USB-powered Recording Interface Noise

[robot zombie]

I have been looking to get a new USB recording interface going with my PC. Unfortunately my old, dedicated power one is not long for this world.

I'm running into an issue... ...noisy USB power. I've said for years that USB is not for audio and this is why I avoid it like the plague.

When I plug in any of these new interfaces, I get what sounds like a robot thinking coming through my JBL LSR305's. I have Tried a Behringer Uphoria, the Focusrite Scarlett Solo 2nd gen, and now I've got a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 2nd gen. All take ONLY USB bus power. The first two had unbalanced RCA outs, which I assumed was a big part of the problem. I tried different isolators... ...DI ground lift. Nothing. Noise is still unusably loud. They're just carrying the interference right up to the monitors. But doing that tells me it starts inside the computer, not between the box and the speakers. It must be there BEFORE it even reaches the outputs.

The 2i2 I have now has balanced TRS outs, which I am feeding to the balanced XLR connectors on my monitors. The robot noises got a lot quieter by switching to balanced. It's rejecting some of the noise. But it's still the same noise, just lower. And it corresponds to things happening with my computer. When I do certain things such as open a browser or something, it gets louder and more nuanced.

So now I'm sitting here like WTF. Why do none of these budget interfaces have an optional wall wart? If I can't isolate from the USB power I can't use them with my PC without awful noise. It's like some kind of cosmic joke... ...that none of the people making these things considered including a way to plug them into the wall for power instead of relying on the extremely variable element that is the power coming from people's laptops and PC's. Common sense from an audio standpoint says its a terrible idea. We all know how bad mobo audio can be for this exact reason. No isolation. USB data transmission isn't hurt by this, but then it isn't designed for audio so why would anyone expect it to work?

Any ideas? Understand I have tried all of the standard ground loop fixes short of modding ports and cables. I need to find a way to isolate the 2i2 from the USB ground.

I'm considering one of these with the optional power brick at this point. Sucks, but it beats cycling components in the computer to maybe fix the problem :/ I'm also considering a Schiit Wyrd. Seems to do about the same thing. I'm waiting to hear back from them.

 

[Jetster]

Weird, I use the JBL LSR305 and The Scarlett 2i2. I have no issues and using balanced TRS Cables
Maybe coming from your inputs, Guitar? Mic?

Do the headphones make the noise too?

 

[robot zombie]

Weird, I use the JBL LSR305 and The Scarlett 2i2. I have no issues and using balanced TRS Cables
Maybe coming from your inputs, Guitar? Mic?

Do the headphones make the noise too?

Nope, headphones don't carry the noise.

It's not the speakers either. I just tried with my old M-Audio BX5's. Same problem. The noise actually starts pre-boot... ...as soon as I turn on the computer and the 2i2 starts up, it's there.

And it's not coming from the inputs. First thing I did was record a little guitar through them. It's not there on the recorded tracks! And yet I can't isolate it from my speakers.

And like I said, this happens to me with every bus-powered interface I try to use with this PC. I can only assume one thing there.

 

[Jetster]

Yep try another PC, or house

 

[robot zombie]

Yep try another PC

Hehe yeah... ...shoulda mentioned that does fix the problem. The super-budget $400 build in the living room is fine. As is the 8-year-old HP laptop.

Problem is, this is the computer I need to be using to actually be able to run production software and vsti's. Those two can't handle it without being a total PITA. So I have no choice but to find a way to make it work.

Question is... ...is it the mobo, ports themselves, or the PSU... ...the first two I can do nothing about, but the PSU, I can change. I could also run a USB card off of the spare header, though who knows if that'll really change anything. Stuff like that is just... ...how would I even know what to look for to guarantee cleaner USB power?

To me it just seems like there has to be a non-rediculous way. It's clearly a problem with the USB power. My Modi 2 Uber DAC uses USB for data but runs off a dedicated SMPS and has no issues, even though it uses unbalanced RCA outs. Quiet as can be. I figure if I can find a way to take this thing off of the USB power bus, while retaining data, I'll be golden.

