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Author Topic: The state of Linux audio and DSD is actually pretty good.  (Read 8770 times)

skidmata

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The state of Linux audio and DSD is actually pretty good.
« on: March 11, 2021, 10:21:42 pm »

Hey,

I wanted to let people know that on recent linux distros and kernels DSD support works much better than Googling around would have you believe.

I have a laptop with Fedora 33 and a Desktop with Ubuntu 20.04.  On both the desktop and the laptop, I have usb DAC's.   One is a straight from China Denafrips Pontus II with an usb interface identified by "Thesycon".   The other is a Monolith Desktop HPA with an AKM dac and xmos usb chip.

Recent versions of pulseaudio now avoid resampling whenever possible and play directly through to the sink at the sources native speed.
in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf set:
Code: [Select]
avoid-resampling = yes
restart the daemon with pulseaudio -k

After setting this value mc27 can stream DSD in dop format through pulseaudio straigtht to the DAC at any speed the DAC supports.

This did not work for native DSD however,    On Fedora 33, it was enough just to point pulseaudio at a different sink and I was then able to output native DSD at any speed the DAC supported.   On Ubuntu, I had to remove the usb DAC from pulseaudio with this trick:
https://jamielinux.com/blog/tell-pulseaudio-to-ignore-a-usb-device-using-udev/
Once I did that I was able to stream DSD from mc27.

So in summary:

Linux native DSD support worked on 2 random devices I just happened to have.   Google paints a much bleaker picture than this.
Pulseaudio with "avoid-resampling = yes" not only passes through high res PCM, but also will pass through DSD dop.   Thats a really happy discovery.

It took me a bit of digging to find these details, so I hope you find this post helpful.
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skidmata

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Re: The state of Linux audio and DSD is actually pretty good.
« Reply #1 on: March 19, 2021, 02:16:09 pm »

Another happy fact for Linux desktop users:  Qobuzz web player on firefox plays hi-res streams.   I don't see that with chrome/widevine.

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mwillems

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Re: The state of Linux audio and DSD is actually pretty good.
« Reply #2 on: March 19, 2021, 11:27:29 pm »

Thanks so much for the tip on "avoid-resampling".  When I last configured my pulse daemon that wasn't an available option and it works a treat!   I have an SMSL m400 and playing back from MC through pulse now sets the DAC to the correct sampling rate automagically without having to use hardware direct output. 

You made my day  ;D
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skidmata

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Re: The state of Linux audio and DSD is actually pretty good.
« Reply #3 on: April 25, 2021, 11:56:17 am »

Another happy fact for Linux desktop users:  Qobuzz web player on firefox plays hi-res streams.   I don't see that with chrome/widevine.

I'm going to have to call BS on myself because I can't reproduce this with anything about 48k now....
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skidmata

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Re: The state of Linux audio and DSD is actually pretty good.
« Reply #4 on: January 01, 2022, 02:50:53 pm »

I was wrong, you can get things confused over time, but I'm able to play 192/24 via Qobuzz on firefox.

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