Listening to a PCM track with predominately low bass hitting a full 0dB peak, I hear clipping distortion with JRiver's PCM to DSD conversion enabled. The distortion is not present during direct PCM playback, so I thought i'd look into this a little more.
I generated a a PCM 16bit/44.1khz file of pure 100hz sine wave at full 0dB, this makes it easy to hear distortion if present. Sure enough, the track clips when PCM to DSD is engaged. Reducing the volume on JRiver by -2dB completely eliminates this clipping. I played back the same file as direct PCM, and no clipping occurs.
I have a Mytek DSD DAC. I tested the analogue output stage to see if it's the culprit here, I tested this by turning down Mytek's analogue volume, the distortion still remained. Turning down the digital volume on JRiver or Mytek (Mytek has both digital and analog to chose from) by -2dB, distortion is completely gone.
I have DSPs turned off, and run JRiver with ASIO DSD bitstreaming.
I hope you can help.