The guys over at Schiit seem to think I have a good chance of having the Wyrd work. What it does is reclock the data, omit the power coming from the PC, and instead supply power to the device downstream via its own linear power supply. Basically more consistent data and much cleaner power. 99% sure this is what I need.

I'm think I'm gonna go for it next week. Can't tell you how sick I am of trying to fix this problem. Been fighting it with this PC for over a month and a half.

And unfortunately "buy another interface" means spending a couple hundred bucks more, as none of the good budget interfaces now run on anything but bus power, I guess because they all have to be portable. Been down that road. Such a stupid problem... ...I still just kind of shake my head at the idea that any engineer worth his salt would think it was wise to assume that every USB 2.0 port these things will be plugged into has suitably clean power. But apparently they all do! <_<

 

[Jetster]

Unplug everything you can and try it, mouse keyboard, USB, drives besides C sound card, DVD, printer, fans, front header, USB header, USB hub. Obviously leave the DAC
Then try another PSU

It might be the onboard sound not being shielded correctly

 

[jsfitz54]

Have you tried "Ferrites" : https://www.google.com/imgres?imgur...d=0ahUKEwja-pj5k4ncAhUuqlkKHUcfCwIQ_B0I8QEwEg

 

[robot zombie]

Unplug everything you can and try it, mouse keyboard, USB, drives besides C sound card, DVD, printer, fans, front header, USB header, USB hub. Obviously leave the DAC
Then try another PSU

I hadn't considered a few of those. But I had no luck there.

It might be the onboard sound not being shielded correctly

What do you mean? If I'm not using onboard at all, why would it matter?

Have you tried "Ferrites" : https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51n5lh70xEL._SY355_.jpg&imgrefurl=https://www.amazon.ca/Ferrite-Core-Cord-Noise-Suppressor/dp/B0002MQGEK&h=355&w=355&tbnid=g_oMvvRQmUbjUM:&q=ferrites&tbnh=186&tbnw=186&usg=__hLN9Qwgs9bQS8LjuTZ-aCZFiQMg=&vet=10ahUKEwja-pj5k4ncAhUuqlkKHUcfCwIQ_B0I8QEwEg..i&docid=oWrONBxORDM2IM&itg=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwja-pj5k4ncAhUuqlkKHUcfCwIQ_B0I8QEwEg

Yeap... and different cables with chokes already fitted on em.

I really wish I had a mic to catch this noise man, it's something else.

 

[Jetster]

What do you mean? If I'm not using onboard at all, why would it matter?

Try disabling the driver on the onboard. Its a long shot but maybe
Its something causing it you just have to narrow it down

 

[Solaris17]

you said this hum was constant right at boot? If you were in the BIOS do you hear distortion from the speakers? My scarlett solo 2nd gen is USB powered but I do not have any kind of noise either.

 

[robot zombie]

Try disabling the driver on the onboard. Its a long shot but maybe
Its something causing it you just have to narrow it down

No effect.

Oh it's something... ...and unfortunately I think I know what that something is. I think that something is the mobo. :/

you said this hum was constant right at boot? If you were in the BIOS do you hear distortion from the speakers? My scarlett solo 2nd gen is USB powered but I do not have any kind of noise either.

Yep, it starts at boot. With all 3 of the USB bus interfaces I've tried. And it changes depending on how hard my computer is working. At bios it is fainter. Picks up gradually and adds a few new sounds as the OS does its thing booting up. Load up a couple of applications and it goes crazy, though music easily drowns it out, voices not so much. Get the GPU going with some games and I can hear it prominently over the game audio. It's crazy, man... ...I think my SMD's are trying to reach out to me via the USB... ...they're trying to send out a message across the data lines.

I'm willing to bet most people will never have this issue. I have two PC's here that dont. And no other PC before has. But I bet other people with the same mobo would if they tried it. It's a really sinister compatibility problem.

