For good or bad I have stuck with Schiit DACs and of course, Audirvana. Origin because I have a large library on my NAS and don’t care about streaming.
I currently have a Yggdrasil+ on approval and the Mulitbit Gungnir I’ve used for years is in for upgrade (Unisom) and repair. Neither the Gungnir or the Bifrost Multibit had any problems playing encap DSD, have yet to get it to work on the Yggy, due to the holidays and a seemingly lack of tech support help I haven’t made progress and if not the Yggy will go back. PCM sounds beautiful, so this would be unfortunate.
Just wondering if anyone else has run into this: getting the Yggy, with Origin working with DSD. My fear is the Unisom upgrade on the Gungnir might be what broke this in which case I’ll skip the upgrade.
None of the Schiit DACs support native DSD or DoP… You must force DSD files to be converted to PCM in the Audirvana DAC settings…
Native DSD streaming method: [ None- Convert to PCM ]
If you can play any PCM through Yggdrasil+, it should play the decimated DSD content if the settings are correctly implemented. (The maximum resolution of the Yggdrasil+ is 192kHz) Also, experiment with enabling or disabling ‘Integer Mode’
Exactly. Sorry if I was unclear. DSD encapsulated in PCM. Still haven’t found the settings to get it working for the Yggy.
Have done it for many many years with the Bifrost then Gungnir. Audirvana appears to be playing, but no output. I totally understand that none of these machines do native DSD.
FWIW - the machine is a MacPro deskside. Its only role in life is to run Audirvana.
Oh and I didn’t necessarily mean DoP. Just getting DSD to work at all. The other machines were setup so long ago I couldn’t even remember the settings. I thought it was configured the same then went down a rabbit hole …
Hello Yonk, welcome to the Audirvāna community forum.
Please post your debug information and let’s see if @Agoldnear can see if there is a setting that you can change to enable your playback audio.
Did you already try @Agoldnear 's suggestion above? That should work. Make sure the converted PCM is not above 192 KHz, because your Yggy can’t handle that either.
This is DoP (DSD over PCM) where the native 1-bit DSD signal is embedded in a PCM carrier file relative to the DSD sample rate, for example:
24/176.4kHz is the DoP PCM carrier sample-rate for 1-bit DSD64 (2.8MHz)
24/352.8kHz is the DoP PCM carrier sample-rate for 1-bit DSD128 (5.6MHz)
24/705.6kHz is the DoP PCM carrier sample-rate for 1-bit DSD256 (11.2MHz)
When a DAC supports DoP, the 1-bit DSD signal is extracted from the PCM carrier by the DoP subsystem in the DAC architecture and subsequently, sends the native 1-bit DSD signal to the output circuitry… None of the Schiit DACs support native 1-bit DSD signals or support DoP de-embedding of 1-bit DSD files… This is why you must convert all DSD files to PCM (up to 192kHz, the limits of this DAC) for playback.
Thank you. I’ll play with the settings yet again.
I thought I tried all possible combinations - knowing that native DSD isn’t supported. “None” was the initial attempt. I completely understand both DSD (and SACD “orange book”) formats. All 44.1khz or a multiple, and it’s difference to PCM.
It’s interesting that the Yggy has a light to indicate 44.1 or 48 and another light for the multiplier.
I’ve been collecting HiDef music for a long time and have about 4TB on my NAS. When I buy an SACD I rip its layer via an old PS3 and archive the original plastic. Even converted (to PCM) DSD sounds better with a good DAC than played on my high-end OPPO.
It’s really nice that Audirvana can play the ripped ISO directly.
Other DSD have been purchased as such, like PCM from such as HDtracks, and others.
Regards - Frank
Your SACD rips and any other DSD content must be decimated (converted) to PCM and must have a sample-rate of 192kHz or lower, for playback on this DAC.
Unfortunately things here are not so simple.
I finally got DSD conversion working with the Yggy but the process was not straightforward.
DSD did need to be set to None, Integer mode off, and I set the limit to 24 bit. Even though these were the final settings that worked, the App, USB on the Mac, and the Yggy would not sync with the preference changes for the output device in Audirvana.
In other words, although the settings were correct it still would not work.
In frustration, I unplugged the USB and when I plugged it back it in, everything magically synchronized and it worked. Not really happy about it being this flaky but it sure sounds nice now that it’s working. YMMV
Yes it does. And my Gungnir was having “crackling” noises so I sent it in for the Unisom upgrade which fixed the problem as well. 2nd USB repair in that machine in 6 years. Had the multibit board upgraded at that time as well.
