ALSA not recognizing my DAC as dop capable / ALSA DSD downsampling

English Multimedia
1

Hi,
for about two months now I’m trying to set up my DAC (Cayin iDAC-6) with mpd and Cantata.
Everything works fine, but it seems that ALSA doesn’t recognize it as dop capable, which is important for me because I have a collection of DSD files and want them not to be downsampled.

this is my mpd.conf file:


music_directory    "/media/Daten/Musik"playlist_directory "~/.mpd/playlists"
db_file            "~/.mpd/database"
log_file           "~/.mpd/log"
pid_file           "~/.mpd/pid"
state_file         "~/.mpd/state"




audio_output { 
 type              "alsa" 
 name              "Cayin" 
 device            "hw:3,0"
 mixer_type        "hardware"
 dop           "yes"
 auto_resample     "no"
 auto_channels     "no"
 auto_format       "no"
}

technically it should work, but my DAC displays every DSD file I try to play as 352.8KHz instead of e.g. 2.8MHz DSD…
To specify if the problem is with the DAC I have connected a second one and the same problem appeared. So I guess there must be something wrong with my ALSA configuration (I haven’t changed it a bit).
I have also tried to disable pulseaudio completely with no success.

my .asoundrc file:



pcm.!default {
        type hw
        card 3
        device 0
}

I’m running OpenSUSE Leap, Plasma 5 with Kernel 4.1.15-8.1
ALSA: 1.0.29-10.1
mpd: 0.19.10
Cantata: 2.0.0-20

I would highly appreciate any help, since I don’t know how to proceed anymore.

Thank you!

2

I have also created this thread in the German forum:

www.opensuse-forum.de/thread/36632-alsa-downsampling-soundkarte-wird-nicht-korrekt-erkannt

3

tiny update on informations:
when pulseaudio is disabled via YAST DSD files also get downsampled to 352 PCM

4

Does this output of stream0 of my DAC help anyone figure out the problem?


cat /proc/asound/card0/stream0
Cayin Audio Cayin iDAC-6 at usb-0000:00:14.0-6, high speed : USB Audio

Playback:
  Status: Running
    Interface = 1
    Altset = 2
    Packet Size = 31
    Momentary freq = 44100 Hz (0x5.8330)
    Feedback Format = 16.16
  Interface 1
    Altset 1
    Format: S32_LE
    Channels: 2
    Endpoint: 1 OUT (ASYNC)
    Rates: 44100, 48000, 88200, 96000, 176400, 192000, 352800, 384000
    Data packet interval: 125 us
  Interface 1
    Altset 2
    Format: S16_LE
    Channels: 2
    Endpoint: 1 OUT (ASYNC)
    Rates: 44100, 48000, 88200, 96000, 176400, 192000, 352800, 384000
    Data packet interval: 125 us
  Interface 1
    Altset 3
    Format: SPECIAL
    Channels: 2
    Endpoint: 1 OUT (ASYNC)
    Rates: 44100, 48000, 88200, 96000, 176400, 192000, 352800, 384000
    Data packet interval: 125 us

Is the SPECIAL file format normal? Could that be the problem?
Does anyone here have an idea what might be causing this?

5

I don’t have a solution.

This is very alsa specific … and hence you may have much better luck asking for help on an alsa mailing list. The wiki wrt the lists is here: http://alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Mailing-lists

You need to select the appropriate alsa group, and subscribe to that group. There are links that one can click on and follow in each group that will allow one to subscribe to the mailing list, post questions for help, and hopefully receive support.

6

I have found the solution:

Cantata indeed uses its own mpd.conf, it’s stored here:
/home/user/.local/share/cantata/mpd/

I have then edited it to my preference and it’s now working how it should.

Hope that helps someone else someday.

7

Glad to read it works now for you. I hope the custom mpd.conf edits were not too difficult to figure out.
.

8

I actually have suspected a separate mpd.conf file early on, since nothing changed when I edited the system configuration file for mpd. but got a wrong lead in another thread and went on analysing ALSA and inspecting too many things. When nothing really changed, even when I have set up a different distribution (Manjaro), I wondered again if it isn’t Cantata who’s screwing everything up. Then found a Cantata mpd.conf hidden in ~/.local/… edited it and boom! I can’t tell you how relieved I was when everything fell into place.