I've been back and forth with Focusrite about this for a while now. They weren't even surprised. It's not unheard of to them either. They knew exactly what I was talking about and added that some people just cannot get any of their USB-powered interfaces to work with their computers without this same noise - and it has to do with the USB power, they agree that USB power itself is problematic with some machines. All they could say to me was they would pass on what I mentioned about wall warts potentially fixing it. Two separate people told me that it would fix the problem, but they didn't include them because they wanted better portability, and that this was an unfortunate side-effect of that. They told me the only way they could guarantee that this wouldn't happen was with their higher end interfaces, which run off wall warts out of necessity.

I've heard of this kind of stuff happening in the audiophile world with USB powered DACs. It happens regularly enough that I still remember it anyway, which is rare People tend to frown on USB audio for being noisy and jittery because it really just is. When it works it works (and it usually does,) but when it doesn't, its bad.

USB power isn't always the best in terms of consistency or isolation... ...sometimes the power end picks up interference from other components on the board... ...not as in like your HDD or your optical drive or your PCIe cards... ...actual chips soldered on the board. From what I gathered reading about this wayyy back, it can depend on the layout of the power rails on the board and the positioning of the chips. The more they get put to work, the more interference they toss towards the USB. Dunno how true that actually is...

I dunno, it's very much off of the beaten path and into whooey blewwey world but to me it does make sense. It's not a design consideration. USB isn't supposed to be used for audio. I know it sounds strange, but there's not nothing to it, either. Whatever it is that's causing this with the USB doesn't affect normal operation... ...it's only when you try to stretch it and make it do audio. A printer or a phone don't care about this problem, you'll never know there's any interference. I don't think as far as standard use it's not even considered a problem.

I have always avoided USB audio explicitly for this reason - I never recommend anything that runs on USB bus because I don't want to have them come back to me if this crap happens... and now that I actually have to use it I am unlucky enough to actually have it affect me. Does USB know I don't like it? Do you think it knows?


Sorry for the rant. It's just an issue I'm willing to bet nobody would have to deal with if these devices were designed a little differently. If I can't figure it out by the time I get the Wyrd, I'll be super interested to see how that goes. I really, highly suspect that giving the 2i2 something to munch on other than my mobo's USB power will help. I'm willing to bet that if I spliced the ground of a USB cable, the noise would go away... ...only problem then is that I'd start getting dropouts/disconnects. When I decide which cable to sacrifice, I'll try it.

 

[OneMoar]

likely culprit
ground loop either on the case front panel or motherboard
try a ground loop isolator
old skool but works

 

[robot zombie]

likely culprit
ground loop either on the case front panel or motherboard
try a ground loop isolator
old skool but works

I'm going to test for this with a groundless USB cable. If that fixes it a ground loop isolator will work. I can tell you that using them on the output to the speakers does nothing. Same as using a DI box to lift the ground. I'm almost thinking the hot signal itself is suspect.

The big issue with those isolators is, most of the decently priced ones only support USB 1.1. The 2i2 needs 2.0 to work properly and not drop out. It also needs the full 500ma of power that 2.0 supplies, so most of those OG isolators will be a no go. I have to get a fancy audiophile one.

Like I said, I'll try Schiit's flavor and eat the restocking fee if it doesn't work. If it works, I get linear power as a bonus.

 

[OneMoar]

what you could do is hack up a 5v 2amp power supply and a usb cable
power the amp from the power supply and only leave the datalines intact

that being said its likely the ground fault is on the datalines anyway
a lot of cheap boards do this

 

[robot zombie]

what you could do is hack up a 5v 2amp power supply and a usb cable
power the amp from the power supply and only leave the datalines intact

Haha that's clever. I could. I think I have one somewhere. May do it just for fun. I think if it worked though, I'd still want something a little less rigged

that being said its likely the ground fault is on the datalines anyway
a lot of cheap boards do this

Ground fault on the data lines? Really?! I hope not. I'd figure there'd be more problems with that than just this if it were true. I mean its an Asus ROG B350 so I wouldn't be surprised.

Just occured to me... ...I have a DAC that can use USB for input and it doesn't have this problem. It's data-only - no power. Maybe something's just different with it, but I'm thinking if a fault on the data end was causing this the DAC would have the same problem, even though it has dedicated power.

