Revolution DAC drivers not working?

[Darius H]

I bought the DAC from audiophonics: https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/dac-with-volume/allo-revolution-usb-dac-es9038q2m-32bit-384khz-dsd512-p-14582.html 
I've downloaded the drivers from the link (CemSolutions v4.82.0 installer) and it has all been installed properly, following these instructions from Rev DAC's official page: https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/YTMHje8hJX4M8dknKSlPyHUnUS4PxPvoGTNHNONMmz3/UupuGtdLSCOPVrhLeW2j5Q
I did the update for Thesycon (it's now v1.03), but nothing.

My problem: DAC's display shows PMC 44.1KHz all the time, even for tracks from my local library (played on groove music and foobar) recorded on 48KHz, 88, or even 192. I'm mainly using Tidal (Hifi subscription, not MQA) where I see the same problem. However, there is only one very strange exception: Bjork's Hunter (from the album Homogenic) shows 48KHz PMC. 

Another problem is that DSD files (.dsf) are just white noise, almost totally unintelligible.

The Cem Solutions control panel detects my revolution DAC (as in the image from the link above). I've done all it says in the guide. I even installed XMOS drivers, but I can't make the update (I assume because they aren't the rivers for my unit?).
Also, I've heard things about ASIO4All and Wasapi. What are those? I don't think I have anything like that on my PC. On Cem Solutions control panel at Buffer settings it shows on the last row "ASIO not active"

[DuckToller]

Vers. 1.02 with CEM 5.0 plays without probs on JRIVER - WIN10pro
 

 

with these drivers: CemSolutions_UsbAudio_v5.0.0_2020-12-15_setup.exe

[Darius H]

I installed V5.0.0. and it didn't help, still displaying 44.1KHz for everything.
Also, what is that F5 down to the dB level? It was F3 until recently, now it's F5.

[DuckToller]

Just for the record,

after every install/ uninstall, restart your comp and deconnect the dac, power-off/power-on the dac, in order to exclude anything of that limiting the installation - don't worry - its just paranoia mode. And try to change the usb cable as an option!

Perhaps the USB port at the pc as well.

What's actually your pc system and which is your audio software?

How are your (windows) audio settings for the Revolution (speaker)?

[Darius H]

8 hours ago, DuckToller said:

What's actually your pc system and which is your audio software?

Pc config: Intel G4560, 8gb 2400MHz, 1050ti asus rog, (MoBo - I'll check home if needed), 450W Deepcool PSU

My audio software is Tidal and Groove music (I've installed foobar just to test dsd tracks -which don't work). I've got an idea for later when I get home - see if 48/88/192KHz songs when run on foobar show on the DAC's display the actual frequency, although this wouldn't solve the song on Tidal and Groove showing the wrong frequency. I doubt it will, because it doesn't show dsd on the display for the tracks I have.

 

8 hours ago, DuckToller said:

How are your (windows) audio settings for the Revolution (speaker)?

Settings? I don't know what you're talking about, I haven't changed anything regarding the Rev. What I did was just install the drivers and update them to v1.03.

 

8 hours ago, DuckToller said:

after every install/ uninstall, restart your comp and deconnect the dac, power-off/power-on the dac

I might have done this every time (because I've installed, uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers like 5 times), although it is possible that sometimes I might have not disconnected and reconnected the DAC, but I did restart the PC every time. What I didn't do is disconnect the DAC while installing the drivers. Could this be the problem? Might also give this a try (meaning reinstall the drivers for the 6th time lol).

8 hours ago, DuckToller said:

And try to change the usb cable as an option!

Perhaps the USB port at the pc as well.

I'll try when I get back home.

 

 

 

9 hours ago, Darius H said:

However, there is only one very strange exception: Bjork's Hunter (from the album Homogenic) shows 48KHz PMC. 

*It shows 48KHz for the whole album, for any song.

 

 

Also what is ASIO4All and WASAPI? Do I need them?

[DuckToller]

Good Morning Darius,

thanks for your elevated response. I actually meant which WIndows version: 7/10/11 . But it's always good to know the brand of your PSU  ;-) ;-)
 

One important step, you didn't mention is to powercycle the dac after changes and driver updates. That helped me to overcome issues with the Revolution sometimes.

 

In general,  it sounds rather like a output configuration problem with Windows audio, then a DAC problem.

