Can you play 24/192 tracks on a PC and send it to an external 96kHz USB DAC?

[StanleyB]

What is likely to happen if you tried to play a 192kHz track through USB on a DAC that only supports USB up to 96kHz?
And what if you tried the same 192kHz track on a USB DAC that can play up to 96kHz without any additional drivers? I am thinking of such things like the HiFace that needs drivers to play 192kHz tracks. What happens if you do play 192kHz files on a HiFace if you don't have the 192kHz drivers installed?
Has anyone tried this, and if so what was the result?

[synsei]

I tried it with the Caiman when I owned one Stan and got zilch, never owned a HiFace though so can't comment on that score...

[Stratmangler]

The HiFace2 USB>SPDIF doesn't work on a Windoze machine without the drivers.
I suspect the HiFace USB>SPDIF is the same.
I do know that the HiFace2 USB>SPDIF works on Mac OS and Linux natively - mine works out of the USB port on my Squeezebox Touch.


Can't comment a a HiFace DAC, 'cos I haven't tried one.
I suspect that you'd need to load drivers to get it to work in any capacity at all on a Windoze machine.
Mac or Linux possibly not.

[StanleyB]

Thanks for the info so far guys. Most helpful. I hope that a few others with a USB capable DAC can also give this a try for me.
I vaguely remember, or was I dreaming :scratch:, that the last time I tried playing 192 via USB on a DAC that was only specified up to 96kHz, the sound broke up.
The question might seem a bit odd, but I am trying to confirm something :eyebrows:.

[Krisbee]

Stan,

I can play back a 24/192 file on your own TC-7520 here using Linux. The simplest command line Linux player is "aplay" and the
LINUX ALSA sound system provides a PCM interface called "pughw" which can do sample format and sample rate conversion of the fly.

On my system the USB input of the TC-7520 equates to sound card 2, subdevice 0. This plays the hirez file after short pause:


aplay -v -D plughw:2,0 2L50SACD_tr01_stereo_192kHz.wav
Playing WAVE '2L50SACD_tr01_stereo_192kHz.wav' : Signed 24 bit Little Endian in 3bytes, Rate 192000 Hz, Stereo
Plug PCM: Rate conversion PCM (48000, sformat=S16_LE)
Converter: linear-interpolation
Protocol version: 10002
Its setup is:
stream : PLAYBACK
access : RW_INTERLEAVED
format : S24_3LE
subformat : STD
channels : 2
rate : 192000
exact rate : 192000 (192000/1)
msbits : 24
buffer_size : 96000
period_size : 24000
period_time : 125000
tstamp_mode : NONE
period_step : 1
avail_min : 24000
period_event : 0
start_threshold : 96000
stop_threshold : 96000
silence_threshold: 0
silence_size : 0
boundary : 6755399441055744000
Slave: Hardware PCM card 2 'USB Audio CODEC' device 0 subdevice 0
Its setup is:
stream : PLAYBACK
access : MMAP_INTERLEAVED
format : S16_LE
subformat : STD
channels : 2
rate : 48000
exact rate : 48000 (48000/1)
msbits : 16
buffer_size : 24000
period_size : 6000
period_time : 125000
tstamp_mode : NONE
period_step : 1
avail_min : 6000
period_event : 0
start_threshold : 24000
stop_threshold : 24000
silence_threshold: 0
silence_size : 0
boundary : 6755399441055744000
appl_ptr : 0
hw_ptr : 0

The output shows the conversions taking place. Now this is of course on the Texas Instruments PCM2902 Audio Codec which is USB adpative operated at USB 1.1. Interestingly, it only produces silence on the TOSLINK input.

[StanleyB]

Thanks for once again Chris for checking out the USB in Linux. I am using Windows7 in my case to do my checks.
My TEAC is screaming out for drivers before it even wants to play files from the USB input. The Hiface I borrowed did the same.

I am basically trying out a piece of hardware that is allowing me to play 192kHz files via the USB port on Windows without requiring any specialist drivers. But this hardware won't play 192 files via USB on the Touch. It isn't EDO compatible above 96kHz.

[struth]

I used to have a hiface 1 usb/spidif and it worked on windows plug and play, so it would be worth the trying.