How do I know that when I use Roon to play either streamed music or music from my library that my external DAC is being used and not the built-in DAC of my Mac mini?
I keep seeing the speaker symbol move from my Ayre DAC in the “audio midi setup” back to the built-in output whenever I press play in Roon.
I have the Ayre DAC enabled inside Roon, and my Mac Mini recognizes my DAC from the US port.
I have chosen in the Mac Mini the Ayre DAC and for it to use this device for the sound output.
The speaker symbol moves to the Ayre dac and everything looks good. However, when I go back to Roon and play a song the speaker symbol automatically moves itself back to the built-in output selection in the midi setup.
Despite this happening, my DAC shows the appropriate sample rate and plays all of the music from Roon.
My concern is the information is being processed twice. Once inside my Mac Mini and the second time in my Ayre DAC.
Why does that speaker symbol keep moving from my Ayre DAC in the midi setup to the built-in output?
Very confusing. Thank you for any simple help you can provide.
If music is coming out of whatever system you have hooked up to your external DAC, it’s working correctly. If there’s no music coming from that system, it’s not working correctly.
I would leave the dac for roon. But if you use the dac also for the computer, like watching YouTube or Netflix and you want the sound (from Safari or other app) to use the Ayre then what you are doing is ok.
Mac OS has to free the dac for roon, so that is why jumps to the build in output. It does that if in roon setting the dac is used in Exclusive Mode. If that would not happen you would get your e-mail notifications sound over the music playing from roon. 100% I would leave the Dac on exclusive mode.
If the Ayre is in exclusive mode the Mac mini does not touch the stream. But just to be sure provide the signal path
Thank you all for responding, it has been most helpful. Traian, if I followed your screenshots correctly, the speaker symbol is on the “Mac mini speakers” when Roon is playing in exclusive mode. I too have mine on exclusive mode and the speaker symbol is on the same output as yours. That leads me to believe that I have mine set correctly and should leave it alone. Assuming I interpreted your post correctly, I believe that answers my question. I just thought the speaker symbol would be beside my Ayre dac when using Roon in exclusive mode. Guess I was wrong. Thanks again.
I still think it would be beneficial for you to share screenshots of the device’s settings. Moreover, if the Ayre is configured correctly, and on the following list, it would not have a speaker icon, but line art for the model.
does the icon work by default or you have to manually identify the device? For my CA200M I have to identify the device. My usual way is to load the defaults, study them and eventually change what I want.
Just to back up David_Gibson’s comment. If you’re plugging headphones/audio cable into your mac’s 3.5mm audio out then you’re using the Mac’s built in DAC. If you are using the audio output from the external DAC (a headphone or RCA output) then you’re using the external DAC.
Your computer can only send a digital signal out to an external DAC, if a converted audio signal was sent your external DAC would not recognise it and would not output any sound.
does the icon work by default or you have to manually identify the device?
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If the device is Roon Tested, the icon should be displayed without intervention.
In the OP it states that USB is used. However, the signal can pass through the OS mixers and still be forwarded to the external DAC, e.g., system sounds may be heard over audio. Exclusive mode is necessary to bypass the OS mixer, i.e. Roon takes control of the audio source.
I think CA Dac Magic 200M is roon tested. I guess my real question, if the roon tested device is recognised roon loads the defaults for the specific device? (it would be logic to do so)
That is the default I have always found for any DAC I have directly plugged into a Mac running Roon (including things that are not Roon tested). To do otherwise would be storing up a lot of trouble for the customer support guys
IIRC, it depends on which interface is enabled in Settings > Audio. (I no longer have a Mac, so can’t confirm, but I think there’s System Output and Core Audio.)
I think all of them are CoreAudio, that is the driver name like ALSA. System output can be routed to any audio card (Dac) but when Roon (or another app, Tidal for example) does request the Dac the system should know and free the Dac for the app that is using it. I think in Ventura 13.0 there was a bug where Mac OS would not free the dac for roon and roon on stop would not free the dac for system. You had to reboot the dac every time you wanted to play one way after another.
Unless things have changed in the past few months, macOS has System Output and CoreAudio devices.
If System Audio is enabled, and a DAC is connected, audio will be heard through the DAC, but it isn’t exclusive mode, and the signal path goes through the OS mixer.
Nothing changed, it was my impression that system output just uses the audio card selected on the system settings of the os. So same CoreAudio Driver but just is named System Output
I now have an iFi hip dac connected to the mini where the Roon Core is. I can select in os the hip dac and roon can play to that (better not to use it as in this case I think goes thru the os audio processing, the green dot in signal path)
Unfortunately my dac, Ayre qb-9, is not on Roon’s list but that doesn’t really affect my setup/settings. The screenshots that Traian posted are the same as what I would have posted to show the issue. Now that I know where the speaker sign should be in the Mac mini’s audio midi setup window, I believe my concern is alleviated. I am using Roon’s exclusive mode and the signal path shown in Roon looks correct.
This is not the situation. Roon doesn’t have exclusive control of the DAC, and the signal can be altered by the OS mixer. This shouldn’t be used unless, for example, you want to hear system notifications.
