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Hi all,

 

Normally, an A+ user with a sizeable collection of all music genres. I have now purchased HQP that I have sampled quite a few tracks with from my collection as played from my Mac mini to the equipment in my signature.

 

At first, I thought it sounded 'different' but now I think I can articulate my thoughts better.

 

1. I know from the basic Fourier analysis what would be called super-resolution: extending the spectrum image beyond the available maximum frequency, thereby resolving the signals better. Incidentally, this only works in limited cases and depends on how well the _phase_ can be handled (rather than amplitude), including phase rolling over 2*pi. So my first impression, the CD-quality music upsampled to 192 KHz sounded 'sharper'.

2. The timing of individual instruments and even for a single instrument like piano is poor to the extent that the coherent whole that is better captured by A+ becomes a set of disjoint but notionally interesting/impressive sounding and fairly well resolved individual components.

 

I feel that the above impressions have to do with the following:

 

1. We use a computer with a switching power supply and a general-purpose OS instead of a system like Esoteric with Rb clocks and completely predictable signal path.

2. We do a lot of fairly complex 'stuff'. Is it at all what we should be doing? Are we sure we are keeping the whole musical presentation in all frequencies equivalently transformed such that all the timing is preserved? My ears say otherwise.

 

Some example for this: Peter Gabriel: Growing Up. Very disjointed on HQP but perfectly coherent on A+.

 

I cannot even begin to criticise the choice for not processing the tracks order from metadata. It works absolutely fine in A+ with no false identifications for any of the albums I own. I am not buying an argument that it cannot be done consistently--it can and has been done well in many players.

 

All in all, my current thoughts until proven otherwise are: less is more. A player should remove itself from the path, do as little as possible and rely on good _proper_ (not 'computer') hardware, DAC, pre-amplifier, amplifiers, speakers, cables, to do their job. The computer is a complex filter that processes interrupts, context switching, network driver calls, disk caching etc, I have no idea how this can compare to a proper hardware only ASIC design or even a real-time OS like VxWorks.

 

I know there is no money back option, so not asking, but thanks for the effort, I really appreciate it.

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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Sorry guys, mostly similar questions so answering once. Appreciate your help.

 

- Only used the default upsampling settings. I can see everything going to 192. So no, have not tried without upsampling--can do.

- I have tried redbook, DSD64, and hi-res 48, 96 and 192.

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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I think you should have tried first and then buy it if you like. I cannot emphasize enough to use the free trial period to make sure you like what you get. I'm always amazed when people buy without trying first, even though the page says in big bold letters that try before you buy.

 

Linear phase filters don't touch the phase at all.

 

 

 

It depends on your DAC how well it can handle things, but anyway for example in your case your it's your DAC's clock that runs the show.

 

 

 

Your DAC is doing similar stuff inside. If I were you, I would worry more about the processing your DAC does.

 

 

 

What is the scientifically solid reasoning for this? This sounds more like set of beliefs without solid technical reasoning behind.

 

Any content you buy on the internet as downloads or on a CD has gone through bunch of similar stuff on a regular computer in the studio, mastering and production stages. This is no different.

Firstly, let me apologise for a slightly acerbic tone of my original post, that was unintended and yet uncalled for.

 

I did try before I bought but I needed more time and leasure to do listening under no time pressure. I have no problem with the purchase and am not asking for any refund, so thanks for your hard work.

 

Linear phase filtering is a great tool but I am not sure how linear filtering applies to super-resolution (upsampling) that can be based on a variety of very sophisticated techniques like this one: https://stevetjoa.com/static/keegan2011waspaa.pdf. It is not to filter to figure out what is going on at 25 KHz, and the phase shifts in the main audio band that the DAC introduces based on the supersonic signal may be DAC-dependent and should be phase-dependent for sure--so how do we know the phase of the 25KHz harmonic that wasn't even in the original redbook recording and what will we actually hear in the main audio band?

 

My DAC does similar stuff but differs in three ways: it _only_ does what it does without being a general purpose computer that, for example, processes my screen sharing TCP connection, it also is not overly ambitious as it does only exactly one thing and does it well, it also has a non-switching power supply.

 

About the technical reasoning about the processing on the computer, for sure, context switching, CPU cache misses etc are a very real thing and not a belief. How do you know that in the middle of a quick crescendo my Mac does not decide to call back home to Apple and ask for software updates? A general purpose OS does many things and perhaps the right question is:

 

Would your Network Renderer architecture provide a benefit? Should I try? In that case, one thing is offline processing that prepares the files (to a degree matched by an off-site pre-processing on the player itself) and another, online processing where doing less would be better than doing more. I need to investigate this microRendu you are talking about.