 

[OneMoar]

a audiophile interface usb is not
which is why I rock htomega cards

 

[Solaris17]

hm I feel your pain. Unfortunetely in this case back in the day anyway my woes were caused by a PSU. However in all of these cases (audio) not just stand alone DACs it usually boils down to three things from what iv seen over time.

-PSU
-MOBO
-Case

Can you budge on atleast testing a combination of these theories? Maybe a diff case and PSU?

 

[robot zombie]

a audiophile interface usb is not

Nope! Totally agree there. My DAC also takes optical and coaxial SPDIF. I use the optical input instead of USB. No dropouts and I swear it sounds better.

It just sucks because I really need this particular type of interface to do what I do... ...recording guitars fed through VST amp sims and FX requires very low latency for real-time monitoring. That's where these types of interfaces differ. They're made to have no delay taking input over to output, sort of like fake direct monitoring through an oldschool mixer. I need to be able to hear what I'm playing as I play it. Very few, outside of the high-end stuff, use anything but USB and most use bus power. I hate that they do it that way. They advertise themselves as being professional level products but a lot of them boast only consumer RCA outs and run off of USB bus power... ...it's a joke to find a recording interface that gets it right on the budget end. And the worst part is it's not the cost that makes it that way.

Basically because of wanting to market to the lowest common denominator laptop user, I have no choice but to pick one of many USB interfaces that are gimped on the power and output side or toss up more cheese than I should need to. So I really do have no choice but to try and make it work.

hm I feel your pain. Unfortunetely in this case back in the day anyway my woes were caused by a PSU. However in all of these cases (audio) not just stand alone DACs it usually boils down to three things from what iv seen over time.

-PSU
-MOBO
-Case

Can you budge on atleast testing a combination of these theories? Maybe a diff case and PSU?

I can test all three. I have two builds running right now. I can try and swap the cases and PSU's. That'll have to wait till Saturday, but I will try it.

 

[Solaris17]

I really think it will help. and while it is a mega long shot you could try changing our your surge protector if you have one and or simply trying a diff outlet. It would be a shame to jockey so many parts only to find out your outlet (or room) has developed a hot ground.

 

[robot zombie]

I really think it will help. and while it is a mega long shot you could try changing our your surge protector if you have one and or simply trying a diff outlet. It would be a shame to jockey so many parts only to find out your outlet (or room) has developed a hot ground.

Thank you I will give it a shot.

Believe it or not that was one of the first things I tried, haha. I brought my computer and speakers into another room. I even tried running the speakers on another room's circuit and vice-versa.

 

[robot zombie]

Came home from a long day of work, glugged down a beer, sat down, got up... ...started taking my computers apart... ...and after a couple of hours/beers of swapping stuff around I've discovered it is indeed the mobo. Which PSU in which case with which mobo doesn't matter. Wherever I take that mobo, the noise follows.

It's an Asus ROG Strix B350-F, for reference.

So from here I suppose I have a couple of options. But I want to confirm the issue, before I go buying anything... ...unless someone can come up with a better way to use this thing with this machine or more I can look into.


Drinking and splicing wires is something I'm not too keen on, but now that I can isolate it to the mobo I'm feeling antsy to see what particularly with the USB is causing this. First guess is ground loop. Low-mid-level Asus board supports this notion. I just hope that by severing the ground I can still keep up enough data transfer to see if the noise is gone. Likely not but I can try. I've done it before with dropouts every few minutes to every 30 seconds. So I may get lucky. Depends on Scarlett's temperament. I have a ton of throwaway USB 2 cables to contribute to the cause. I am a little iffy about taking the ground off of something that takes power from USB, though.

I might try wiring in an SMPS, too, if I can find a suitable 5v one. I think I saw one pretty cheap at the local hardware - one of those switchy multibricks. Probably wise to plug-in something I'm okay with frying before I kill my shiny new 2i2, though. That's more just for fun. If it works I'll have a good laugh.

