Sound cutting out with beat?

[Hi Ho]

I was playing some music from my PC today through my main system. The PC is connected via digital coax (40' of RG-6). I have never had any issues with this setup. In fact, right now I am having no issues.

The problem occurred when I boosted the bass a little on a certain song. I have a system memory preset on my Yamaha with direct access to it from my universal remote. All it does is boost the preout level of the sub slightly and sets the bass tone control to +1.5db to give certain songs a little extra oomph. I don't use it often as I prefer a properly calibrated flat sound. Once in a while though it's fun to shake the house down.

I was doing that a little while ago and something very strange started happening. The audio started to cut out in sync with the bass beat. The kick drum seemed to be the culprit. When I looked at the front display of the receiver the "PCM" symbol that shows it's getting a signal from the PC was flickering on and off in sync with the audio cutting out. Huh? I set the sound back to normal and the problem stopped. The sub isn't even on the same circuit. It's in a different room. I do have my mains set to large. Was I overloading the power supply in the receiver? Overloading the wall circuit? I have played music like this many times before and at louder volumes with no issues. I had the volume set at about -13db. It was significantly loud but not as loud as I've had it set in the past with more bass heavy music. I have certainly watched movies with MUCH more demanding sub 20hz frequencies at significantly higher volume with all five speakers blaring without issues. I listen to music in 2 channel only.

Some quick Google searches brought up the possibility of digital clipping. Could it be that using the bass tone control, which routes the music through the DSP causes the DSP to clip and therefor cut out to avoid damage/distortion?

 

[Adam]

Is it possible that particular bass line is jarring one of the connectors on that digital audio cable?

I bet that you can tell that I'm a mechanical engineer and not a sparky.

 

[TLS Guy]

I was playing some music from my PC today through my main system. The PC is connected via digital coax (40' of RG-6). I have never had any issues with this setup. In fact, right now I am having no issues.

The problem occurred when I boosted the bass a little on a certain song. I have a system memory preset on my Yamaha with direct access to it from my universal remote. All it does is boost the preout level of the sub slightly and sets the bass tone control to +1.5db to give certain songs a little extra oomph. I don't use it often as I prefer a properly calibrated flat sound. Once in a while though it's fun to shake the house down.

I was doing that a little while ago and something very strange started happening. The audio started to cut out in sync with the bass beat. The kick drum seemed to be the culprit. When I looked at the front display of the receiver the "PCM" symbol that shows it's getting a signal from the PC was flickering on and off in sync with the audio cutting out. Huh? I set the sound back to normal and the problem stopped. The sub isn't even on the same circuit. It's in a different room. I do have my mains set to large. Was I overloading the power supply in the receiver? Overloading the wall circuit? I have played music like this many times before and at louder volumes with no issues. I had the volume set at about -13db. It was significantly loud but not as loud as I've had it set in the past with more bass heavy music. I have certainly watched movies with MUCH more demanding sub 20hz frequencies at significantly higher volume with all five speakers blaring without issues. I listen to music in 2 channel only.

Some quick Google searches brought up the possibility of digital clipping. Could it be that using the bass tone control, which routes the music through the DSP causes the DSP to clip and therefor cut out to avoid damage/distortion?

I think you are on the right lines. I suspect that the recording you were using was set close to maximum level, may be the kick drum was even running out of bits. When I master I watch the bit meter closely when producing a CD and leave just a little head room. You can't leave too much as you degrade signal to noise just like mastering with analog tape. My guess is you ran the processor out of bits, and your Yamaha has a recognition of this rather than passing the severe distortion down the chain. If it does, that is a good idea. Saturation is in no way graceful in the digital domain. It goes over the cliff, with horrible distortion and loud speaker busting pops. It is very ugly indeed.

I have heard that pop music producers usually use all the bits available, because of loudness wars. I believe quite often they are just in the red zone already so to speak.