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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I have now started networkaudiod on the Mac Mini using

 

nohup ./networaudiod &

 

then I ran HQP on my Macbook Pro with the installed license. Choosing NAA in the Preferences, I saw the Ayre DAC available--so that was discovered on the local network. Dragged and dropped a song into the play queue and started playback from the Macbook. The DAC showed '96' and the log for the daemon looks like this:

 

[./networkaudiod] (3697): connection from 192.168.1.65:52796

[./networkaudiod] (3697): Set channels: 2 (2)

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio default device id: 45

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio devices: 2

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio device: Built-in Output (45) - Apple Inc.

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio device: Ayre USB Interface (38) - Ayre Acous

tics

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio nominal rate: 44100 - 44100

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio nominal rate: 48000 - 48000

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio nominal rate: 88200 - 88200

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio nominal rate: 96000 - 96000

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio nominal rate: 176400 - 176400

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio nominal rate: 192000 - 192000

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio number of streams: 1

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio number of output streams: 1

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio virtual formats:

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 192000/32/2 [ Float ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 176400/32/2 [ Float ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 96000/32/2 [ Float ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 88200/32/2 [ Float ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 48000/32/2 [ Float ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 44100/32/2 [ Float ]

 

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 192000/24/2 [ SignedInteger AlignedHigh NonMixable ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 176400/24/2 [ SignedInteger AlignedHigh NonMixable ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 96000/24/2 [ SignedInteger AlignedHigh NonMixable ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 88200/24/2 [ SignedInteger AlignedHigh NonMixable ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 48000/24/2 [ SignedInteger AlignedHigh NonMixable ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 44100/24/2 [ SignedInteger AlignedHigh NonMixable ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio physical formats:

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 192000/24/2 [ SignedInteger AlignedHigh ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 176400/24/2 [ SignedInteger AlignedHigh ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 96000/24/2 [ SignedInteger AlignedHigh ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 88200/24/2 [ SignedInteger AlignedHigh ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 48000/24/2 [ SignedInteger AlignedHigh ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 44100/24/2 [ SignedInteger AlignedHigh ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 192000/24/2 [ SignedInteger AlignedHigh NonMixable ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 176400/24/2 [ SignedInteger AlignedHigh NonMixable ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 96000/24/2 [ SignedInteger AlignedHigh NonMixable ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 88200/24/2 [ SignedInteger AlignedHigh NonMixable ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 48000/24/2 [ SignedInteger AlignedHigh NonMixable ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): 44100/24/2 [ SignedInteger AlignedHigh NonMixable ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio device bits: 24

[./networkaudiod] (3697): start 96000/24/2 [pcm]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): Set channels: 2 (2)

[./networkaudiod] (3697): Set sampling rate: 96000 (96000)

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio engine starting...

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio using integer mode

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio virtual format: 96000/24/2 [ SignedInteger AlignedHigh NonMixable ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio using non-mixable mode

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio physical format: 96000/24/2 [ SignedInteger AlignedHigh NonMixable ]

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio engine started at: 96000 (96000)

[./networkaudiod] (3697): enter streaming mode

[./networkaudiod] (3697): CoreAudio allocate buffers of size 512

etc

 

However, there is no sound at all from the speakers. I can play the same file fine from the local HQP on Mac Mini. Any ideas?

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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Warrior, is it possible the volume dial is turned to 0?

 

Right, my volume control is, of course, my pre-amp that has an independent signal path for each volume level. I have now set the volume on the player to 0 db and the sound is coming through!

 

Will have a listen and report later, need to work now.

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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Right, my volume control is, of course, my pre-amp that has an independent signal path for each volume level. I have now set the volume on the player to 0 db and the sound is coming through!

 

Will have a listen and report later, need to work now.

Update for the above. I've listened to the first side of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells and some tracks from Joe Satriani and Steve Hackett. My impression is things are definitely better with NAA on my Mac Mini and wifi from MacBook Pro with HQP. The settings are all defaults but for some reason, the default in this paired arrangement for upsmapling is to go to 96 PCM.

 

I am still in doubt regarding the temporal coherence. For example, there is an interlayed guitar strumming in the middle of Tubular Bells where it sounded really odd. My current impression is that when there are intricate interrelated rhythms, something is not right. Also, the general ensemble cohesion of the presentation is somewhat lacking. It is as though the musicians are just a tiny bit out of sync with each other--they sound 'impressive', but they are not communicating rhythmically. It is very subtle but noticeable.

 

I am going to do some AB testing with A+. Sadly, I do not have a good Esoteric player to compare against. To me, that would be the ultimate test.

