Does MiniDSP SHD Studio play high resolution files?
I am thinking about buying a miniDSP SHD Studio in order to use both Dirac Live and it’s built in streamer/network bridge. Currently I am using an IFI Zen Streamer, which utilizes Volumio, to stream from qobuz and play files from my computer’s hard drive. The hard drive drive files are accessed via JRiver then played through the Zen Streamer by means of DLNA. There is no problem playing files up to at least 192K PCM and DSD. I have quite a few. I have been told by a MiniDSP SHD Studio seller, that the Volumio version used does not support the playing of DSD for PCM files above 96K without down sampling. Is this correct? If correct, since Volumio supports high rez, can it be tweaked to play these files?
The limiting factor in this type of device is the frequency at which the DSP engine runs. I believe that is 96 kHz for the miniDSP SHD series, so files at 192 kHz will be downsampled. I don't know how it handles DSD, but if it does DSP on them, they would need to be converted to PCM at the DSP frequency (96 kHz). The DSP engine, of course, provides Dirac convolution, crossovers, and such. |
@mike_in_nc Thanks. I think that is the definitive answer. In theory there would be some loss of resolution when downsampling to 96 k, but probably not in practice. Still, this gives me some pause in deciding to buy it. |
