is wonderful. I can manually change the settings for movies.