I installed MC24 today to see whether the bitdepth issue was a change in functionality, or was always wrong. I can confirm that MC24 also had this issue. Should this be submitted as a bug then? The steps are as follows:
1. Fresh install of MC26 (or MC24)
2. Select the audio device that is direct to HW. In my case it is "hw:CARD=HDMI,DEV=3,[ALSA] HDA Intel HDMI,HDMI 0,Direct hardware device without any conversions"
3. Select a DLNA media source (In my case it is the Synology Media Server)
4. Select a 96kHz/24bit source file
5. Confirm that the Options panel shows the file "source as 96kHz/24bit"
6. Connect JRemote as a control device. Play the song. Note the info bar on the bottom shows 96kHz/16bit.
Without being able to record the output of the HDMI cable, I cannot tell you, by measurement, whether the actual output is still 24bit, which would mean that what is reported by MC to the control point is incorrect,
or, whether MC is actually truncating the bits to 16.