A few days ago I downloaded JRiver MC 19 due to a recommendation on
http://dsd-guide.com/. For a while I have done some reading about DSD and its virtues and was eager to try it out. Some DSD-files were downloaded to my windows 7 laptop and unzipped and imported into JRiver. I was aware that playing DSD demanded a suitable dac. At my disposal I had a diy dac with CS8416/CS4397 combo with USB connection. So I hooked it up to the dac with a USB-cable of good quality. I expected nothing to happen.
I was rather surprised that some wonderful music came out of my Tannoy speakers at first try. I first thought that the USB cable transmitted only simple 16 bit/44khz versions of the music played. But the JRiver platform said that 64bit/192khz was played. Comparing ordinary 16/44 wav/flac files and 24/192 flac files with the DSD files, the latter sounded way better.
So something extraordinary was transmitted - but what? I tried different settings, and the available wasapi worked flawlessly. My question is: is it really DSD-files that leave the laptop? Is the diy dac really capable of decoding the DSD-files?
I'm prepared to get a negative answer that the files are downsampled to other formats. But still: the sound I hear is way better than the other formats I play of the same music. So. what is going on?
Best wishes
Jan Ove
Norway