[raysracing]

ted_B I will be happy to buy you a beer or glass of wine on Lee rd (Bottle house), or Melt on taylor for some discussion.  Check out our thread in regional audiophiles.  I Would love for someone to hear my system and offer cheap solutions or tips I can work on.

[avahifi]

Help.  I just got a ifi nano and it works fine playing 192/24 wave files on my Mac.

However my music player software, Fidelia, seems not to recognize dsd files.

I need a recommendation for appropriate Mac music playback software that is compatible with DSD files and the ifi nano.

Thanks,

Frank Van Alstine

[ted_b]

Help.  I just got a ifi nano and it works fine playing 192/24 wave files on my Mac.

However my music player software, Fidelia, seems not to recognize dsd files.

I need a recommendation for appropriate Mac music playback software that is compatible with DSD files and the ifi nano.

Thanks,

Frank Van Alstine

Frank,
Any of these three will work fine, with JRiver my favorite:
JRiver
Audirvana Plus
Pure Music

[avahifi]

Thanks for the good advice Ted.  I would like to pick your brain about the ifi nano a bit more if you don't mind.

I am wondering just what the coax digital output of the ifi nano is actually doing.

Using my Macbook pro and 192/24 wave or flac files, I can use Fidelia player software and go from the Mac's USB output into the ifi nano, then out its coax digital output into the digital input on our own Fet Valve DAC and it works just fine.

Using J River and DSD 64 files, the digital output of the ifi nano is not compatible (so far) with the coax digital in on our own DAC.  But it does work from its own internal DAC and provides useful but hard sounding analog output.

Am I overlooking some settings in J River (which is kind of a maze for me to figure out) or is the ifi nano putting out DSD from its coax digital output with DSD in?

With either the Schitt DAC or the ifi nano I have great user flexibility but the dinky little IC filter and analog output circuits  both have that hard and sterile characteristics I want to avoid by using my own tube hybrid DAC as the analog engine.

So far standard redbook or 192/24 wave files are better through our own DAC then DSD or 192/24 through the Schitt or ifi nano respectively.

Thanks,

Frank Van Alstine

[krikor]

Am I overlooking some settings in J River (which is kind of a maze for me to figure out) or is the ifi nano putting out DSD from its coax digital output with DSD in?

Per ifi-audio.com:

Output   SPDIF RCA (only PCM up to 192KHz)

[Tom Alverson]

Thanks for the good advice Ted.  I would like to pick your brain about the ifi nano a bit more if you don't mind.

I am wondering just what the coax digital output of the ifi nano is actually doing.

Using my Macbook pro and 192/24 wave or flac files, I can use Fidelia player software and go from the Mac's USB output into the ifi nano, then out its coax digital output into the digital input on our own Fet Valve DAC and it works just fine.

Using J River and DSD 64 files, the digital output of the ifi nano is not compatible (so far) with the coax digital in on our own DAC.  But it does work from its own internal DAC and provides useful but hard sounding analog output.

Am I overlooking some settings in J River (which is kind of a maze for me to figure out) or is the ifi nano putting out DSD from its coax digital output with DSD in?

With either the Schitt DAC or the ifi nano I have great user flexibility but the dinky little IC filter and analog output circuits  both have that hard and sterile characteristics I want to avoid by using my own tube hybrid DAC as the analog engine.

So far standard redbook or 192/24 wave files are better through our own DAC then DSD or 192/24 through the Schitt or ifi nano respectively.

Thanks,

Frank Van Alstine

I would put a scope on the SPDIF output of the ifi nano while it is playing a DSD file to see if anything at all is coming out of that port.   If you do see a signal there (that your DAC cannot lock on to) then maybe plug it in to your OPPO if you have the model with SPDIF inputs.  Maybe that will tell you what format it is putting out while playing DSD files?

Tom

[ted_b]

Digital outputs (coax, toslink, AES) are not available for DSD, only PCM.  The only way is to package it as FLAC-contained DoP, as per this thread:
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=119364.0

[roscoeiii]

Is this "iFi Nano" this iDSD? I have been very interested in the iDSD. May grab one after the next paycheck.

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-161157-ifi-nano-idsd-dac.aspx

[Tom Alverson]

Digital outputs (coax, toslink, AES) are not available for DSD, only PCM.  The only way is to package it as FLAC-contained DoP, as per this thread:
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=119364.0

Or a program like Jriver converts the DSD data to PCM so you can play it back on a "normal" DAC.  It is possible (but probably unlikely) that the ifi nano could perform this conversion.  From the Jriver help info:


http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/DSD_Format

Playback

By default, DSD will be converted to PCM for playback.
The DSD to PCM conversion process converts from 1-bit DSD to 64-bit PCM at 1/8th of the sample rate. The total amount of data from this conversion grows by 8x, so the process is effectively lossless / perfect.
Once you have PCM, it will be 64bit @ 352.8 kHz for DSD, and 64bit @ 705.6 kHz for DSD 2x.
It is rare for hardware to support these high sample rates, so downsampling is required. The option 'Greater than 192kHz' in DSP Studio > Output Format is what is used. There is no way to configure DSD 1x and DSD 2x independently.
DSD contains high frequency noise that could damage ears or equipment. Therefore, a low pass filter is used to remove this ultrasonic noise at playback time. The default low pass is at 24kHz using a 48dB/octave slope. The low pass is configurable in Options > Audio > Advanced > Configure input plug-in > JRiver DSD Plugin. There's a little more detail on our default low pass here.

[raysracing]

I just received my ifi DSD DAC using it with the stock config (WASAPI) and PCM in Jriver.  I only own about 3 dsf files.  Please help me understand that since my collection is 95% 16/44 and 48 files I should leave it as is, but if I want maximum playback of dsf files I should go into options and change it to a DSD in DoP format correct even though they play fine in stock config?


I will also try the ASIO version some night.
TIA,
Ray

[holzohr]

The new Lyngdorf TDAI 2170 does accept DSD64/DSD128 via optional USB DAC and HDMI modules. Just to mention 

http://lyngdorf.com/images/Downloads/TDAI-2170_Owners_Manual_-_130314_v1.1.pdf

[ted_b]

The new Lyngdorf TDAI 2170 does accept DSD64/DSD128 via optional USB DAC and HDMI modules. Just to mention 

http://lyngdorf.com/images/Downloads/TDAI-2170_Owners_Manual_-_130314_v1.1.pdf

I will hold off putting the Lyngdorf in the DSD database, as it seems to only read DSD (and DSD128) but converts to PCM anyway..so as to do Room Perfect and other DSP.  If this is not bypassable I don't consider the Lyngdorf a DAC capable of listening to native DSD.  Any other info would be helpful.

[JoshK]

Where is this DB you speak of?   

[ted_b]

Where is this DB you speak of?

I made it a sticky last year Josh.

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=114707.0

[JoshK]

Thanks, I must have missed it when searching around.   It says I am offline (I'm not) so I can't display it. 

[bmoura]

Is this "iFi Nano" this iDSD? I have been very interested in the iDSD. May grab one after the next paycheck.

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-161157-ifi-nano-idsd-dac.aspx

Yes, that's the one.

[Tyson]

iFi also has a iDSD Mini coming out in a few months, but it'll be $1500.  Based on what I've heard with the nano and micro, should be very interesting.