Tomorrow is another day for hokey stuff like that. I feel like I'm soooo close to solving this, though. Hurrr


EDIT: I wanted to update on my progress today. I tried snipping the ground on a USB cable with limited success. The 2i2 powered up and the noise was gone, but I couldn't keep it up for long enough to run output through and see if it was really even working, or if the noise was just gone because the data was too.

So I need to keep the ground somehow.

I've been reporting everything I was trying to Focusrite and at first they had plenty to say. But ever since it was looking like the mobo they've been quiet.

 

[gadgetboss]

I'm running into an issue... ...noisy USB power. I've said for years that USB is not for audio and this is why I avoid it like the plague.

Dude - I have the Behringer and Tascam. I get ZERO noise.

I don't think it's your interface. Also USB is not good for microphones (Which does produce noise) but it shouldn't happen with your audio interface. You might want to just get another unit or exchange it.

 

[robot zombie]

Dude - I have the Behringer and Tascam. I get ZERO noise.

I don't think it's your interface. Also USB is not good for microphones (Which does produce noise) but it shouldn't happen with your audio interface. You might want to just get another unit or exchange it.

That's the thing man! It's not the interface. This is the third different interfaces I've tried. One behringer and two focusrites... ...always the same, distinct noise. It's crazy... ...something on my mobo is causing that interference. And I'm not using it for mics. I don't even own one. It's for guitar, which I've used pretty successfully through these for a long time. When it got so complicated, I'll never know

It really is just nature of the beast with USB, it seems like every single one I plug in is susceptible to the same noise. And with this computer, it's likely all of them will. It's not exactly the most common problem but it actually does happen. That's why I say USB is not for audio... ...not all USB 2.0 ports are created equal in that department. Sometimes, they're just unusably noisy. They can and do pick up electrical noise from components inside of the machine. And then there's throughput issues, which is is why people complain of dropouts, popping noises, complete disconnects, etc. I had another PC that was like that, where occasionally my USB audio devices would pop and reset themselves because the data was dropping off. And they all had this connection problem where if I happened to move the cable - and I mean, any cable on any port on any audio device - it would drop out.

And again I do agree its not the interface. And yet, every single time I read reviews of USB interfaces, there are inevitably people complaining of "defective" units with these same problems. Digital audio is a specialized application for which USB is simply not designed to begin with. It's by luck that it tends to work okay and gets used the most only because everyone has them. I think of it as a design weakness... ...one I very badly need a workaround for. Simply replacing the unit is not gonna fix it. I've already verified that all 3 work with both my bare-bones rig and even my dying laptop. The USB ports on my one semi-decent rig just hate USB audio.

I'll tell you this... ...I would kill for a decent budget unit with SPDIF... but as far as I can tell, they don't exist.

 

[robot zombie]

Alright... ...Wyrd didn't fix it either. I was smart and got it via amazon prime - after free shipping the cost was the same as buying direct from Schiit, AND I can throw that money right at a new mobo as soon as the box scans out.

Was really hoping that cutting out the power from the USB bus would solve the problem. Since neither using that to provide clean power, nor actually isolating the USB ground has worked, I can only assume the data line is actually being messed with. Like I said before. If it's not the PSU, it can only be one thing...

New mobo it is...

Fuckin USB audio man... ...it's gotten so far beyond ridiculous. Just to have low-latency monitoring w/amp sims. Worst thing ever to happen to me. USB is for freaking printers, mice/keyboards, hard drives, not audio man... ...after this I don't think I can ever recommend a USB audio device to anyone. Anybody ever heard of a mobo that advertises audio-friendly USB? :/

There just has to be a better way. We should've found it by now...

 

[Beastie]

To be fair, if there is an issue with the usb on your motherboard, that isn't the fault of the usb standard itself.

I've been using a focusrite usb interface for 2 or 3 years without any problem (mine is powered from its own brick from the wall, not from usb though).
Initially I was a bit sceptical about using usb but it works fine IME.

Well done for figuring out the source of the problem anyway.

Any decent mobo should be fine, if the usb isn't faulty.
The PSU is very important too, but it sounds like you've isolated the mobo as the culprit.
Quality of power is always going to be critical for audio, if you feed it dirty power it will be hard for it to make clean sounds.