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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Take a look at these posts by Jussi on HQP filters (posts #2, #3 and #5)

Essential reading to understand/implement these filters.

 

Regards.

Thanks for these references. I've found #2 to be the most relevant. I will try the sinc filter and also try to avoid the upsampling altogether, as well as do the planned A+ comparison.

 

My current guess would be that the problem lies with using any upsampling full stop, as I had never used upsampling in A+ and had never experienced this sort of 'disorientating' feeling that I'm hearing now from poly-sinc upsampled tracks on HQP.

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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Why do you think Esoteric is somehow special? They use normal off-the-shelf ~$10 DAC chips.

 

Thanks Miska. Let us just simply say there are many _very_ happy Esoteric owners out there. What I can suggest by way of alluding at explanation is that the NAA route being superior to a local player and microRendu being superior to a generic NAA supports the idea that the simpler and more predictable the path the signal takes, the better. No jitter, no unpredictable CPU cores use, top quality linear power supply, rigid construction--all these are a good thing.

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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About the track ordering. I have files from Qobuz whose names start with 01-01, 01-02 etc. The library view in HQP still shows the tracks in alphabetic order, so what gives?

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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My issue is not with a pleasing or not pleasing sound. I had said above that I find the individual instruments sounding good, even impressive. My issue is with timing issues that I hear that leave me an impression of a disjointed performance. It is a very specific defect that it is entirely possible that I will be able to get to the bottom of using the settings, using microRendu, whatever.

 

About A+, I am not saying that it is _more_ pleasing either--just that I'd never heard the same type of temporal anomalies I am hearing with HQP. That's all.

 

UPDATE Freann said in one of the previous posts that upsampling does not work for this DAC, perhaps the HQP upsampling is 'too good' or incompatible with the signal Ayre expects or is designed for.

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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Since the "listen" filter is extremely leaky filter it produces lot of images in ultrasonic band which significantly increases amount of intermodulation products in the audio band.

 

If you compare to HQPlayer, "measure" filter on QB-9 is closest to poly-sinc-short-mp. And "listen" filter is closer to either polynomial filter or minringFIR, although the "listen" filter is minimum phase too unlike the polynomial or minringFIR which are both linear phase. So Ayre's both filters modify phase response.

 

If you have QB-9 DSD, it is probably best to use it in DSD mode which would hopefully bypass Ayre's digital filters. Too bad it is limited to DSD64 though...

Thanks guys, really appreciate your input. I believe it would not be a wasted effort to find the best setup/settings for my gear (which is very well respected in the industry and not that uncommon) as far as HQP is concerned. I can see a lot of promise, and Miska, I was never trying to be antagonistic. And yes, I use the LISTEN setting.

 

By the way, before buying, I auditioned three QB-9's, one of which was my new QB9 DSD, in a fantastic setup with Wilson Alexias. A brand new QB9 DSD was significantly better than plain QB9's, while the published measurements are only available for the original QB9, which was replaced by QB9 192 and then by QB9 DSD.

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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I am taking a break from HQP and going back to A+. With almost 10 hours listen under the belt from Dream Theater to Schumann by Berliner Philarmoniker (both in 24/96 PCM), I don't know if it is bugs, the approach or incompatibility, but all I get is disjointed performance and a sharper sound like an edge-enhanced picture. A+ sounds analogue, spot on with timing, and the vocals feel real and convincing, all in all the equipment truly disappears. On the contrary, I am feeling like I am listening to some computer code with HQP, that is trying to impress me. Again, no idea what is this caused by, maybe I'm 'not holding it correctly'.

 

I'll come back to more experimenting when I get more time and energy.

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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In any case Miska, it's not fair to judge a dac by the cost of the chip...you know better.

 

To be fair, just on principle, what were the two systems under test, in particular, what Esoteric player was used for comparison with HQPlayer? Did you perform actual AB tests? Did you compare stereo SACD against downloaded music? What genres/albums were used? When saying "HQPlayer is the best", what does this statement actually mean--scientifically or even musically?

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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Maybe you can help me warrior and come with some explanation : how come I was very seduced by A+ when PCM to DSD was introduced as beta and then the magic I heard (gorgeous piano, life like soundstage) seemed systematic and then it disappeared completely and I was back to HQP ?

 

Hi, sure, sorry for having not answered that. There are many differences between your case and mine. Maybe your TEAC (isn't that the same company that makes Esoteric) is a better DAC than Ayre. You may be using HQPlayer to convert to DSD 5.6.

 

On the other hand, I have not tried the DSD 2.8 path (available to me) at all. In fact, when I try to play DSD files, I can hear complete silence, not sure what I'm doing wrong.

