I’m using a Synology DS920+ with the extension unit for a total of 9 bays. I added 4 MB of RAM and 2 M.2 sticks, all of which was not needed, as far as I can tell. I am running 5 HDDs in the Synology RAID6 configuration, and the local read speed is about 550 MB/s, which is way more than my music can use. I expect to be using about 9 TB of space on the NAS within a month, maybe topping out at 20 TB some years from now.
On the RPi 4B, I started with passive cooling, and it was throttling due to heat. I added a small active cooler with a tiny fan, and it doesn’t get warm.
That PC looks great. It’s slightly more powerful than my AWOW, which has never had an issue with Volumio and my music.
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I seem to have spoken incorrectly about the LAN speed. I am in the process of upgrading my network, so I already had switches and cables that support 2.5 Gb/s, as well as a number of USB 2.5 Gb/s Ethernet adapters. I already had a 2.5 Gb/s adapter on the NAS. I hooked up both Volumio machines (RPi 4B and AWOW mini-PC) with 2.5 Gb/s adapters, telling them to get their music (Source) from the 2.5 Gb/s adapter on the NAS. I think they’re working better. I have several TBs of music, and updating the music DB on Volumio took about a minute. So, yes, 1 Gb/s Ethernet is ample, but 2.5 Gb/s works even better, especially if you update your music as I am and do.
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Bumped it up to 1.75 last night and still running around 45 degrees.
My experience:
The Volumio Primo does not send any DSD data correctly through the USB output.
My DAC does not detect it as DSD but PCM only.
Regardless of resolution or DSD playback settings on the Primo.
This was confirmed by Primo support.
They told me a few weeks ago that they will come up with a solution but did not say when.
Regards
Rolf
Thanks so sounds like there is some kind of issue going on.
DSP can’t be applied to Dsd signal. CamillaDsp can’t do that without conversion.
It means that Dsd is converted to Pcm before going to CamillaDsp ( and FusionDsp).
Whatever is the system, Volumio, Moode…
The author of CamillaDsp just confirm this today by mail 
Plus the kernel Volumio got from Asus does not support newer DSD devices on the market.
Every single DSD device needs to be registered in the kernel’s usb audio driver, yours may be missing. As Volumio is using the Asus kernel, missing DSD direct (raw) support is not a Volumio issue I’m afraid.
My RPi 4B is running at 2 GHz with active cooling, and runs at about 38 degrees under load. I’m not using the huge cooler the guy recommends. Just a small one.
The kernel recognizes my Chord Qutest and RME ADI-2 Pro, and Volumio 3 sends them DoP successfully. I wish I could get ASIO for DSD Direct, but as you say, the kernel doesn’t support that.
Linux does not do “ASIO”, it has it’s standard USB Audio driver. All the DAC supplier needs to do is register the DAC details in this driver, so when the device is being detected by the kernel, the driver can reports its DSD capabilities to the components requesting it.
The Linux version of ASIO is ASIO4ALL. As I understand it, what you wrote about the Volumio kernel is correct, and it would be theoretically possible for the kernel to use ASIO(4ALL), and support DSD Direct in Volumio . . . but probably not in the near future.
No, there is no ASIO4ALL for Linux, don’t know where you got that from.
There is no need for ASIO on Linux either, because there is an all-purpose USB Audio driver.
OK. It looks like now people use WineASIO on Linux. I have not played with any version of ASIO except as I had to on Windows. Unfortunately, Windows has 90+% of the market, and the Qutest and ADI-2 Pro DACs only support DSD Direct from an ASIO driver. I’m not willing to run Windows on my network for security reasons, so Windows-based music players are not an option for me. I like Volumio, and it will probably never support an ASIO driver, so I have to use DoP for those DACs. DoP is DSD, so it’s not a real issue.
BTW thanks for the overclock tip, working much smoother now. I am at 1.8ghz with same passive system and no significant difference in temp.
To re-group on the core issue:
- I enabled DSP on Volumio
- After this was done, DSD out does not work properly
- Disabling resolves the issue
Thanks for the tips, and help. Still have a question on DSD512 via volumio as it comes out as DOP, but everything else is native DSD.
The RPi 4B heat sink I’m using is on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B091L1XKL6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1. I definitely recommend it. The only downside is that there is no case.
DSP does not work on bit stream data. My ADI-2 Pro (A/D D/A converter) disables DSP when handling DSD.
I can’t use native DSD on my DACs, as they require the ASIO driver. If your DAC indicates that it is receiving and handling DSD512 correctly as DoP, it doesn’t sound like a problem. DoP is DSD masquerading as PCM, i.e. your DAC is processing the DSD bit stream.
I have a question for you: where do you get DSD512 recordings? What I see on NativeDSD.com is at most DSD256. They state that DSD512 can be created from DSD256, but I doubt there is any real improvement from the base DSD256 files.
Hey Jack,
Thanks for the link, so far the speed is looking well. I think your point on DSP and DSD makes perfect sense as it is a master and we really shouldnt mess with it. Maybe an enhancement for Volumio to disable DSP if dsd if playing? I assume Moode is doing that by default and why i can enable DSP but it plays.
For DSD content i went with this:
and the jazz at the pawn shop 512 tape transfer. Not investing in it, but i have a vinyl copy so wanted to do an ab.
On NativeDSD, about the DSD 512 files, they state: “They are re-modulations of the original DSD 256 encoding modulation that produced the DSD 256 releases.” They claim that can improve the way a DAC plays the music, but obviously, it can’t add back missing frequencies.
I digitize my records using the ADI-2 Pro (using the A/D function) at DSD 256. I can also use PCM 768. Comparing these two formats, I hear no difference. To me, music from a DAC that is limited to 20 Hz - 20 KHz sounds muffled (using Koss ESP/950 headphones). The ADI-2 Pro (using the DAC side) is accurate out to over 90 KHz. Comparing DSD 128 to DSD 256, I hear more detail with DSD 256. The music sounds fuller and more natural.
That being said, I plan to compare DSD 256 and DSD 512 from NativeDSD. However, the ADI-2 Pro may not play DSD 512 well, since that wants Direct DSD, and there is no ASIO driver. So my results may not be meaningful.