Hello,
In 2015, I’ve bought this DAC Pioneer A U-05 https://www.pioneeraudio.com.au/products/u-05
I used it with an old Mac Book Air, bought in 2012 and I had no problem reading DSD files. They were correctly displayed as DSD on the DAC screen and the sound in my headphone was absolutely correct.
A few months ago, I’ve bought a Mac Book Pro, which has no USB port, but 4 Thunderbolt connectors.
Thus I use an Apple adaptor : Thunderbolt 3 to USB-A, which is connected to the USB cable attached to the Pioneer.
This USB cable is the same as the one I’ve used for years with the Mac Book Air.
Now, when I try reading DSD on the Mab Book Pro I just hear a sound like a “purr” and the files are seen as PCM.
Pioneer DAC never received firmware update and Pioneer is not going to update it in the future. It’s too old.
The DAC was provided with a soft to install on the Mac Book Air, but it’s obsolete and I can’t install it on the Mac Book Pro.
Is there a way on Audirvana side to manage this situation please ?
Thanks beforehand for your feedback.
Philippe
macOS is not able to send raw DSD streams. That’s why the DSD over PCM standard has been developed: to send raw DSD in a fake PCM stream.
To identify it as such, there are 8 bit markers in it.
And the presence of these markers doubles the need of bandwidth, thus explaining why on a mac only half of the max DSD rate is available.
If your DAC is compatible with DSD over PCM, you can set the native DSD read method to “DSD over PCM 1.0” in the device section of the audio settings page.
If your DAC has a volume control, you may need to ensure it is set at 100% during DSD playback to prevent its USB interface from damaging the DSD signal.