[MPlayer-users] What output driver for USB DAC?

[Andy Furniss]

John Long wrote:
> On Sun, 2018-02-04 at 10:39 +0000, Andy Furniss wrote:
>> John Long wrote:
>>> Does anybody know how to get mplayer to send the correct signal
>>> to a USB DAC?
>>> 
>>> If I play the file normally (mplayer filename) it appears
>>> mplayer decodes the file before sending it to the DAC. I am
>>> trying to get mplayer to send whatever type of signal to the DAC
>>> it needs so that the DAC itself will decode the music, not
>>> mplayer.
>> 
>> If it's a DAC then it won't decode the many types of compressed 
>> audio that mplayer/ffmpeg can.
> 
> That's ok, it supports everything I need it to play which is DSD and 
> FLAC.

OK so it is a decoder then - do the instructions/specs say what format
input it needs?

>> A "normal" DAC takes PCM digital input and changes it to analogue.
> 
> I tried to use the PCM output from mplayer but it creates a file in
> the current directory rather than playing it. And I suspect this
> won't work for DSD since it is not PCM based.> Could you suggest the
> correct command line options to send the PCM stream to the default
> device?

You shouldn't need to do anything, if mplayer decodes, what I called
PCM/raw audio will be sent to alsa/pulse/jack as per setup which should
then go to the device.

As for DSD I am not sure.