Despite having a good system in the living room, the majority of my listening happens in my office/man cave where I play files off my PC while I work or dither around. The chain is simple: PC (usually JRiver) > Schiit Modius DAC > Yamaha receiver. It sounds decent. But I have a growing number of HD files and I'm wondering if these are getting played at the bitrate they are supposed to be? Is the PC or DAC choking these back to 16 bit? I have no way of knowing.
The Modius will handle 24/192. As long as the settings in JRiver are correct for bit perfect, you are all good. In other words, you haven't changed the bit depth or sampling rates and you're set at WASAPI in the playback section. Sorry, no illustrations for you. JRiver puts up a message if you're trying to play a file that doesn't match your resolution settings, including your DAC.
You could buy an inexpensive used DAC like a Topping D50s (one on USAM in NH now for under $200) which has a digital display and will show you the format it is receiving
In JRiver Audio playback settings, either set all frequencies to 24-192, or set the high resolution frequencies to the appropriate playback settings. I think you only need bit-perfect if you’re connecting to an A/V receiver, but I have no experience there.
Thanks. I have the playback settings set up to 24. I just played some Steely Dan HD and it sounds sweet.
On one of the many thousands of JRiver menus and buttons, there's one to show you the signal/output path. It will show the source resolution, any conversions/processing, and the output resolution.
