STAX SRM-D50 DAC not showing up as "Native" for DSD?

Support
1

Roon Core Machine

Roon is on a Macbook Pro M1 running 13.3.1 Ventura

Networking Gear & Setup Details

Connected Audio Devices

the STAX SRM-D50 is connected directly to the Macbook Pro by USB

specs say “Built-in DAC supports high resolution up to PCM 32/384 KHz or DSD 5.6”

Number of Tracks in Library

Description of Issue

In the DAC settings in Roon for DSD do not have the option “Native” and so am having to use “DSD over PCM 1.0” which I guess is suboptimal.

This is a review of my setup Stax SR-009S Signature Electrostatic and SRM-D50 Driver and DAC Review - HomeTheaterHifi.com

Note that the guy plays DSD files OK (though he doesn’t say how).

What can I do?

Thanks in advance

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Macs don’t support DSD natively, to use a device it needs to come with a Mac driver. Do stax provide one?
Without one one you will get dop.

Edit: looks like it comes with a windows driver only.

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It doesn’t make any difference, if your using native DSD or DoP for DSD64.
The only point is, that you can’t transfer here DSD128.

But: I’ve a SRM D50 as my 5th Stax Amp and for me the internal DAC isn’t satisfied at all. Try to use another DAC before the D50 and use the analogue input.

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Thanks. So maybe I could install Roon in Windows 11 running in Parallels on my Mac, then the STAX driver and finally get Native. But if there’s no audible advantage then maybe not!

Looking in Audio MIDI Setup on the Mac, the DOP transfers occur as:

DSD64 at 2ch 24bit 176.4kHz
DSD128 at 2ch 24bit 352.8kHz

@Burkhardt_Petermann how good/expensive a DAC do you need to put before the SRM D50 to get a big improvement? Recommendations?

5

If you just want the DAc to present and an endpoint and not bother with teh graphical UI in the Windows portion, you would be better off just installing Roonbridge and the Stax drivers.

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