On Foobar: To play DSD follow this recommendation:
https://help.nativedsd.com/en/articles/94982-foobar-2000-and-playing-dsf-audio-files

 

At the Foobar menu  look for File / Preferences / Components to install the components you want to use in Foobar from the foobar component page , ie. the asio & wasapi output component.  https://www.foobar2000.org/components

Windows:

I have read once, that disabling the exclusive mode for different audio sources i.e. shared mode for more than one output) could lead to setback of audio settings by windows on it's default audio sampling rate.

Drivers:
- Thesyon drive are compliant to USB Audio 2.0, Midi and ASIO. As such you are in no need for "asio for all".
- if Asio isn't active your player doesn't use the Thesycon driver but Wasapi, kernel streaming or direct sound, depending what your standard audio player has selected.

- you need to chose the desired output in your Audio software (and perhaps select the proper config)
- Wasapi is integrated in WIndows since Vista, afaik 
-  "WASAPI provides exclusive access to the audio devices, bypassing the system mixer, default settings, and any effects provided by the audio driver"

Tidal:
Depending on your Tidal internal settings you may not have High-Res source material in your stream and the Rev DAC afaik doesn't do MQA.

Groove - is this the integrated Audio player from Microsoft ?  Sound like a source for trouble(shooting) ....
 

Hope that helps for directions

[DuckToller]

13 hours ago, Darius H said:

Also, what is that F5 down to the dB level? It was F3 until recently, now it's F5.

F5 and F3 are the selected filter settings. You change them using the menu (remote or button).

[Darius H]

Problem fixed. I didn't use exclusive mode on foobar and Groove (and yes, Groove is horrible, but I was lazy to configure MusicBee or foobar - heck, Groove doesn't even have exclusive mode). Now that I enabled it on foobar and MusicBee, PCM frequencies are displayed just fine.

As for DSD, I did have installed all things necessary, but thanks for the guidance anyway. Once I selected the Rev DAC in exclusive mode the two DSD songs I have sounded just fine and the DAC's display shows DoP file, although not all the time; here I might ask for help - even though I haven't tested for more than 2h, it rarely shows DoP256 11.2M. It might be placebo, but I notice it showing DoP only after a pause, like if I were to search something on google for 15 minutes and then open the song again. If it doesn't show DoP, it shows PCm either 705.6KHz, or something else like 175.6 or so. Why is that? I assume it isn't DSD, right?
Another problem: I hear loud pops at the end of the song or when I press pause on DoP files run on foobar

Thanks for the help and good intentions so far!

[DuckToller]

You're welcome ;-)

352,8 and it 705,6 are DXD and double DXD rates. But they are als used as PCM bandwidth for DOP. As 176,4 is used for 1xDSD, starting at 88,2 frequency. DOP uses 2x the bandwidth of native for transport.

Actually I have no practical idea about DOP - because I only use native DSD rates, at 64,128 or 256.(1x,2x,4x)

Is there a particular reason why you transfer them as DOP (DSD over PCM) to your DAC ??? Did you upsample them with a DSD processor?

For DSD you need to have bitperfect output (100% volume) from the source, the DAC side doesn't change anything to the material it's receiving. You can't even control the volume when playing DSD. As far as I remember the interview with Allo about the unit.

[DuckToller]

47 minutes ago, Darius H said:

Another problem: I hear loud pops at the end of the song or when I press pause on DoP files run on foobar

You have a menu point in the Rev's menu to minimize these, last menu point called popmute

[Darius H]

Hello @DuckToller
Long time no see :) I've been researching for 3 or 4 full days now clarifying digital audio terminology I never understood, hence why I couldn't quite understand your message about DoP on Thursday.
I'm starting to understand how DoP works, so please correct me if I'm wrong:
DoP uses the 24-bit wordlength found only on PCM to mask the DSD so that it can travel through the PC, which doesn't "understand" the 1-bit data DSD is built upon and therefore thinks it processes PCM. The data stream is then passed to the DAC while the PC didn't even know he transferred DSD really. Once the DAC receives the data it will recognize that it was DSD "encrypted" into PCM just to arrive at its house and will decode the DSD information stored in the 24 bits.

