Use a “shining star” icon for DSD to PCM conversion in “signal path”.
It is disappointing to see DSD playback via software PCM conversion shown by a green fuzzy circle in the “signal path” indicating lossy high quality. I’ve read the FAQ on how the signal quality icons are assigned to different sources and processes to indicate signal degradation and find this inconsistent.
64 bit to 24 bit downsampling is shown as an enhancement, not a degradation. It’s not clear to me that this choice follows the principles in the FAQ. Rather, it might be done this way to prevent people from thinking that any final conversion to 24 bits is mucking up the music. Yet when DSD, a very high bitrate source, is converted to an essentially equivalent high bitrate PCM format, it’s considered to be a degradation.
Please reconsider classifying DSD->PCM the same as 64bit->24bit downsampling and replace the fuzzy green ball with a shining star.
Unfortunately DSD to PCM conversion IS lossy. It is not possible to reconstruct the original DSD signal from the PCM signal, hence the conversion is lossy.
Lossless conversion can be done in both directions any number of times and the integrity of the content of the file is conserved.
In this particular example it’s a compatibility measure, not designed to enhance quality.
In my list there’s three different scenarios:
Bit Perfect and untouched
Augmented/Enhanced by DSP/Headroom adj. etc
Down-/Resampled for compatibility reasons.
Other than these there is an orange dot for lossy files, and all together this makes some sense (to me anyway)
However, i am not entirely convinced that my Bluesound Soundbar’s built in DSP actually enhance the audio (it is displayed with the blue/white star)
Yeah, it is lossy, but part of my point is that there are other lossy processes in roon that get shining stars. Downsampling. Converting from 24 bit fixed to 64 bit float. Parametric EQ. Actually, anything done in float is potentially lossy.
(Change this behaviour, that is…)