Roon is No Longer Playing Native DSD on MacOS after the 15.31. Update. It will only play PCM converted DSD. This is an issue with all of my USB connected DACs on the Mac. This is not affecting my phones. It worked perfectly fine before I did the update. I have tried a Fiio K11R2R, a Topping D70 Pro Octo and a Fiio KA17, all of which can play DSD 256. All that happens is a digital stream noise plays and the Topping tries to upsample to 705.6 mhz and the K11 R2R and KA17 just continue to play PCM only. Any attempt to play the Native DSD file on the Topping now ends in that exact failure and the others just refuse to play native now. This is a Roon specific issue, it doesn't happen with other media players. I've tried all manner of restarts and setting changes.
Describe your network setup
Not Applicable, the DACs are directly connected to the Roon Server which is a MacBook Pro M3.
Thanks for writing in! Unless we’re missing some additional information, @Rugby is correct in their above response, Mac cannot on its own play native DSD files - If you’re experiencing issues with DSD playback after updating to macOS 15.3.1, it’s possible that the update affected how your system handles DoP streams.
To troubleshoot, I’d first ensure that your DAC’s firmware is up-to-date and that your audio settings in Roon are configured correctly for DoP playback.
Let me know if we’re missing any additional information here, thank you!
Prior to the MacOS update it worked via Initial DCS Method or DSD over PCM.
Now it doesn’t do either, only convert to PCM.
I guess “Native DSD” isn’t the correct nomenclature, but at any rate, the update changed the ability to use either and all it does now is create electronic static on either mode.
Everything is configured correctly and all drivers are up to date, everything has been restarted and the issue is on 3 different DACs.
One of my primary reasons for having Roon has been to play back DSD over PCM and it has worked flawlessly up to this point.
Thanks for the clarification! Let’s see if refreshing your RAATServer database may help:
You can generate a new RAATServer instance on your device by following these instructions, but please be aware that this will reset your Roon Settings → Audio Tab to factory settings and I would advise making a backup of any custom DSP settings you have:
Very interested in the results of this. I noticed that DSD stopped working when I sent it over UBS to my Oppo. I did just patch to 15.3.1.
Unfortunately making a back up is being difficult as the Roon DB takes up far too much space, but that is for another thread.
After updating to Roon version 2.47 (build 1510), the ability to send DSD directly to my Oppo UDP-205 has returned.
This only ever worked when I send the data over USB.
Sending via the ethernet still does the translation to PCM, but it always was that way for me.
Over USB:
Signal Path: Lossless
DSD64 2ch
RAAT
DSD over PCM v1.0 (DoP)
OPPO UDP-205 CoreAudio Exclusive mode
Over the network it reads:
Signal path: High Quality
DSF DSD64 2ch
DSD64 to 352.8kHz PCM
352.8kHz to 176.4 kHz
64bit Float to 24bit
RAAT
Roon Advance Audio Transport
Audio distribution
Analog/Digital Outputs
I FINALLY got it working again. I had to remove all the devices, disconnect them from the Mac (three DACs) for 24 hours, deactivate anything related to audio, do the RAAT server refresh again, restart again and it finally works. Based on the behavior, the DACs got an instruction from Roon that they didn’t like after the MacOS update related to the DSD data transport and I basically had to start from fresh to get them to work correctly again with DSD over PCM v1.0. Don’t know that I want to do that again. I’m not sure what’s to blame in this case but could be anything.
Hi @sean.belliveau,
I’m glad to read that you managed to get Roon working again. Hopefully this doesn’t reoccur with the next update. I’ll mark this thread as solved for you. It will remain open for 2 more days in case the DSD issue happens again.
