Saidera
Senior Member
I did find on the ALC4042 datasheet that ALC4042 supports DSD. See the Rhodium DAC page. The PDF showed that while it’s a chip from 2017-18, it did have DSD functionality. The way most were implemented in the dongles named 'TX_Hifi...' in Win 10 meant that the DSD pins must have been disconnected – i.e. never used. What a waste of potential - I thought. As if DSD would heat up the chip?
So I asked Hidizs for their S1 DAC (a variant of one which Archimago reviewed), is a firmware update possible? DSD Not possible they replied. Same for Rhodium and most other 5686 dongles – no DSD. I am curious whether the two I have – 4050 which is Meizu fake and 5686 from that strange metallic dongle maker proliferating on alibaba/dominating aliexpress/taobao actually do as they say regarding DSD DoP 128.
Realtek DSD has a history dating back to 2008 with Sony in developing ALC889DSD for their VAIO PCs. Subsequently Realtek introduced ALC1220 in 2017 for gamers. As if gamers like DSD audio. The interesting thing is that Realtek can also record in DSD, unlike the other DAC chip makers.
I put forward my suggestion - owing to the lack of space on these TX dongles, the DSD Pins were probably ignored and so there is no way this hidden functionality can be unlocked on the many millions of overpriced TX Realtek dongles distributed across planet Earth. And why do I keep placing importance on DSD!?
So I asked Hidizs for their S1 DAC (a variant of one which Archimago reviewed), is a firmware update possible? DSD Not possible they replied. Same for Rhodium and most other 5686 dongles – no DSD. I am curious whether the two I have – 4050 which is Meizu fake and 5686 from that strange metallic dongle maker proliferating on alibaba/dominating aliexpress/taobao actually do as they say regarding DSD DoP 128.
Realtek DSD has a history dating back to 2008 with Sony in developing ALC889DSD for their VAIO PCs. Subsequently Realtek introduced ALC1220 in 2017 for gamers. As if gamers like DSD audio. The interesting thing is that Realtek can also record in DSD, unlike the other DAC chip makers.
I put forward my suggestion - owing to the lack of space on these TX dongles, the DSD Pins were probably ignored and so there is no way this hidden functionality can be unlocked on the many millions of overpriced TX Realtek dongles distributed across planet Earth. And why do I keep placing importance on DSD!?
