Clock Settings Fixed in MAC

[Harry Nutzz]

I just bought the Topping D10 Balanced. Sounds great. Something I have never noticed before is that over USB the D10B does not respond to the clock info over USB, That is, if my music source, in this case Amazon HD Plays a track at 44.1 then the next track at 96K or 192K the D10B will read whatever the "audio Midi setup" app is set at and not the actual music track. The music tracks clock will not "pass through" the internal app. So what happens? Is the track resampled by Mac OS before hitting the USB line and then the DAC?
So I have a D10B "stuck" on 96Khz because that is where I set the MAC OS /audio Midi setup even when playing a 16/44.1 file. Why doesn't the mac pass through the actual file data. What's going on?

Thanks for your time.

HN

 

[dpippel]

Yes, this is a limitation of macOS. However, most music apps that run on the Mac have the ability to take exclusive control of your external DAC, bypassing the midi mixer in the operating system, allowing bit-perfect output. That's the way to go.

 

[Harry Nutzz]

Hi dpippel. thanks for the info. I figured as much. Any suggestions on which players or apps have this capability?
Thanks,

HN

 

[mongobot]

If your primary source of playback is Amazon Music HD, you may have to be content with setting Audio MIDI Setup to whatever bit rate you're comfortable with and allow it to upscale content.

If you're using local audio files, you have options such as Bitperfect with works with iTunes / Music or JRiver Media Player both of which will set the bit rate to match the file.

Doesn't hurt to send your feedback to Apple as well...

 

[mdsimon2]

It is definitely a bit frustrating that Amazon Music HD does not have the ability to change the Audio MIDI settings to match the track (even in exclusive mode). That being said the Mac resampler is actually pretty good and although you will see some performance degradation in no case will it be worse than 100 dB SINAD. At one point I worried about manually changing Audio MIDI settings but now I just leave it at 96 kHz and forget about it.

Michael

 

[Harry Nutzz]

Thanks everyone. I sprung for Bitperfect and it certainly solved the problem with iTunes. I agree it's too bad about Amazon HD. Maybe they'll fix this in a future update. I think I will follow the advise above and set to 96 kHz and live with it for now. It's funny, now that I have a DAC that actually display's this info I started being concerned about it. Overall difference is likely insignificant.
Love this page and forum. Thanks.