Auralic Aries DSD with non DSD DAC

Support
1

Hi

Roon running on a Mac Mini.
Auralic Aries wired on the network, native DSD disabled
Non DSD dac connected to the Aries through spdif.

PCM 16/44 to 24/192 plays fine.

DSD64 tracks (DSF format) play “silently”

Is it on Roon or on Auralic ?

Best regards

2

Can you post a screenshot of Roon’s “Signal Chain” popup during DSD playback on the Aries? That will tell us what’s going on.

3

4

That means that your Aries thinks it’s connected to a DSD capable DAC. Since it’s reporting DSD capabilities to Roon, Roon is sending DSD, and then the Aries is DoP packing it and sending it to your (non-DSD-capable) DAC.

Try turning off the “DSD over PCM (DoP V1.1)” setting in Lightning DS:

IMG_0201.PNG2048×1536 150 KB

5

As mentionned in my first post, native DSD is already disabled on Aries.
It plays white noise if I send it DoP files in upnp or open home mode
If it is on the Aries to tell Roon its DSD setup, then there is a bug in Aries firmware.
I will reboot everything, just in case, before getting in touch with Auralic.

Regards

6

Yes, it is on them to report the capabilities to us properly.

I tested just now, and my Aries is exhibiting the same problem. We will be in touch with them.

One potential quick fix: turn on software volume control on the Aries. If you leave the slider at 0dB, it will still be bit-perfect, but software volume control prevents Roon from sending DSD to the Aries (since Aries can’t adjust DSD volume internally).

You can have Roon hide the slider if you don’t want someone to actuate it by mistake (Settings -> Audio -> Gear icon -> Hide Volume Control in Roon).

This should get you the result you are looking for until they can push out new firmware. I’m emailing our contact over there right now.

EDIT: just sent the email. They probably won’t get it till Monday (since it’s already the weekend in China), but they are generally pretty responsive to our requests.

7

I just got a response from Auralic’s CEO. He says they will be fixing this issue for their next firmware drop.

In the meantime, the workaround that I suggested should have you covered.

8

Hi Brian

Thanks for having informed Auralic.

As I am in the middle of reviewing Roon for for french magazine www.audiophile-magazine.com, it is not a big deal not having DSD right now.
Support and answers to issues on this forum are also part of the review :relaxed:

Kind regards