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DSD streaming downconverts to 176

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tonereef:
I'm using a (modified) Resonessence Concero HD which is a 32 bit USB DAC which converts up to 352.8 and DSD128 DoP. The manual says that when the unit detects the presence of a DSD stream the Sabre chip automatically switches to DSD mode. But it seems I can't consistently get JRiver to provide the DAC with a DSD stream. I had things working last night after I reset the audio settings etc. according to the advice of another DAC manufacturer:

https://www.exasound.com/Blog/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/110/Configuring-JRiver-Media-Center-for-Mac-OS-X-for-use-with-exaSound-DACs--Step-by-Step-Guide.aspx

The DSP window was then showing 2.8MHz DoP as the source and bitstream as internal, and Mac's audio midi setup was showing 352. But today after opening JRiver and without making any changes to the settings, it is back to downconverting the DSD stream to 176 (or at least that's what audio midi setup is showing), even though JRiver is still showing source and internal formats as last night. I can set audio midi to 352 with JRiver open, but as soon as I start streaming DSD it resets to 176. Any idea what the problem might be now? I have verified that "Auto configure output settings on playback error" is still set to Ask.

(Before I changed the settings, when streaming DSD the source and internal formats were showing as 352.8 64 bit.)

I've also sometimes experienced problems with getting the DAC to lock to any JRiver stream (when this happens the result is a ton of noise with the ghost of the signal underneath). Is there a recommended procedure? Should the DAC be turned on (and selected in audio midi) before opening JRiver, or vice versa, or does it matter?

And I am still sometimes experiencing the JRiver Playing Now window freezing. This seems to happen when I'm streaming a file and also opening other windows, or maybe only when I've been changing settings. When this happens the music continues to play track by track but all controls are lost, so at that point I have to close JRiver if I want to pause or play something else. This is very inconvenient!

I am using 23.0.65 and El Capitan.

Awesome Donkey:
Do you have DSD bitstreaming enabled?

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/DSD

tonereef:
Yes. And in the DSP setting "Output format" is unchecked. That is the setting specified by Exasound, and I believe that's the setting at which I was able to get audio midi setup to show streaming happening at 352. But now, whether I check or uncheck output format I'm getting 176.

I tried changing the DSP to 2xDoP (since the DAC is capable of that) but it's still 176.

tonereef:
Further - I'm wondering whether the problem is with Audio Midi setup - maybe it is "interpreting" a DoP stream as 176. But whatever it shows should be irrelevant, right? Because the JRiver settings, not Audio Midi setup, are controlling the DAC. I'm curious though whether anyone else has noticed this.

Also, is it recommended to set output encoding to 2xDoP - which would upsample DSD64 to DSD128 on the fly, correct?

Awesome Donkey:

--- Quote from: tonereef on January 11, 2018, 12:54:24 pm ---Also, is it recommended to set output encoding to 2xDoP - which would upsample DSD64 to DSD128 on the fly, correct?

--- End quote ---

I'd avoid this, as any and all conversions in MC go through a PCM step, even DSD to DSD conversion. So in that case it'd be going from DSD64 > PCM > DSD128. I'd leave it as-is and avoid using output format with DSD.

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