Now comes the hard part I don't understand: how exactly is DSD hidden into those 24 bits? If I grasp the concept correctly, the first 8 bits of the 24 are working like metadata, telling the DAC "Hey look, these 24 bits contain DSD information" and the LSB (which I learned means "the rightmost bit in a 8/16/24/... bit") is telling whether or not it is a 0 or a 1 - DSD's original signal in those 24 bits. So let's say that for a 60 seconds song recorded on DSD64 (so 2822400 times a second) the stream would be 2822400 x 60 = 169344000 signals in total, right? What DoP does is that it doesn't just let 2822400 signals of 1-bit be transferred in a second, but 2822400 24 bits, and then later "unpacked" in 1-bit again by the DAC and converted into pure DSD again.
Did I understand it correctly? But it seems so odd because I don't know what the other 15 bits of the 16-pack remained after subtracting the 8 bits from the full 24 are filled with. Could it be 0s aka "nothing"?

Another thing I don't understand is what exactly is DoP? .dsf is the container for DSD. But what exactly are DoP and DSD for that matter? PDM I think is what we would call "the technology" and the delta-sigma modulation "the process"?



Now comes the problems. I am so concerned about understanding what DoP really does because it seems like I can't run DSD on my DAC, only DoP, or at least that's what the DAC displays. I have some files, some are DSD64, others DSD128, DSD256, and even DSD512. Every song in 64, 128, and 256 is played as DoP (that's what, as I said, shows on my DAC). So every time I open DSD which is not 512 it seems to be DoP. I have only two 512 albums and one song - the first album is .dff and the other one is .dsf (from NativeDSD), while the song is .dff. None of them is playable. It shows this message:

My guess is that the DAC can't run DSD at all, only DoP, because

On 5/18/2023 at 7:05 PM, DuckToller said:

DOP uses 2x the bandwidth of native for transport

as you said, DoP needs 2x the bandwidth, meaning that all the times DSD could be run as DoP it proceeds to do so.

Your question may now be clarified:

On 5/18/2023 at 7:05 PM, DuckToller said:

Is there a particular reason why you transfer them as DOP (DSD over PCM) to your DAC ???

I don't want DoP, it just happens to run it all the time. And so when I try DSD512 (which I understand can't be turned into DoP, so the PC is forced to read DSD), it doesn't run it, forcing me to believe I can't run native DSD at all.
What is the problem and how can I play native DSD?
And there is another question: Does DoP sound any different from native DSD? Am I enjoying the full DSD experience from my DoP62/128/256?

 

 

On 5/18/2023 at 7:05 PM, DuckToller said:

Did you upsample them with a DSD processor?

I don't know what is a DSD processor. I don't understand the question, but I sure didn't upsample anything manually.


Here are my foobar preferences:

 

 

 

Do I have to configure something here?

 

Here is what it shows me on CEM Solutions Control Panel without having selected ASIO on foobar (I listen to Foobar for all my HD songs):


And this is with ASIO as my output (running a .dsf DSD -DoP- 256 song in the background):


While having ASIO as my output the display on my DAC shows 44.1KHz all the time when playing songs. I run exclusive mode all the time.
When I select ASIO as output, the .dsf and .dff files work just fine in PCM 44.1




Also, can you explain to me what the sync/async does exactly, both technologically and sonically? (shortcut to the explanation from audiophonics; shortcut to Allo's Rev page; I don't get either, probably because I don't know electrical engineering)

[DuckToller]

I'll come back to you later in the evening or perhaps tomorrow  your problem lies imho buried in the foobar selection menues, where you did not select CEM (the ReV driver) but Pzc  speaker   and later in th asoo proxy you have selected DOP.

However, i'll need to copy my settings to you, if I find time.

 

Don't overthink DOP,, it is a vehicle to transport dsf container in pcm, when the source output / dac input allows only that method. Rev accepts native.(and DOP). Using native dsd as source limits the processes involved and the bandwidth. If that enhances the sq is another question, I wouldn't like to answer to.

[Darius H]

34 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

i'll need to copy my settings to you, if I find time

Sure, take your time! I changed from DoP to Native ASIO in the asio proxy and it is fine now, no DoP displayed, only DSD. I'll look into what those other settings may do until your guidance, so it really isn't urgent. It may be even better if I do some extra research on my own (man, I enjoy learning about digital audio!)

[Darius H]

On 5/21/2023 at 9:14 PM, Darius H said:

I changed from DoP to Native ASIO in the asio proxy and it is fine now, no DoP displayed, only DSD.

Well actually I don't remember exactly what I did there, but I think I just noticed DSD512 on the display and didn't play the track, although I remember playing it and being VERY impressed, I may have switched on to another output (default speakers non-exclusive) without realizing. It was the first time ever I played that track, so I didn't have an audible reference from before. I then realized that it would show DSD512 for any other lower DSD format, so I think I didn't fix anything.

