If I load a 24/96 file and attempt to play it the Topping D10s shows 44.1 until I stop the track and restart it again.
Why can’t it make the switch on the first track?
This is the second Topping Dac I’ve found to be a problem in my system, the first being a DX3pro.
Okay....
1) If your OS is set up to play multiple sounds at once ... for example a email notification and music at the same time. It is going to have to resample everything to whatever speed you set in your sound setup panels. Thus if you set 16/44.1 that's what it always plays everything at, so your DAC is always going to show that speed.
2) Most OSs provide a "bit exact" bypass for the shared mixer. In Windows it's called "exclusive mode" and it requires a WASAPI compatible player to activate it. I'm not sure what it might be called in *nix or other OSs but it's almost certainly there. Once you jump into this bit-exact mode there is a short negotiation between the OS and the DAC at the start of each song... if the file can be played at it's native speeds without resampling it is sent through as is. If not, either the system errors out or it falls back to reampling. But in the bit exact mode, the player software owns the DAC until the song is done.
3) MP3 and other compressed formats cannot be fed directly to a DAC, you need a "codec" to convert them into PCM streams. That is a problem for your Player and your OS to work out... The player has to load the codec and then feed it's output to the DAC.
Hope that helps a bit...