OK, not a big deal, music plays, but I presume I would get better results sending DSD to the mR/Mutec, rather than performing the conversion in the PC via Roon. Is there any reason why Roon is converting rather than sending DSD to the mR?
Thanks Mike, it looks like you are absolutely correct. I’ll be honest, I’m new to trying the world of DSD, other than good old fashioned SACD’s in a disk player. I think I’d just made a newbie’s mistake, I’d read that both the mR and Mutec could deal with native DSD, but missed the subtly of the mR not supporting native DSD to the Mutec. Anyway, at least I’m on the learning curve now.
One last puzzle, I’m playing a DSD64 track now, the Mutec itself is indicating DoP64and the amp/DAC is indicating that it’s receiving 44.1Khz from the Mutec. Is this correct? Sound quality is excellent, but I’m thinking 44.1Khz is low? As I said before, I am new to DSD, much to learn! Oh how simple the world of PCM now seams…
Hi Carl, the ‘amp/DAC’ I referred to is a Devialet 1000 Pro, which is good for 24/192. It is connected to the Mutec via AES/EBU. I have just taken a look at the Mutec’s instructions myself, and it looks like you’ve picked up the key point. When running PCM, the Mutec simply outputs at exactly the same rate as the input, so if you feed it 24/96 in outputs 24/96, nice and simple. However, with DSD, the Mutec converts the output to PCM, and the output clock rate is adjustable. So yes, the reason the Mutec is outputting 44.1Khz is because this is what it is set to. Easy when you know how! I have had a quick play with the Mutec’s settings and now it’s happily playing at 176.4Khz. As to what the optimum setting for the Mutec’s output rate would be, I’m not sure? More research needed!
[quote=“Brian69, post:15, topic:15486”]
I have had a quick play with the Mutec’s settings and now it’s happily playing at 176.4KHz
[/quote]Good to see your making progress.
Have you considered, not using the Mutec and connecting the Devialet 1000 Pro to Roon via USB, then the Devialet would get DSD?
I have actually. It is worth noting that although the Devialet can accept DSD64, the Devialet ADH core is PCM, so the Devialet performs a conversion using it’s MAT ‘Minimal Arithmetic Transform’ DSD core. (there are also rumours that Devialet will be extending this to DSD128 before too long)
MAT® DSD Core technology converts the DSD format into Expert internal native PCM 40 bits / 384 kHz format thanks to an optimized algorithm, limiting the amount of computational operations on the audio stream. Using only 15 bit perfect additions (no multiplication, no storage), the MAT® algorithm performs a 128 taps, linear phase FIR (Finite Impulse Response) digital filter ensuring the conversion of the DSD format into internal native PCM format with truly outstanding performances.
Would this perform better than conversion in the Mutec? This would take very careful auditioning. One thing I do know, is that I have listened to a dCS upsampler feeding DSD to a Devialet, and this works extraordinarily well, so I know that Devialet’s MAT system works well. The flip side of this is that the Mutec provides a significant performance uplift with PCM material, this I know for sure. Plus, at the last count the number of PCM files that I have outnumber DSD by about 10000:1. So I won’t be worrying about this too much in the short term. I guess I have too much time on my hands this week, hence have started playing with DSD options, with half a mind to trying upsampling with HQPlayer in the future. It also occurs to me that with Roon you could have multiple sources to the amp, say with an mR via USB for DSD, and an SMS-200 plus Mutec for PCM. Lots of interesting options. In the short term I think I’ll give my brain a rest and just bang on some tunes!
As mentioned in an earlier post, this all appears to work as it should now. With DSD 64 material, the Mutec is outputting 176.4KHz, which I believe is how it should be when converted to PCM?