At present it still shows DoP for DSD256 or less, and when trying to run DSD512 still shows this message:


These are the settings for the ASIO proxy the moment I took the screenshot of the Playback error:


And this is the output I selected:


ASIO: foo_dsd_asio plays the song and displays DSD512 22.57M, but it is just noise, almost inaudible.
Speakers default once selected plays the song in PCM 44.1
And speakers on exclusive mode show this error:



When I listen to the track on non-exclusive mode PCM 44.1, if I reset the asio proxy it still keeps those SDM settings (and nothing else besides the DSD/PCM transition), and changing the second ("PCM to DSD method") from SDM A/B/C/D has an audible difference, so I assume those don't have anything to do with my problem of DSD not running.



Now after changing some settings for like 5 minutes in the proxy menu, it happened something interesting: now when selecting ASIO foo_dsd_asio it doesn't even play the track anymore, instead it shows this error:




DSD256 is still played at DoP256 while this is how the proxy is set (didn't change anything, just came from the error it gave me before at the 512 track and opened the proxy):



There is more to say but I think that's enough, sorry for my flood :))) I'm very curious to listen to DSD512 (plus it's one of my favorite albums)

[DuckToller]

Good evening Darius,

I spent my sunday evening in installing Foobar with SACD and ASIO on my PC  and testing out which settings are working.

First of all, when playing DSD512 where did you get your native files from ? I haven't seen them yet and the highest rate I bought was DSD256. I have used DSD512 only ny upsampling through the DSD Asio converter.

Here are my settings for plaing native DSD without DOP and to play DSD512 (native for REV - no DOP)
Components

Output

SACD setting (important!)

 

For DSD512
Processor


SACD settings

 

Hope that helps

Tom

[DuckToller]

 

These settings work with both outputs, Dalbello upsampled to DSD512 from 44,1/16-bit.
IT IS IMPORTANT: to use asio+dsd as outputand either foo asio or Cem solution as driver and have SACD encoder properly set. If on sourceforge , load all available componets for foobar from
Super Audio CD Decoder - Browse Files at SourceForge.net

 

[Darius H]

Hello! Thanks a lot for your help! A foobar user from Hifi-guides told me it is better to keep as few DSD plugins as possible "as they have a tendency to conflict with each other" and recommended I remove DSD converter and DSD processor, which I did and it works fine like that (I think, it seems so). Everything else is configured as yours (except the buffer).

But there is a song where I can hear audible distortion. Like.. really audible. It is from Ollo's DSD demo tracks Morning light by David Elias. Can you please check to see if you hear distortion too? I've set the ASIO buffer to the highest value possible and foobar to 30000ms (highest possible). PCM 44.1 doesn't seem to have any audible distortion, or if it does (I think I hear any but I may be mistaken, maybe placebo). PCM 176.4KHz does. 

My audio system is DT660 800ohm, LakePeople G103, and this Rev DAC. I'm worried my DAC is broken (hopefully not!)

At 3:04 there is the highest amount of distortion in the whole track I think.

My output is ASIO+DSD: Cem Solutions

[Darius H]

On 5/23/2023 at 11:02 PM, DuckToller said:

First of all, when playing DSD512 where did you get your native files from ?

It is forbidden to say :))

[DuckToller]

No wonder they are dop 😀

[DuckToller]

34 minutes ago, Darius H said:

Hello! Thanks a lot for your help! A foobar user from Hifi-guides told me it is better to keep as few DSD plugins as possible "as they have a tendency to conflict with each other" and recommended I remove DSD converter and DSD processor, which I did and it works fine like that (I think, it seems so). Everything else is configured as yours (except the buffer).

But there is a song where I can hear audible distortion. Like.. really audible. It is from Ollo's DSD demo tracks Morning light by David Elias. Can you please check to see if you hear distortion too? I've set the ASIO buffer to the highest value possible and foobar to 30000ms (highest possible). PCM 44.1 doesn't seem to have any audible distortion, or if it does (I think I hear any but I may be mistaken, maybe placebo). PCM 176.4KHz does. 

My audio system is DT660 800ohm, LakePeople G103, and this Rev DAC. I'm worried my DAC is broken (hopefully not!)

At 3:04 there is the highest amount of distortion in the whole track I think.