 

Since my last tests, I have got some improvement with HQPlayer, I've set the upsampling to get to 192 KHz and the filter to sinc with TPDF dither. That sounded certainly better for me than poly-sinc, go figure. Still, I need perhaps more quiet listen-time with a larger variety of input formats and genres. I'm keeping an open mind.

 

However, what rubs me the wrong way is ritual killings of very reputable alternatives, be it software or hardware. So Teac/Esoteric are a bunch of amateurs and the HQPlayer author knows best and what they are doing is stealing their customers hard-earned money? Is that really suggested here as a proven fact?

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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try dsd 128. Your issue probably comes from a wrong SDM pack setting. Have a look to my preferences : If my TEAC was connected it should appear as device in lieu de "default". As of the DSF settings, Direct SDM should be unchecked hence the rest doesn't matter[ATTACH=CONFIG]27938[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]27939[/ATTACH]

Thanks, that was helpful. I reproduced these settings and can now listen to DSD.

 

The first thing I've compared is Oyo Como Va by Santana in DSD64.

 

Here are two snapshots taken by Spectrum Analyser on iPad from near the end when the guitar comes from the center. The first photo is HQP, the second is A+. The pre-amplifier has exactly the same volume setting--I just closed HQP and started A+ to do the second playback. There are a number of differences between the two. Firstly, for alignment, the guitar starts after around 7 sec offset in the first picture (HQP) and 5 sec offset in the second (A+). One thing I can see is that there is energy above 20kHz in A+ and hardly any in HQP. The guitar above 16 kHz is much sharper in A+: all the individual frequencies look bright and are separate from each other while in HQP, they are more washed off. The second guitar riff in A+ about 2 seconds later looks almost the same as the first one while in HQP, the second riff has hardly any bright dots. HQP looks better in that the area before the guitar strikes is darker, so perhaps some preringing occurs in A+. Based on these plots, you can't really draw much conclusions but for sure, they are different. As of now, hearing it, I like the A+ version better because I am still struggling with what I can only describe as 'disjointedness' in the HQP presentation. I am feeling that the instruments are somehow unaware of each other and are ever so slightly out of sync, which compromises the impression. If anyone had heard anything similar, I'd really appreciate your thoughts on what this could be caused by.

UPDATE: One more difference I can see, there is a dark band in HQP around 2.8 kHz that is missing on A+. Also, there is definitely more energy between 16 and 20 kHz in A+ with quite a few bright dots and stripes.

IMG_0070.JPG

IMG_0068.JPG

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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on my mac mini audirvana+ sounds more "analog " for me where you find it less "disjointedness" but when i'll move to my windows PC HQP player sounds far better than with the mac mini . these software are very dependent from the OS , hardware and other software and tasks running with them. i like HQPlayer running in a Ramdsik others don't, too many variables to make a rule..

Many variables for sure, thanks for the advice, I'll keep on with my quest.

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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After reading warrior-kid's post, upgraded A+ to listen PCM unconverted to DSD128 on Mytek DSD192 and compare sonics to HQPlayer, which I have been using for last 2 years. Immediately, noticed one sonic difference with A+...fan on 2.6Ghz Quad Core Mini started humming. Never heard it when playing HQPlayer.

 

Checked Activity Monitor and 4 Cores were at 75% area. Using HQPlayer, the Activity Monitor looks like I have 8 Cores down at 12% with full filters working. Not sure what's up?

I never said I used any up- or cross-format conversion in A+ though--I never do that for PCM either. In fact, given that my DAC over-samples by 16x internally in hardware, my theory goes that whatever the up-sampling on the software side, (a) the DAC will over-sample further internally and the two methods may clash in some way and (b) the way the DAC was designed, I'm sure they never fed anything but native non-upsampled tracks. So, yes, the less _may be_ more.

 

The track Oyo Como Va from Santana's Abraxas I own is a well-regarded Acoustic Sounds DSD64 version, so in the comparison I made that revealed some sonic and perhaps some spectrum differences between the final results (like a roll-off above 16KHz in HQP), I did not use any upsampling or conversion (the DAC just showed 88, remember it does not offer DSD128 or above).

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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Hey, everyone. 2 questions.

 

First, I have Maggie 3.6qr's. Would that change my 'filter' settings for DSD? The Maggie's go really high, can't remember, maybe 50kHz? Other speakers that don't go that high may be able to use different filters.

Only trying to answer the first: my speakers go 28 Hz-100 kHz PL300 | Monitor Audio. I understand that simply offers a safety of sorts in that the supersonics are treated well and not filtered in an odd way into the audio band. You may have a point in that that may affect the choice of the filter used in upsampling, if we do any.

