Denafrips Ares II - anyone using the USB volume driver

Art_Set · February 5, 2024, 12:53pm

Is anyone using the specific driver allowing for volume control.
USB MCU FIRMWARE UPDATE | Denafrips
Referring to the “Special Firmware”.

I am interested in knowing if this breaks bit-perfect when using ASIO. I know it is DSP volume essentially, but if I can avoid converting DSD to PCM to do software volume I would install it.

Thanks,
Art

Marin_Weigel · February 5, 2024, 5:24pm

You could also use this setting set to yes … but no matter what you decide on, no variety of digital volume implementation can ever be bit perfect …

Art_Set · February 5, 2024, 9:02pm

Sorry but this screenshot in no way answers my question and BTW this setting is for upsampling dsd directly to a higher sampler rate of dsd without going to pcm.
This has nothing to do with volume control or the Ares2 and its usb volume driver, but I get your point about no variety of volume control on the sw side keeping it bit perfect.

Marin_Weigel · February 6, 2024, 6:47am

EDITed out my emotional digression

You got me wrong here, since there’s no need to use upsampling options, but only use DSD native processing to use Roon’s DSP volume control without PCM conversion, just set upsampling to “for compatibility”.

Art_Set · February 7, 2024, 11:56am

Thanks again, but you are wrong. As soon as dsp volume is enabled a couple of things happen:

For compatibily is enabled and DSD is being converted to 352khz PCM.
Signal path changes to green (high quality)
As a final step you see Dsp volume in the chain.

I don’t see you using anywhere Dsp volume in your capture.
If you try searching the other threads for dsp volume you can confirm what I am saying.

My question was regarding using USB volume with respective Ares ii driver VS Roon’s Dsp volume and you are using a SMSl Dac, so emotions aside this is not helpful.

Marin_Weigel · February 7, 2024, 5:34pm

Okay, just checked it out with DSP volume in device setup, and what can I say other than apologizing for having been wrong all along … sorry for drastically raising the signal to noise ratio in your thread!

Poli · March 31, 2024, 6:22pm

I just did the firmware update. And now I am able to control volume on the DAC. So not using DSP volume.

Art_Set · March 31, 2024, 10:13pm

Can you please try playing dsd files. According to vinshine it will not work.

Poli · March 31, 2024, 10:32pm

DSD files do play. Only problem : volume is maxed out with DSD. So I have roon set to convert those to PCM.

Art_Set · March 31, 2024, 10:40pm

Yes, that is the issue, this is why when you use Dsp volume dsd files are also converted to pcm, but with the driver at least you can convert to 768khz, whereas dsp volume auto-converts to 352.