"Hi Mark.Having looked at this issue previously, I believe Roon has a bug which is caused by the fact that the Audiophilleo supports 16 bit audio only for 44 and 48 KHz, while supporting 24 bit audio for all sample rates. The AP2 has no control over skipping to the next song. It forwards what it is being given to the SPDIF output. So this skipping is due to an internal error in Roon.
The issue occurs when going from 44/16 into 96/24 or 192/24.
The only way to restore 96/24 or 192/24 playback is to play 44/24 file first.
What happens when you enable the Volume Leveling feature for the Audiophilleo zone? You can find the Volume Leveling feature in the Zone Settings screen
volume leveling workaround this issue.
I’ve talked to Audiophilleo and it appear the issue is due to incorrect handling when changing from 44/16 or 48/16 to >48/24.
this issue does not happen when going first from 44/16 or 48/16 to 44/24 or 44/24 and then to >48/24.
I guess the "workaround’ suggested for the test always output 24-bit and therefor no issue.
Thanks,
Leon
p.s - I confirmed this sample change is working fine with both Tidal and Qobuz desktop apps.
Yes, based on your testing I believe your theory is correct. I am not aware of any other audio devices that behave like this on macOS. It appears likely that Audiophilleo implemented something in a non-standard way.
Glad to hear the Volume Leveling feature prevents the issue from occurring!
Regarding the Qobuz and Tidal testing – Qobuz does not use CoreAudio exclusive mode on the Mac which makes this test not applicable to Roon. Tidal supports “Exclusive Mode”, but it is not enabled by default. I also cannot comment on how the Tidal app handles bit-depth changes, so I’m not sure if the test would be the same regardless.
the test performed with Tidal in “Exclusive mode” - works fine.
I’m sure that other applications will work as well.
the reason Audiophilleo has to support 16-bit is to pass thought Dolby surround stream for those who need it.
remember that the Audiophilleo is a converter and not a DAC that has additional uses like Dolby support.
I cannot use “Volume leveling” feature as I want to keep bit-perfect stream into the Audiophilleo.
I believe you will see this issue on every 16-bit supporting DAC/converter.
I hope this can be fixed on your end by one of the following:
always output 24-bit for 44/48
fixing the change issue from 44-48/16 to >48/24
intermediate transition to 44-48/24
perhaps it worth looking at how 44-48/16 is changed to 44-48/24 which work fine and overcome this issue
I have enabled diagnostics on your account so our technical staff can get some more insight into what’s going on here. The next time your Core is active a diagnostics report will automatically be generated and uploaded directly to our servers
Once that’s been received, I’ll be sure to update this thread and pass the diagnostics over to the team for further analysis.
Looking at the logs, it appears that Roon is handling the device as expected.
[127.0.0.1:65063] GOT [6] {"request":"setup","format":{"sample_type":"pcm","sample_rate":96000,"bits_per_sample":24,"channels":2,"sample_subtype":"none"}}
[output/coreaudio] setup: format is pcm 96000/24/2
[coreaudio] opening 96000/24/2
[debug] Setting sample rate for device 87 to 96000.
[debug] Error in AudioDeviceSetProperty(0) in AudioDeviceSetPropertyNowAndWaitForChange: 560226676 (0x21646174) (!dat)
[debug] Error in AudioDeviceSetPropertyNowAndWaitForChange(kAudioDevicePropertyNominalSampleRate): 560226676 (0x21646174) (!dat)
[debug] Error in set_sample_rate: -1 (0xffffffff)
[debug] set_sample_rate(samplerate=96000, exclusive_mode=1) failed.
As shown in the log trace above, Roon is requesting that the device switch to the 96000kHz sample rate and the device is failing to do so. The code responsible for changing the sample rate on the device is identical on every Roon + macOS installation, we do not see this behavior with other devices.
We do not have the Audiophilleo device in-house to determine what is going on here, it is not a Roon Tested partner device.
If you would like to keep the audio in a mostly bit-perfect state while expanding to 24bits, you could try enabling the “Parametric EQ” in Roon’s DSP engine and keeping the default settings of gain = 0dB for all bands.
Philip from Audiophilleo here. Your logs don’t have sufficient detail to be sure but I think I might know what the problem is:
The Audiophilleo supports the following rates: 44/16, 48/16, 44/24, 48/24, 96/24, 192/24. When Roon switches from 44/16 to 96/24, it switches the sample rate to 96 BEFORE changing the bit depth to 24. The Audiophilleo does not support 96/16 which is why OSX is giving you error 560226676. The request never even makes it to the Audiophilleo because 96/16 is not a supported format. This is why OSX gives error kAudioDeviceUnsupportedFormatError (560226676).
If Roon first switches to 24 bit and THEN to 192Khz OSX will not give you an error. The reason you don’t encounter this bug with most audio devices is that most devices support all bit depths at all sample rates. The Audiophilleo supports 16 bit only at the lower sample rates (for the purpose of supporting surround sound encoding passthough).
Thanks for the insight, I’m going to pass this information along to the developers for further investigation. Is the email you used to sign up for Roon community your best contact information? If needed we may reach out directly.