SonicOrbiter supports native DSD256 playback of the DAC-10 (diagnostics from my ultraRendu running SonicOrbiter 2.6 reads “DAC description: NuPrime DAC-10 16d0:06b2”). Without the SonicOrbiter support (or an ASIO driver on Windows), only DSD128 playback would be possible.
On the ultraRendu, Roon Ready Settings of DSD Support is set to “Native DSD." During playback of a DSD256 file, Roon converts it to 352.8kHz PCM rather than playback at DSD256. Per Jesus, I’ve disabled Roon DSP.
Hi @DavidY ---- Thank you for reaching out to me and sharing this observation you have made with me! The insight is very appreciated!
Moving forward, I asked our tech team about this behavior you have noted in your report and they have asked if you would kindly verify what the experience is like if you were to use the DAC on Windows? Are you able to successfully play DSD256 with the mentioned ASIO driver?
Thanks for your response, @eric, and apologies for the delay. Mon-Fri can get pretty busy for me. Regarding your question about DSD256 with Windows and ASIO driver, I haven’t tried it yet. I’ve got a NUC running the ROCK Linux distro and of course the NAA ultraRendu is running a SonicOrbiter Linux distro. However, I also have a Windows VM running on my Mac that I can connect directly via USB to the DAC to test what you’re asking with the ASIO driver in the next few days. Or are you suggesting that I test this out via ROCK to Windows (w/ASIO driver) NAA to DAC-10?
Thanks for your response, Shawn. The purpose of the ultraRendu Native DSD support for select DACs (of which the DAC-10 is included) as I understand it is that I don’t need the ASIO driver since the ultraRendu provides the equivalent of that ASIO driver. @Jesus_Rodriguez didn’t correct me on that at CA but perhaps I misunderstood. I agree with you when you say that “Roon is converting DSD256 to PCM probably because your Rendu is set to Native DSD mode” but don’t understand why when the expected result (at least by me at this point) is DSD256 playback.
Hi @DavidY ---- Thank you for getting in touch and no apologies necessary
“However, I also have a Windows VM running on my Mac that I can connect directly via USB to the DAC to test what you’re asking with the ASIO driver in the next few days. Or are you suggesting that I test this out via ROCK to Windows (w/ASIO driver) NAA to DAC-10?”
You can absolutely test with the DAC mounted to a WIn10 device acting as a remote as opposed to moving your core to a different device.
Hi @Eric, with playback of a DSD256 file from Roon on Windows with the ASIO driver connected via USB to the DAC-10H, the output was DSD256 as expected.
Also, I discovered I made a mistake earlier with the third screen shot in my original post. With Roon Ready Settings of “Native DSD" under DSD Support on the ultraRendu, the DSD settings under Device Setup within Roon literally disappear. I’ve replaced the third screen shot with the correct one. I suppose that’s why Roon converts the DSD256 to 352.8kHz PCM rather than playing back at DSD256, although that’s not the desired outcome, of course.
Thanks for the follow up @DavidY, very appreciated!
Moving forward, I was able to grab some gear from our QA lab to see what I could come up with on my end. At first I was noticing a similar behavior to you when playing back DSD256 content to my endpoint (MicroRendu > USB > Chord Qutest:
Thanks very much, @Eric. I’m still experiencing the same issue with “Volume Control” set to “None (Volume 100%)” and “DSD Support” to “Native DSD” under Roon Ready Settings on the uR. I was under the impression from @Jesus_Rodriguez that I should have DSD Support set to Native DSD rather than DoP, which is what I’m seeing in your screen shot.
When I set DSD Support to DoP on the uR, Roon then does display Max Sample Rate (DSD) and I can choose up to DSD128. But the goal is DSD256 Natively and if I understood Jesus correctly, I would want to set DSD Support to Native DSD on the uR.
I apologize for the delay. Since we do not have the device on-hand, we have struggled to reproduce the behavior you are seeing. After discussing with the technical team, they were curious if you were seeing this behavior on other Linux based devices besides for the ultraRendu. Since you have a device running ROCK, could you attempt connecting the DAC-10H to it and reporting if you are seeing the same behavior regarding native DSD?
I’ll be home Thursday and can test playback of DSD256 in a ROCK -> DAC-10 chain if that’s what you’re suggesting but then I think perhaps we’re losing sight of the goal of native DSD256 playback. The ultraRendu provides some equivalent of a Windows ASIO driver to enable the highest native DSD rate possible with the DAC-10; that being DSD256. If I exclude the ultraRendu from the signal path by going ROCK -> DAC-10, there’s no way I’ll have the option to choose a max of DSD256 from the Roon settings, only DSD128; without either the Windows ASIO driver or Sonicorbiter support from the uR for the DAC-10, the max native DSD playback rate of the DAC-10 is DSD128 by design. Having said that, I’ll be glad to test the ROCK -> DAC-10 chain when I get home if that’s what you’re asking.
Perhaps another way to test what I think you’re ultimately getting at would be to replace Roon with Audirvana Plus since I also have an A+ license. In that scenario, the test would be playback of a DSD256 file using an audio chain of A+ on Windows -> uR -> DAC-10. What do you think? I believe Mac maxes out at DSD128 but A+ now supports Windows, too. Not looking for A+ support here, of course (I’ve made the switch to Roon anyway!), but if the same issue is experienced with A+ that’s experienced with Roon, would that suggest the issue is with the ultraRendu rather than with Roon?
We include the latest version of the “xmos-native-dsd” driver with ROCK and Nucleus. Except for a few edge cases (usually involving custom drivers for specific devices), this is the canonical method of utilizing native DSD over USB on Linux. The NuPrime DAC-10H is listed on the supported devices list for the project, however we do not have on in-house as a part of the Roon Tested program to confirm its behavior. You can read more about the project and see the list of supported DACs here
Thank you for this explanation, @John. Like @dabassgoesboomboom, I was not aware of the inclusion of the xmos-native-dsd driver in ROCK. Very good to know.
To answer your question - playback of a DSD256 file via ROCK (build 339) -> DAC-10H using USB connection and with Roon DSP disabled resulted in Roon downsampling to DSD128. I do not see DSD256 to choose from in the Roon Device Setup. So while the behavior and output is different from the ultraRendu, it ultimately does not result in DSD256 output.
Thanks for the report. I believe we may have identified the root cause of the issue, and the development team is looking into it further. I should have an update for you sometime next week.
