Updating my 2.0 system

    Hello people.

    I am planning to update my 2.0 system in the near future. It is an 'audiophile' system and it will be composed of a SMSL SU-9 usb dac connected directly to two power amplifiers. For my source I am planning to use my old Haswell NUC (D34010WYKH2) running LibreELEC and getting the files from my NAS.

    It will be a system for playing music HD Audio (up to 192kHz / 24 bit, nothing exotic) and on the same time audio from my films. This is usually multichannel audio that I am downmixing with Kodi. The music is all in 2 channels.

    Please excuse my ignorance, I am kinda new to digital audio especially the new formats and therefore my questions may sound silly.

    1) I plan to connect the DAC with the NUC via USB. Am I correct to assume that it will play fine with no issues because its linux and the device is a standard USB audio Class 2 device? The chipset is the ES9038PRO. If that doesn't work then what should I do? Get an hdmi audio extractor and try the coaxial? (The NUC doesn't have any digital outputs).

    2) Does anybody know if there are any hardware limitations on the D34010WYKH2 concerning HD audio playback (not LibreELEC/Kodi related but I thought to ask).

    3) If i do find the correct audio settings in Kodi for such a setup will the same options enable me to downmix multichannel audio from films and send it to my DAC? Which brings me to

    4) Looking at the audio settings of Kodi I really have no idea what to choose. My gut feelings tell me to go with Number of channels = 2 and passthrough disabled which will probably be ok for my films but I am not sure if it will be able to pass HD stereo audio from the usb for my music.

    You re probably thinking why I just don't test it myself. The thing is I don't have the DAC yet and I want to see if what I am thinking is possible. Because if it's not I might have to look for different hardware.

    Thank you!

    Oh man, that's one of those high-end DAC's. Internet says, it has Linux support, so it should work with LE. Hardware limitation is basically the data rate of your USB port - the DAC handles up to 768kHz / 32 Bit PCM!

    Audio channel / sampling options should be offered by the Linux driver, and LE will provide dedicated entries. So if the driver is available for your chipset, new output entries will appear on LE's audio settings.

    Because it's rare hardware, I can't say which options you'll get. Here is the data sheet of the chipset:

    https://www.mouser.de/datasheet/2/1082/ES9038PRO_Datasheet_v3_6-1923511.pdf

    Thank you. I am trying to locate info on how Linux in general handles the ES9038PRO but I can't find anything apart for the fact that they are supposed to be compatible.

    You're basically saying that there is no way to know until I actually get it and connect it right? If we assume that the options available will be the typical ones will I be able to use it for HD music and 2.0 downmixing in films at the same time?

    I haven't seen such a DAC on this forum so far. There are many A/V codecs, and it's hard to say whether the Linux driver can handle all of them. So yes, it's trial-and-error for A/V codecs.

    LE can deal with high sampling rates on HD music, as you can see here. Chances are good that your DAC will work for this.

    OK thank you. I guess I have to get it and test it. I will also try to contact the dac manufacturer. It should work from what I am reading though.

    There seems to be great confusion around the issue if HD PCM audio needs passthrough or not with high-end DACs. You can see an example here:

    USB DAC audio output

    If you or anyone has anything to contribute to this I'd be grateful. If passthrough has to be enabled then that'd be a sort of a problem because I need it off for movie playback. If that's the case I guess I'll have to find a way to change audio settings quickly, like using a hotkey with my yatse or a kodi addon.

    Got the DAC today, I am posting the results so someone who's interested in it or DACs of similar chipsets will have an idea.

    I've read a lot of resources just to be prepared for this and I am amazed about the horrifical amount of misinformation circulating the web, especially in 'audiophile' circles.

    The DAC has two sinks, analog and spdif. The correct setting to use is spdif despite what you may read otherwise (like in the link I've posted). Maximum rate as reported by ALSA is 382kHz. The specific DAC should go to 768 but in all honesty who cares? The difference should be inaudible. The correct settings are:

    Output configuration: Best Match

    Max sampling rate: Whatever the DAC/Driver can handle. In my case it was 382.

    Maintain original volume on downmix: I really don't know. Its on now because I watch movies downmixed to 2.0 PCM but I have no idea if it can be harmful to the quality of a 2.0 music recording. Feel free to contribute here.

    Keep audio device alive: Always (this helps to keep the device alive in my particular setup because when I am using another input on the DAC with another device, for example toslink with another media player, USB ALSA seems to deactivate and I have to go though the settings again).

    Passthrough is irrelevant, That's the way it's supposed to be anyway because hi-res 2.0 PCM is not a passthrough format. I did not notice any difference in audio quality whether it's on or off, despite the experience of other users. I might have worse ears than them, I really don't know.

    With these settings it plays anything. Hi-res pcm flacs (up to 382), MQA and DSD. As a bonus I can play my downmixed films without changing any settings.