diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 83388e38a..ba514ae9c 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,4 +1,6 @@
 ver 0.21.19 (not yet released)
+* output
+  - pulse: obey Pulse's maximum sample rate (fixes DSD128 playback)
 * fix build failure with clang 10
 
 ver 0.21.18 (2019/12/24)
diff --git a/src/output/plugins/PulseOutputPlugin.cxx b/src/output/plugins/PulseOutputPlugin.cxx
index fa1b06da9..ee7075625 100644
--- a/src/output/plugins/PulseOutputPlugin.cxx
+++ b/src/output/plugins/PulseOutputPlugin.cxx
@@ -650,7 +650,7 @@ PulseOutput::Open(AudioFormat &audio_format)
 		break;
 	}
 
-	ss.rate = audio_format.sample_rate;
+	ss.rate = std::min(audio_format.sample_rate, PA_RATE_MAX);
 	ss.channels = audio_format.channels;
 
 	/* create a stream .. */