I have given up on Roon. Love the interface on Mac OS but just don’t like the sound. Not at all. dCS Mosaic is much better but not available on Mac OS. Mosaic is great on iOS.
I am trialing Audirvana on Mac OS. I love the way it sounds, really close to Mosaic. I am still using minumserver running on my Synology NAS.
My issue is 16/44 - 24/96 files seem to play just fine. DSD 64, DSD 128 higher bit rate PCM stops playing after a few minutes, Audirvana looses it’s connection to my upsampler, the VUP reboots it’s network card, and after 20 seconds or so all gets connected again but of course the music has stopped. Very frustrating and it’s repeatable. My dealer stopped by today and he is perplexed too. He is also having issues with Audirvana with his setup.
I did post this thread over on the Audirvana forum, but no solution. Hoping those more familiar with dCS can offer up ideas.
Hi John, Just pointing out (which you may already know) that Mosaic does run on MacOS (all iOS apps do) if you have a Mac with Apple silicon.
I only have the old Audirvana 3.5 (which I don’t think has been certified for use with dCS equipment but which I have had no problems with), not Audirvana Studio, so I wouldn’t be able to reproduce your problem exactly. However it does sound suspciously like a network issue. Are both the NAS and the Upsampler connected directly to the same switch with cables? No MESH, wifi repeaters or Ethernet over poweline?
I have a iMac on intel. It’s about 4 year old so maybe time for an upgrade anyway :).
Yes, iMac, VUP, NAS all on the same router. dCS Mosaic plays great, no issues (using my iPhone), ditto for Roon (on same iMac). So just thinking if it was a general network issue, it would apply to all playback options I have installed. Could be a network specific thing with Audirvana?
OK, there shouldn’t be. Audirvana uses UPnP, like Mosaic, so if one works logically the other should too. Roon uses either AirPlay or it’s own protocol, RAAT, which works similarly but differently so dangerous to draw conclusions there.
Just to be clear, the music is coming from where when the problem occurs? The NAS or a streaming service?
John, IIRC, Audirvāna Studio doesn’t behave as a standard UPnP Control Point, it acts as a proxy between your MinimServer and the dCS Upsampler. So, from the dCS Upsampler’s vantage, Audirvāna is both the control point and the UPnP Server.
Does that happen with all DSD64/128 and highres PCM or just some? If some, does it always happen with the same tracks/times? If so, maybe you can give some specific examples?
I expect if your dCS dealer is also seeing the same issue, they’re reporting it to dCS who should be able to replicate and solve it.
Hello! John’s dealer here ( ne plus ultra , Austin, Texas).
At our listening studio, we are running Audirvana 3.5 (version 3.5.50, build 3580).
Behaviour here is similar, but not exactly the same. DSD files and PCM files above 192kS/s will choke at erratic points in playback - usually over one minute, but usually less than two-and-a-half minutes through (past three minutes has been observed once). Here, instead of causing the Vivaldi Upsampler’s network board to reset (requiring reacquisition of IP address, etc.) as in John’s situation, almost always the track starts again at the beginning. Every so often, playback skips to the next track of the album, but, rarely. We have never experienced the VUP’s network board to reset during this spurious behaviour. At John’s, with the newer subscription version of Audirvana, it always does. But, compete track playback has not occurred. With lower sample rate PCM, and non-DSD material, no issues.
Anup is right, I wasn’t aware of this. So while Audirvana Studio uses UPnP it does not use it in quite the same way as Mosaic (which doesn’t perform any upstream processing of the audio).
So one more question, is your Mac Mini also connected to the router directly via wired ethernet?
It seems many users have reported problems using UPnP with Audirvana Studio, some have given up entirely. See this thread (e.g. posts 9-12):
We have been looking into this and it seems that Audirvana is transcoding .DSF DSD Audio files into a different “.DFF” format before sending them over to the dCS kit for playback … we’re not sure why that is yet (or why it’s a problem) but we are looking into it.
Found some time yesterday to give Audirvana a spin with my Bartók and both Audirvana legacy (3.5.50) as well as Audirvana Studio (2.8.1).
I can confirm PCM files of all rates played back just fine without any problems. Including DXD albums - Patricia Barber’s “Clique!” and Emilie-Claire Barlow’s “The Very Thought of You” - both in full without any glitches whatsoever.
By the way, with Audirvana Studio, after selecting the dCS component, recognising and automatically populating the settings is a nice touch;
Not sure what you mean exactly, but once you select your dCS component as the renderer, Audirvana Studio automatically detects the dCS DAC’s capability and configures itself appropriately.
You can see that screenshot I attached (Bartok), and in John’s original post (Vivaldi Upsampler+); that happens automatically, you don’t need to configure anything manually.
