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DSF Files
#1
Good Evening All

Having been keeping an eye on your forum for Moode to see how well supported Moode is I decided a couple of months ago to migrate from Rune.


Being honest I was happy with Rune but it in my opinion it became very sluggish and unresponsive and the support was not that good when problems arose so I've decided to try tried Moode instead   I am currently using version 5.3.1 2019-06-12 (would an upgrade be beneficial?). 


Nice sounding system slightly cleaner sound than Rune but I do have one question....

I currently have a few .dsf files from artists like Genesis & Depeche Mode and I was wondering whether I was getting true DSD on playback.  I ask this because I believe I was using Rune (although I could be wrong). Having looked at the settings for DSD playback it says DSD over PCM set to no.  I know that some systems convert DSD to PCM on the fly.

If Moode is converting on the fly would it be worth converting the .dsf files to 24/88.2 or 24/96 flac instead or would that make no difference.

My current system is :

Raspberry Pi 3 B+
IQ Audio Pi-DAC Pro
Pi3 USB 2.5amp Official Power Supply

Plugged into:

Pioneer Amp with Cambridge Audio Pacific Interconnects
Tannoy 609 SE with Monster XP speaker Cable.

Thank you in advance.

Kind Regards

CityCentreFox
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#2
(11-24-2019, 01:55 AM)CityCentreFox Wrote: Good Evening All

Having been keeping an eye on your forum for Moode to see how well supported Moode is I decided a couple of months ago to migrate from Rune.


Being honest I was happy with Rune but it in my opinion it became very sluggish and unresponsive and the support was not that good when problems arose so I've decided to try tried Moode instead   I am currently using version 5.3.1 2019-06-12 (would an upgrade be beneficial?). 


Nice sounding system slightly cleaner sound than Rune but I do have one question....

I currently have a few .dsf files from artists like Genesis & Depeche Mode and I was wondering whether I was getting true DSD on playback.  I ask this because I believe I was using Rune (although I could be wrong). Having looked at the settings for DSD playback it says DSD over PCM set to no.  I know that some systems convert DSD to PCM on the fly.

If Moode is converting on the fly would it be worth converting the .dsf files to 24/88.2 or 24/96 flac instead or would that make no difference.

My current system is :

Raspberry Pi 3 B+
IQ Audio Pi-DAC Pro
Pi3 USB 2.5amp Official Power Supply

Plugged into:

Pioneer Amp with Cambridge Audio Pacific Interconnects
Tannoy 609 SE with Monster XP speaker Cable.

Thank you in advance.

Kind Regards

CityCentreFox

Hi,

See below, audio output playing dsf files on the same pi / dac combo.

Quote:Audio Information

INPUT / OUTPUT
Source: 
NAS/Hi-Res/The Rolling Stones/[2009] Let it Bleed [DSD SACD]/01 - The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter.dsf
Encoded at: 
DSD64, 1 bit, 5.644 Mbps Stereo
Decoded to: 
PCM, 24 bit, 352.8 kHz, Stereo, 16.934 Mbps
Destination: 
Local
Output rate: 
24 bit, 352.8 kHz, Stereo, 16.934 Mbps
DSP OPERATIONS
Volume ctl: 
Hardware (on-chip volume controller)
Resampling: 
off
Polarity inv: 
off
Crossfade: 
off
Crossfeed: 
off
Parametric EQ: 
off
Graphic EQ: 
off
Replaygain: 
off
Normalize vol: 
off
Chip options: 
FIR interpolation with de-emphasis, Gain=0dB, Boost=.8dB
AUDIO DEVICE
Device: 
IQaudIO Pi-DAC PRO
Chip: 
Burr Brown PCM5242
Interface: 
I2S
Formats: 
S16_LE, S24_LE, S32_LE
Platform: 
Pi-3B+ 1GB v1.3

I have a coople of the exact same pi / dac combos as you.
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#3
Wierd I was just about to post a similar DSD related query/issue but I'll chime in...

