I use Roon Nucleus+, ZEN stream and Accuphase DAC DC-1000. With stable firmware 2.30.7, the system worked fine.
But, on beta firmware 2.31.7, volume control does not allow max volume and DSD cannot be played at all although DSD 64, 128 and 256 are shown to be available while firmware 2.30.7 shows only 64 and 128 and both work fine. Only DoP (not DSD Direct) can be selected and the DAC’s upper limit is PCM 386, therefore it is very strange that DSD 256 is shown on DoP.
Finally, I decide not to use this (Roon Ready ???) beta firmware 2.31.7.
Hi Katsu I have been using DSD 128 & 256 with the last builds without issues. I only have physical volume control on mine as it has a volume knob on my Zen DAC. I’m sure it was mentioned in an earlier post that Digital volume control does not function.
I will check the DAC settings on mine, but they had not changed up to 2.31.6, but I did update to 2.31.7 last night, though I didn’t play any music as I was not in my study
So it seems that after each beta update the defaults on the unit (at least on mine) are set back to SPDIF and MQA back to auto and DSD playback was Dop. I have changed these back to my desired settings of USB output, MQA on and DSD Direct and I have beautiful music now again.
It also looks like all the sources turn back on after the beta updates are installed as well as I can see all mine have become enabled once again.
I tried DSD 512 and while this works, my Zen DAC cannot handle it. I am happy at DSD128 into my HiFiMan Ananda headphones so I have gone back to this now.
I will check out 24/192 upscaling later to see if that is improved on SPDIF with other protocols disabled as that was way to choppy on previous builds.
OK it did not take long to confirm 24/192 is still a struggle in AIO mode over SPDIF (there is just a jitter/choppiness to it that is not right).
Back to 24/96 it is, not that I can actually tell any difference at those rates
Hi Michael, thank you very much for the information that DSD works fine when ZEN stream is combined with ZEN DAC. Probably my problem about DSD is caused by my Accuphase DAC which is not Roon Tested. I think I have to wait for a new stable update of ZEN stream firmware. Meanwhile, I use firmware 2.30.7 which can play both PCM an DSD nicely.
I could never get DSD Direct to enable in the beta builds. I queried iFi about it, and their response was “don’t use beta firmware,” and closed the ticket.
Are you upsampling to DSD or playing genuine DSD source tracks.
I have never had an issue and almost everything I play to my Zen Dac through my Stream is DSD.
I play PCM to another device through SPDIF, but that is because I like to play
There are some options below that help as well as the options I posted in the other thread you saw, it may be that not all DACs support this in the beta, which is also suggested by @Katsu_Takenaka in the above thread. I never noticed the Direct DSD/DOP option for some time
Interesting…when I attempt to upscale to DSD 512 using my Topping D90se (which does support 512), the tracks skip one after the other, consistent with the ZS’s limitation of DSD 256 max. I wasn’t aware that the ZS could handle 512. What did you mean by saying that it works, but that your Zen DAC can’t support it? Do you have the v2 or original Zen DAC, and am I missing something about the ZS supporting 512?
It couldn’t until the last release.
Not sure why it is there if it can’t handle the throughput.
The Ethernet and USB should be able to handle it, but maybe it will improve over time.
Well 512 has always been offered as an option in Roon; before that made sense to me because the bridge directly senses the capability of the DAC attached, not the bridge hardware itself. For that reason, prior to the upgrade Roon offered me 768 PCM as well—after the Roon Ready update it correctly capped out at 384.
There’s still a snafu in the Roon Audio settings, because one of the new DSD options is one called “ERROR”. I just didn’t think the ZS was ever promoted to handle 512. In fact I’ve posed a question to iFi whether a software upgrade could ever allow the ZS to handle PCM 786 and DSD 512–they told me they’d get back to me…
I got 768 before the update, because the ZS was functioning as a bridge. A Roon Bridge merely acts as a host for the audio device attached to it, and effectively makes any such device “Roon Ready”. As such, Roon’s ALSA protocol automatically detected the capabilities of the attached DAC—in my case the maximum performance capabilities of my Topping.
Bridges are usually designed for Audio Pi Hats or remote computers, with external DACs plugged into them, to create virtual endpoints. IFi made a very unusual decision to build a bridge into a streamer like the ZS, which has its own audio decoding limitations. It was their temporary solution for making the ZS Roon capable until they could attain Roon Ready authentication, and it’s caused a lot of confusion.
Because the bridge is hard-wired into the ZS, it will always exist in some vestigial form. If you notice, since the upgrade Roon automatically detects the ZS as a Roon Ready device. However, under the device settings, it still prompts you to identify the device attached to it, as if it were still a bridge. And if you do proceed to identify your DAC as the ZS (instead of leaving it unidentified and name it what you want), the ZS shows up twice in the signal path when playing an audio track—once as a bridge, and again as an endpoint.
None of this madness seems to affect performance, but being an unorthodox solution, Roon is struggling to figure out what it is.
Did you see 768 in Roon or did you play PCM 768 (confirmed by the dac display) ?
That alsa detects the dac settings and displays them (for no reason) in an interface is one thing but for now the ZenStream kernel is still the same (old) and locked in 384.
Example: networkaudiod (HQP NAA) sees the capabilities of the RME ADI dac (768 max) very well but cannot play more than 384.
ZenStream SSH
[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (1668): ALSA backend initialized
[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (1668): ALSA PCM format available: 44100/32/2
[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (1668): ALSA PCM format available: 48000/32/2
[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (1668): ALSA PCM format available: 88200/32/2
[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (1668): ALSA PCM format available: 96000/32/2
[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (1668): ALSA PCM format available: 176400/32/2
[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (1668): ALSA PCM format available: 192000/32/2
[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (1668): ALSA PCM format available: 352800/32/2
[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (1668): ALSA PCM format available: 384000/32/2
[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (1668): ALSA PCM format available: 705600/32/2
[/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (1668): ALSA PCM format available: 768000/32/2
Audio Pi (RPI?) Hats have exactly the same function as Zen Stream. All of them are streamers. DACs can be attached to any of them. And all of them also have its own computing limitations that finally lead to a situation when certain music bitrate cannot be handled.
Therefore I really don’t see any difference in their roles at all.
I’m not sure what you mean by hard-wiring in a software world. But do you have any evidence for those thesis? Have you verified ZS filesystem to check whether there are any parts of Roon Bridge used in Roon Ready firmware?
For me that looks like you are presenting your assumptions as facts. And at least I really doubt that.
My understanding is that it doesn’t make much sense to identify your device as Zen Stream. You should identify as a specific DAC to get defaults that apply to that DAC.
