When you say “the Mac”, I assume you mean using arbitrary apps on the Mac to play, and not Roon. If that is the case, then yes, the Mac will only see the Vega when it is in USB mode. In this case, Roon on the Mac should also see it as a CoreAudio endpoint and should be able to play to it with full support if you have it configured correctly (max PCM/DSD/etc settings) in Roon.
When in Streaming mode, the Vega is ONLY available via the Ethernet port; it disables the USB port. For Roon to see it, the “Roon Ready” option on the Vega must be enabled (though this was the default on mine) and then it should show up as a networked endpoint in Roon that you must then click the enable button on.
Thank you cwichura and Ratbert, and everyone else who has spent time trying to help me.
Firstly, let me apologise for my last message rant.
Secondly, let me happily say that my problems have been resolved.
It turns out that it was a network snafu. The Vega G2 is connected to my network via wi-fi. My Mac was connected to my network via ethernet to my modem. I disconnected the ethernet and connected the Mac via wi-fi…Bingo!!..Roon can now see the Vega G2 as a networked connection.
I can now play my own music (stored on the Mac), and Tidal music, using Roon, through the Vega G2 Streaming mode. Perfect.
Thank you for your patience and willingness to consider my problem.
Regards
Grahame
Hy everyone !
I have a doubt: can you confirm that even if the vega g2 will not be able to benefit from the EQ / FIR of the Auralic’s Firmare 6.0, it is still possible to do it by Roon and his DSP engine?
thank you for your reply !
I confirm, the DSP engine is working like a charm with the Vega G2. It’s not dependant on the receiving end in my opinion, Vega receives a stream from Roon and does not really care what transformation Roon might have done to it.
Yes, you can do all of it (and more) with Roon’s DSP engine, and then the output of that will play fine on the Vega G2. Effectively, Auralic is implementing their own DSP engine, but on the Aries G2 (which has more CPU power than the Vega G2 as their design model is to keep the Vega “just the DAC” and offload any heavy lifting in Lightning GS to the Aries). The Aries G2 sending the “cooked” DSP stream to the Vega G2 is really no different than Roon sending their “cooked” DSP stream, other than the physical transport method (which doesn’t matter since its all digital data still).
thank you !
but the only way to access the dsp engine is via pc / mac: for the dsp engine to work, you need a computer on …
maybe one day, the stream can be modified directly via the phone roon, on smartphone or tablet
I don’t see why this is an issue, since to play ANYTHING from Roon, you need the Roon Core system powered up an online. The Roon Core is where the DSP runs, and you can use low-wattage devices like various Intel NUCs as your Roon Core and many DSP functions will run just fine. Some of the heavy lifting DSP functions will need a more powerful Roon Core, yes. But even there, you can go with one of the ~80W TDP NUCs and still have a perfectly fine experience.