My output is ASIO+DSD: Cem Solutions

 - when you don't upsample for DSD512 you are actually in no need  for conversion and proccesor.
- to work out where is the problem (your file or your software or your DAC, both or all of it) you need to develop your personal test scenario that indicates on of these options. More often than not it is about the settings of the player. The quality of manually upsampled files can also be less than reference level. If you bought it at a trusted shop, you can point out and reclaim.

- your reference files isn't up for download anymore, maybe you have a 5.1 version ?

If you are not doing upsampling with HQP and some powerful pc based filtering, the quality of DSD in my view lies mainly in a perfected source quality (the recording and mastering) and less in the DSD technolgy, yMMV ...
 

[Darius H]

1 hour ago, DuckToller said:

No wonder they are dop 😀

Talking about my DSD512 or about Oppo's FFA downloadable DSD demo tracks? :)

 

 

34 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

- when you don't upsample for DSD512 you are actually in no need  for conversion and proccesor

Good to know

 

 

34 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

your reference files isn't up for download anymore, maybe you have a 5.1 version ?

Morning Light by David Elias in DSD64 stereo? Right click on "DSD64", copy the link address, and paste it into a new tab. It should start downloading.

 

 

34 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

The quality of manually upsampled files can also be less than reference leve

I have no idea what the raw recording has been made on. I see there are MQA versions of it too. Tidal has non-MQA 44.1 available.
EDIT: Apparently DSD64 is the raw recording.

Now that I've been listening for a while on PCM, I can hear distortion not only on the DSD64 version. But I want your take too, I don't trust my ears atm and I'm not an expert.

 

34 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

to work out where is the problem (your file or your software or your DAC, both or all of it) you need to develop your personal test scenario that indicates on of these options

What do you mean?

[DuckToller]

1 minute ago, Darius H said:

Talking about my DSD512 or about Oppo's FFA downloadable DSD demo tracks? :)
DSD512

Good to know
Morning Light by David Elias in DSD64 stereo? Copy the link address and paste it into a new tab.
did that, doesn't work for me

I have no idea what the raw recording has been made on. I see there are MQA versions of it too. Tidal has non-MQA 44.1 available.
If you arent  beween 15 and 30 and you did not train your hearing specially (audio engineer, musican etc) you may need to face reality, that you rarely can hear a difference in lossless format (or between HR PCM, DXD and DSD) if the the file is played at the same volume and comes from the same mastering/mixing. You may, but that would be outstanding, an outlier, However it would qualify you for that hobby (in reality, most hobbyists don't, but they are qualified by their love for music and audio gear ;-).
However, some DACs (this I have learned over the years) have problems with the 176,4kHz playback, but I can only assume that it is about the lazyness of engineers (implementation) and not about the DAC chips themselves..
Now that I've been listening for a while on PCM, I can hear distortion not only on the DSD64 version. But I want your take too, I don't trust my ears atm and I'm not an expert.

Trust you ears! And find ways to verify your findings. My REV doesn't show distortion or my ears can't hear it anymore.

 

What do you mean?

I mean, you don't want to spend hours in different forums when you can solve your problem according to your learning curve first hand.

 

[Darius H]

I'll send you the track, just tell me your email address.

9 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

did that, doesn't work for me

Ok, this is really strange, it still works for me. Maybe it's because of the VPN? Micronesia might not be the most agreeable country of all, who knows :)))

 

11 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

I mean, you don't want to spend hours in different forums when you can solve your problem according to your learning curve first hand.

That's right.

However, I'm still eagerly wanting to verify wether or not I'm the only one hearing distortion here.

[DuckToller]

my VPN points to the centre of Europe ;-)
and all the other files on the page are avilable, just the one you pointed out is connected to the artist's homepage ... same in Chrome
however, if you copy the dl link you see here,  I could go to the downloadpage directly
like (taken from the oppo page ):

http://download.oppodigital.com/hra/davidelias/07 - David Elias - Acoustic Trio - Rodeo On A Ridge (DSD64).dsf

[Darius H]

Oh great, I didn't think it is possible to upload such large files here! 

 

7 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

my VPN points to the centre of Europe ;-)

Oh you can select your country manually on this forum?

 

 

8 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

and all the other files on the page are avilable, just the one you pointed out is connected to the artist's homepage ...

Ok this is strange as well

08 - David Elias - Crossing - Morning Light Western Town (DSD64 2.0).dsf