Thanks guys@Odezra I tried briefly with HQP DSD512 44.1Khz (22.5mhz) and yes there was a low-level background white noise hiss that was audible <1.5m when the music was paused (for a second after pressing pause) but not when music was playing, and certainly not from my listening position ~3m away. This is with R26 analogue attenuation OFF, DSD Direct ON. I feel like this hiss has been louder or more prominent than this at times in the past.
@EMINENT I could be wrong but believe the HQP 'DAC bits' setting is only relevant for PCM playback.
I don’t have any hiss on 16 bits / 19 bits on pcm upsampling to 705 / 768, it’s just at 22,5 dsd I am getting it. It doesn’t occur with native files.
It’s also happening for me @Jake2 during playback - not just on pause.
Logically: it could be a new hardware fault but I suspect it’s software related and given Roon and HQplayer just released updates, I wonder if it’s there.
I might try and source a native dsd 22.5 track and see if it’s on the hardware side or software side. It’s super noticeable and makes dsd unusable for me.