Native DSD & DSD 256 Changed on MSB DACs?

Hey all, I am not the conspiracy type, but up until a few weeks ago, I thoroughly enjoyed Native DSD output up to 256DSD from my ROCK [NUC 7i7] into my MSB Select DAC. I tried this over the network with both a bridge and with a direct connect to my MSB; both were excellent. Because of some work on the house, I had left the NUC connected directly to the MSB USB input [I much prefer Roon to the many unfortunate UPnP interfaces, and so I don’t use the MSB network renderer very much]. Over the weekend, I happened to notice that some of the Device Setup settings and DSP Engine settings had changed, presumably through automatic updates. Now, for some reason, Roon will not output 256DSD to my Select DAC through USB. No Native DSD option os offered, and if I select DOP, the max Sample Conversion I can get is 128. Interestingly, the same ROCK unit outputs 256DSD just fine to my NADAC [though no Native DSD; it’s over DOP], while Native DSD is completely absent on my DirectStream. I have no crossfade or volume processing going on whatsoever for any of these devices. I have not updated my MSB DAC since February, and that was months before any of this. So, just a straight up question: has the Roon team disabled Native DSD and/or 256DSD for specific devices? This is not an accusation; it’s just an honest question.

FWIW, my Daphile server outputs 256DSD and native DSD to the MSB just fine. Perhaps there is another explanation, and I am trying to be diplomatic here, but it’s difficult not to conclude that this functionity has been disabled or hobbled in Roon. As a lifetime subscriber, this is . . . disappointing.

I must say this is very odd. Just checked and native DSD 256 via ROCK is ROCK solid with our Purestream DAC. I haven’t noticed any changes to the user interface with the last couple updates. So very unlikely this is user error related. But if anyone will know it’s the Roon team as MSB is an official Roon partner.

This is a kind of weird… Native DSD output from ROCK at the moment support only a limited range of DACs. You can see more on this thread where @andybob replied.

Probably I foresee this is going to be problematic in the future, only one DAC can be added one at a time; this requires software debugging and final QC. It may also need to have the hardware (DAC) for testing. By the time if that particular DAC is supported it will probably takes a long time!

DoP solves all the issues but presently it do up to DSD256, if your DAC can do DSD512, you are out of luck!

Yes but like he said native DSD was working with ROCK and his MSB DAC just fine for a long time until a recent update.

Support for native DSD on Linux for MSB has been working for a year now:

Works great with Linux based Daphile, and has worked great with Roon on linux flawlessly for 1 year up until a recent update.

Thanks for update, I know those DACs that are not ‘patch’ into Linux kernel will not work in native DSD. I assume XMOS chipset that are used in most DACs uses a generic Linux ALSA driver that will probably work here.

The ROCK OS is still build 76, the update on Roon playback software probably is the cause.

Thanks for that link above Guy, and your guess is mine as well. I used to have nice native 256 playback, as well as straight DSD sampling to 256. Now I do not. Why? The only thing that has changed in my system as near as I can tell is Roon updating. So Roon team, what’s the story?

That ROCK build has been out for ages so nothing changed there.

Although I have not explicitly patched our Linux kernel for any Native DSD support, some drivers are in the mainline kernel. Maybe you MSB and Mike’s Purestream DAC are part of that short list of mainline versions where it works.

Nothing in Roon has changed recently anywhere near the ALSA + Native DSD code, nor have we released an update recently.

We need logs from that ROCK system… going back to when it was working. @support, can you see if the logs exist?

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Yeah that’s strange it would work fine, then stop. Here’s what I get for format support with the Purestream:

Hi @Greg_Hammond ---- Thank you for your patience.

Moving forward, our team would like to compare a set of your current ROCK logs to those from when you were not experiencing this behavior (it possible). With this in mind may I very kindly ask you to please provide the following:

Recent ROCK logs:
Please use the instructions found here and upload us a current set of logs reflecting the mentioned behavior above.

Previous ROCK logs:
As mentioned, our devs would like to see your logs from the time period when you were not experiencing this behavior (i.e "…up until a few weeks ago, I thoroughly enjoyed Native DSD output up to 256DSD from my ROCK [NUC 7i7] into my MSB Select DAC.). In order to achieve this, we would need you to access a backup made from the mentioned time period and provide us with logs using the same procedure that is listed above.

Looking forward to your feedback!
-Eric