Audirvana Plays DSD without DSD compatible DAC


I've just been investigating some of the DSD features of Audirvana.

The one nice feature it has - if you don't own a DSD ready DAC, you can use Aurdivana to...

1. Play the DSD file and convert as it is being played
- in this case you use Audirvana without iTunes

2. import the file into the iTunes Library using Audirvana
- you can then play it using iTunes + Audirvana
- but Audirvana creates a "proxy file"
- which allows it to locate the actual DSD file
- it then converts on the fly while playing (as above)

3. It will also play the DSD track (unaltered) if you have a DSD compatible DAC - of course :-)

You can also set a conversion upper limit e.g. 24/96 if that is the max resolution your DAC can process and all files will be converted up to that limit

A really nice feature :-)

So, go out and buy some DSD tracks.

I'm sure other software offers the same features

Regards...
williewonka
Perhaps one of our resident digital music gurus can explain the issue better. In the meantime, I agree that Audivarna is a nice piece of software.
Make sure you pick DSD over PCM Standard 1 in the Audivarna settings. This will allow you to play DSD direct without converting it to 24/192 or 352.8
When I go in to preferences to select "to DSD", the to DSD is grayed out. Is this because I am still in trial mode ?

Also, if I have a DSD dac, should I not use this option (once I figured out how to) ?

Found no way to contact Audirvana, and did not see the answer in what I looked at here.


Thank you,

TD