In the above configuration, my 192K/24bit AIFF files do not play. The DAC tries to read it but will not lock due to some problem with the handshake. I know the DAC will read these files if I plug the USB into a Oppo player that feeds the DAC thru the coax.
96K/24 bit files and below do work with the above configuration. I have contacted ELAC with my findings and they are looking into it.
Randy
Tho it’s not a direct answer to your question:
DAC’s in general just play what’s “shoved down their throats”. They don’t read files, deal with containers like AIFF, etc. They just accept a series of samples at a given rate and bitwidth. The streamer (or PC, etc.) has to deal with files, containers like AIFF, etc. and send the embedded (or decoded) samples to the DAC. With USB there are a few more options, but not many: with USB the DAC can publish which sample rates it will accept and the DAC can become the clock source, but otherwise it still just plays the samples that show up.
Since the DirectStream does accept 24/196 over USB the problem you describe has to be upstream from the DAC.
(All of the rules are a different if your DAC is also a streamer or in the case of PS Audio DACs, you have the Bridge option which is a streamer that does DLNA over a network.)
Thanks Ted for your reply. Agreed the problem is upstream from the DAC input. That is why I have asked ELAC to confirm this for me. I will let you know what they find out.
Appreciate your comments!!!
Thanks both, vital info here as I too have an ELAC Discovery on the way.
It has to be the upstream from the DAC, yes. Randy -are you going ELAC->digital coax cable->PS Audio DAC? That should do 192/24 no problem, in fact the manual says that even DSD64 can be achieved.
Quite odd huh 
I agree EfeTe and there lies my confusion. I was trying to stream 24/192K HDTracks from a USB drive plugged into the ELAC and stream to the PS DAC via coax. The roon software does recognize all these files and will try to play them if requested but the DAC appears not to be able to lock. Thus this configuration did not work for me although it does for any file 24/96K and below. I can play the any file above 24/96K thru the DAC if I use the USB input on my Oppo 105 or PS Memory player which both go to the PS DirectSteam DAC.
Let me know if your ELAC supports the 24/192K files via its USB.
Hi Everyone,
We just received a DirectStream DAC for testing (PS Audio was nice enough to send us one). Randy is correct in that for some reason the DAC cannot lock onto signals above 96kHz from our Discovery Server. I am not sure why at this point, however we are looking into it. We currently have a Berkely Audio DAC, Audio Alchemy, various AV Receivers, and a Bel Canto unit which all work fine with signals up to 192kHz 24-Bit and when we test with our AP machine everything looks good.
We will have our engineers take a look and see if they can come up with something…
I will keep everyone informed.
Thanks,
Chris Walker
ELAC
Thanks CW -much appreciated.
@ Walkamo, aka Chris Walker - Elac:
While at it - any firm release date for Discovery Q yet?
(Sorry for the OT).
This is just speculation, but I suspect that the ELAC doesn’t support 24/192k via USB and the DS doesn’t support 32/192k via USB. That is, I suspect that it’s a relatively simple driver issue. I’m guessing this because in foobar2000 with WASAPI we get errors with 192k files if I select 32 bit output. 24 bit output at 192 works fine with WASAPI. With ASIO both work fine.
Chris,
Documentation hinted the Discovery does dsd64 too. Is that the case?
Oh I think I’ll answer this one myself.
Been doing some research and, apparently, while the ELAC DS-S101-G does work with DSD64 Roon Essentials does not
FYI Update: Chris at ELAC and his engineering team found the reason my unit did not play 192K/24 files was due to low power out at that sampling speed. Therefore the PS DAC could not lock on the signal. The fix, evidently, was to increase the power in the unit. Chris sent me one they tested and it works just fine with the PS DAC.
Thank You Chris and your team for following up on this issue. Much appreciated!
Thanks for the update.