Looks like your DAC doesn't support DSD so mpd will be converting to PCM on the fly, there is no need to convert the files if your'e not concerned about disk space.
The output PCM sample rate will depend on the DSD format, DSD64 will convert to 24/96, DSD 128 will convert to 24/192, DSD 256 to 24/384. Going beyond the boundaries of your DAC, DSD 512 converts to PCM 24/768 but on your setup is may be converted and downsampled to PCM 24/384 if the CPU can handle it.
You can force a specific sample rate with the SoX resampling setting if you wish which I think will resample everything, not just DSD.

HTH

PS: Got my rates wrong of the top of my head but Tim has updated with correct numbers
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#4
Below are the DSD over PCM (DoP) decode rates.

Code:
- dsd64   24 bit 176.4 kHz
- dsd128  24 bit 352.8 kHz
- dsd256  24 bit 705.6 kHz
- dsd512  24 bit 1.411 MHz

For DSD to PCM on-the-fly conversion MPD/ALSA queries the audio device to determine what rates it supports and selects an appropriate rate or the highest rate. For example if the device supports up to 384k rate including 352.8k then dsd64 to PCM = 176.4k x 2 channels = 352.8k. If the device does not support 352.8k then dsd64 will be played at 384k PCM rate.

MPD will also zero-pad the bit depth to 32 bits if it detects the audio device does not support 24-bit.
Enjoy the Music!
moodeaudio.org | Mastodon Feed | GitHub
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#5
Good Evening All

Thank you all for your replies and sorry for not responding sooner.

After reading what has been posted I decided to convert one of my Depeche Mode albums (Violator) to 24/96 flac as a test.  Played both the .dsf and the 24/96 flac files and couldn't really tell the difference to be truthful although the space saving was almost 75-80%.  Also my mate couldn't tell the difference either.  So I've decided to convert all my DSD files to flac.  I will keep the originals though!

I used foobar to convert to wave which produced a 24/176.4 bitrate file.  I noticed there were a few clicks and pops at the beginning of each track so I edited them in Audacity,  normalised them to -3db and saved as 24/96 .flac.  They sound very good indeed with no distortion.  I also downmixed the extra tracks on the dvd's from DTS 96/24 to 24/96 flac and again normalised them to -3db. I know DTS 96/24 is a lossy format and has a 24/48 core but foobar saved it as a 24/96 wav file so what the hell!  Sound quite nice.  There is a difference in sound but not that much.

Is there a DAC for the Pi that plays DSD without conversion or do they all convert the files?  A quick google search wasn't very helpful.

Thank you all again.

CCF
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#6
(11-26-2019, 11:58 PM)CityCentreFox Wrote: Is there a DAC for the Pi that plays DSD without conversion or do they all convert the files?  A quick google search wasn't very helpful.

There are quite a few USB DACs that will do native DSD and/or DoP which work with Moode/MPD. I have the Topping D30 and D10 which are capable of this and I often play back DSD64 files.

If you want a HAT-style DAC board then there are fewer options. I believe the Allo Katana will do it via DoP and probably other recent ESS Sabre-based boards will, too.
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#7
Hi Everyone !

In my case, my DAC (Allo Katana) does support native DSD and i'm able to play theses files from the Moode WebUI... but from UPNP control point Kazoo, the .DSF files are not showing !

It's like Kazoo don't recognize that, but in the Linn Docs, it's clearly indicate that it support DSD. Also, I try to put "checkcontentformat=0" in the "/etc/upmpdcli.conf", but nothing has change...

Any idea(s) ??
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#8
@"clemarc@gmail.com"

It sounds like you have some .dsf files in your moOde player's local storage, you have moOde's DLNA server enabled, and Kazoo can't find the .dsf files. Right?

All my tests with .dsf files have been via moOde's UI so I never ran into this case.

I just did a brute-force string extraction from the minidlna daemon. It appears to have provisions for the usual audio file types but not for .dsf or .dff, which means it won't serve these files. This finding reinforces the information I found in various web-search hits on "minidlna dsf".

There are DSD-enabling patches that have been suggested for minidlna in the past but apparently they never made it into the Debian/Raspbian sources. Currently, moOde installs the binary package for minidlna. To test these patches, we'd have to start with the source code and compile our own binary. Certainly possible. How soon? In a while.

The web search also turned up the information that different audio vendors have chosen to use different DSD-file MIME types in their firmware which makes life interesting. Talk about standards!?!

Regards,
Kent
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