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[Bebop0502]

In your guidlines you you say: "River Media Center can convert DSD files to and from PCM"

My question is if you know that this can match quality from recording companies converting their pcm-files like 24/96 to DSD64 for their SACD releases?

Question 2. It is possible to convert from pcm to dsd on the fly, but you do not recommend it. Why? What are the hick ups? (I use Aesthetix Romulus Signature that takes DoP using Burr Brown 1792A dacs). I have tried it and to me and it seems work fine.

[Awesome Donkey]

The first one is subject to personal opinion.

The second however is because PCM to DSD conversions or DSD to PCM conversions (especially multichannel) is one of the most resource intensive tasks Media Center can do on a PC. So you'd need a fast enough PC to do that on-the-fly or else you'll encounter issues like hiccups.

[Bebop0502]

Thanks for quick response. As I have no multichannel files it looks like I'm safe and my pc is fast enough.

Just one more... what happens when I play dsd files with conversion on the fly to dsd? Do I have to turn off the conversion then?

[Awesome Donkey]

I suppose you could enable DSD bitstreaming, that *should* disable any DSP effects (e.g. Output Format) while playing actual DSD files.

[dtc]

Some people set up 2 zones - one for DSD and one for PCM with appropriate settings for each zone - and then set up a zoneswitch.  You could have one zone for DSD and one for PCM to DSD conversion. I believe that works in general, but not for playlists. The playlists do not recognize the change in order to do the zoneswitch.  I have never tried it, but it might be an option.

[dtc]

I suppose you could enable DSD bitstreaming, that *should* disable any DSP effects (e.g. Output Format) while playing actual DSD files.

DSD encoding itself is independent of the bitstream setting, at least for PCM to DSD conversion.  I have not tried your suggestion, but will as soon as I can turn off the Christmas music for a few minutes.

EDIT:  Doing Output Format and turning on bitstreaming seems to play native DSD fine, while converting PCM.  That's a good solution.

It seems to me that the best solution would be to update the Output Formatting - Sample Rate box to include the option to convert PCM not just to different PCM sample rates, but also to different DSD rates. And to extend the top end to higher samples rates, like 2.8, 5.6,11.2 MHz and have either No Change or a PCM rate to convert to. For one thing, that would eliminate the need to know that DSD converts to PCM at 1/8th of the original rate, something few new users know.  It would be nice to have one user interface to cover all the options. The whole process is pretty convoluted as it is.