PC audio hardware / software - bottleneck?

Tinkering
1

Hi all,

Hope this is the best place for this post - Two weeks into a renewed love of music after discovering Roon and investigating what a DAC is!! So be gentle :rofl:

Core on a Synology, presently two routes into my amp;

  1. Toslink from my PC (Realtek Audio hardware presently set at 24bit 96kHz into Topping E30, RCA into my amp.
  2. Wireless Raspberry Pi4 with JustBoom digihat coax into the Topping

Roon is showing Lossless via the Pi but High Quality via the Toslink, it drops down from Lossless when it gets to the PC audio hardware (the Realtek).

Question - is Toslink out the best option or should I do USB or Coax? Is there anything that can be done to maintain the lossless out of the PC??

Thanks J

2

Have a look at device setup for the pc in Roon. Setting exclusive mode might help. Roon should have control of sample rate and bit depth - I’m unclear how you have the pc set to a specific rate.

If you can post a screenshot of the signal path that might also help.

1 Like
3

Wow - Yes exclusive mode did it, sounds much better too! Lossless through the Realtek hardware! Brilliant thanks :sunglasses:

PS you can define rate the sound hardware uses in Control Panel, Sound, Device if you’re in Windows

Many thanks J