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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You mean the display showed 64? Otherwise you are respampling.

You are right, both HQP and A+ are showing 64. I have no idea why I wrote 88--I cannot correct my past email though.

 

UPDATE: Quite interesting really, I can measure exactly where the instruments are in Samba Pa Ti in Abraxas DSD64. In A+, the lead guitar is in the centre, just over 4 feet high (1.25 m). The percussion is a foot or more to the right of the right speaker at the same height of over 4 feet. The organ when it comes in is ridiculously wide, something like 1.25 m to the left from the left speaker and a bit lower, while the supporting guitar is immediately to the left from the left speaker, same height. I can also sense a fair bit of floor vibration from low frequencies.

In HQP, the lead guitar and the right channel percussion are about 1m high, the organ is only about two feet to the left of the left speaker, while the supporting guitar is roughly as in A+. The guitar in HQP sounds a tad harsher than A+, a bit unnerving really. Also, I cannot feel much floor vibration through the track in the HQP version.

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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Just assumed everyone used HQPlayer for upconversion so that they benefited form its filters...for playing PCM files in native fashion I'd use a memory player like A+ or PM for best sound.

Well, that's my point though, given that the DAC takes over the oversampling (before generating the analog signal) from some frequency point, is there a benefit in having one type of upsampling (in software) to take it to that point and then allow hardware to take over from there in a different way?

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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What kind of upsampling settings do you run on A+? If nothing, there you are comparing Ayre's filters to HQPlayer's. If you have Ayre's filter set to "listen", then it is very leaky one and you likely get some aliasing visible in the top octave.

Thanks.

 

Is there a way to use the HQP filters to write the converted files to disc? We could then do the following:

 

1. Compare the playback-time upsampling with playing from a pre-upsampled track. This could be done for both DSD and PCM.

2. For PCM records that have both the reg-res and hi-res versions, directly for the source files, use Adobe Audition and compare the reg-res, the upsampled hi-res and the purchased version of, say, a 24/192 track.

3. Compare the HQP filters with each other, both at the source and playing directly or in real-time.

4. Figure out what is going on with various test signals, like single and multiple tones, single instruments etc.

5. Do all sorts of further comparisons before and after the upsampling.

 

Any chance we could do that?

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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Currently, not with HQPlayer itself. See the last few posts. There may be some software out there that will capture the USB out, but not sure if you would be able to manipulate it back to a playable or analyze-able format.

Would the HQP author consider adding an option to write the upsampled tracks as files? It would really help settle a number of questions and will unlikely reveal any trade secrets.

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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I think this discussion of whether higher DSD frequencies sound better misses the point.

What probably sounds best is feeding your DAC its maximum frequency so that no additional upsampling happens inside the DAC.

I'm sure DSD128 on a DAC where that's the maximum frequency sounds better (all else being equal) than DSD256 fed to a DAC capable of DSD512.

But the DAC internal oversampling (before the analog signal is generated) may go far beyond the maximum it can handle on input. For example, my DAC oversamples by 16 times before the analog signal is generated. It is, therefore, pretty much impossible to do _all_ the upsampling in software and whatever comes after that is out of the HQP control. Hence, by force, I have two upsampling approaches coexisting at the same time. One done is software, arguably with better filters--and I am keen to see exactly what they are doing, if the HQP author kindly agrees to allow the upsampling results to be writeable into files--and another, in hardware, with a linear power supply, better master clock, hardware-based (no preeamptive multitasking etc), but with arguably inferior filters.

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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  • 2 weeks later...
My previous DAC, an entry level low performance Teac, upsampled everything with its ASRC to 176.4/192 and this sounded much worse than if I upsampled in HQP.

 

R

Guys, everyone, I do hope I am not hurting anyone's feelings, but I'll say this very plainly: for my DAC, I am yet to hear any upsampling in software, be it in HQP or A+, make any positive impact. The best, the most natural sound I get is when I allow my DAC to do its job. This may be specific to my DAC and the system that follows but this is what I hear with my ears that are not a measurement system but a subjective instrument that I value as the best judge--again, for me, on my equipment. And the best sound I get is with A+, straight to DAC.

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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I was merely responding to your question "is there a benefit in having one type of upsampling (in software) to take it to that point and then allow hardware to take over from there in a different way?"...

Understood, but please note that I cannot disable the 16x oversampling that my DAC already does, regardless.

Ayre QX-5 Twenty + Oppo 205, Mac mini + Audirvana, Ayre KX-R Twenty pre, Ayre MX-R monos, Monitor Audio PL300 floorstanders, Shunyata cables

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