I am the happy owner of a Buffalo 32S with a Ballsie lite converter.

It has developed a strange fault. Most of the time it plays perfectly, but then for no apparent reason, the music stops with a distorted pop in the speakers.

The disc keeps playing, and the lock diode on the DAC is still burning. But the music is gone.

To make the music return, I have to switch of the DAC from between 20 seconds - 1 minute. When I switch off the DAC, it makes a loud pop in the speakers. Switching it on again makes the music return.

Normally, switching the DAC off and on is a totally quiet operation.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions as to what is causing this problem. All help will be much appreciated.

That is very strange behavior. I have never seen anything like it. The only suggestion I have would be to run the DAC unconnected to anything for a while, and then observe the inputs and outputs of the various opamps on the board. It could be that one of them is damaged, but since this is happening to both channels at the same time this is not very likely.

It could also be that there is something wrong with the power supply causing one rail to collapse?

I can really only basically guess right now.