diff --git a/src/pulsecore/protocol-esound.c b/src/pulsecore/protocol-esound.c
index e8659e6dc..3d9030679 100644
--- a/src/pulsecore/protocol-esound.c
+++ b/src/pulsecore/protocol-esound.c
@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@
 #include <pulse/timeval.h>
 #include <pulse/utf8.h>
 #include <pulse/xmalloc.h>
+#include <pulse/proplist.h>
 
 #include <pulsecore/esound.h>
 #include <pulsecore/memblock.h>
@@ -372,6 +373,8 @@ static int esd_proto_connect(connection *c, esd_proto_t request, const void *dat
         return -1;
     }
 
+    pa_proplist_sets(c->client->proplist, "esound.byte_order", c->swap_byte_order ? "reverse" : "native");
+
     ok = 1;
     connection_write(c, &ok, sizeof(int));
     return 0;