SMS 200 Ultra - > playing DSD files

[stefano_mbp]

@debt_collector I have a similar set up: JRiver on NUC8i3, SOtM sms-200 neo, M2Tech Young DSD, Primare P30 pre.
Volume control in JRiver is set to fixed and mixer type in SOtM to none.

I manage volume on the preamplifier with its remote.

Can’t you manage volume on you dac/pre? This would be the best way to do it as software volume control is a lossy process.
A suggestion could be to set mixer type in SOtM to hardware, this should allow the SOtM to control the volume on you dac if this functionality is available on the dac, you could ask TAD about it.
.... but I don’t understand how you could control from JRiver the volume on SOtM using JRemote, in your setup you should not have access to SOtM as it is just a renderer on the network.

 

 

 

[stefano_mbp]

@debt_collector ... I changed my configuration to simulate yours, I didn’t realized that JRiver could control SOtM/MPD volume ....

I could observe that DSD can be played only if you set the volume to 100 (max), if I set volume in JRiver/JRemote to any other value I see that the stream changes from DSD to PCM and it sounds very distorted.

This is explained by this: you cannot control DSD volume in digital domain.

 

[stefano_mbp]

16 minutes ago, debt_collector said:

Does your DAC display this?

Yes it does. 
I do use MPD on my SOtM but as I wrote before MPD mixer is set to none and JRiver volume control to fixed (max). I use my preamplifier remote control to manage the volume.

[stefano_mbp]

Never tried as I listen to dsd too ... and to control volume via software for dsd the software do need to transcode dsd to pcm, apply volume control, then transcode back to dsd ... too much manipulation for my taste ... anyway JRiver needs the volume set to 100% to play dsd