HQ Player

[juanitox]

this morning , i have mass a player test on a gigantic multi-amplified HR system . iTunes was on the dust , Roon+Tidal sounds more natural but Roon/tidal + GQ player was the best by a large margin. and it was just with 16/44 and no-oversampling.

 

very impressed.

trying this combo with my modest system at home give me the same gap. the only complain is the instability with Coreaudio / Airplay output on mac.

[juanitox]

Hi miska , i'm running Roon/tidal with HQplayer with airplay are core audio output device , and sometimes i have a message of on soon saying that he lose his ended point and the airplay option on Hqplayer disappear ?

[juanitox]

hi, setting question , i'm using hqplayer with a 16Bit NOS dac when i 'm listening 16bit files should i put the dither on ? and keep the same setting for 24bit files ?

[juanitox]

If you use any rate conversion, up or down, use volume control or any other processing, enable dither (TPDF is good starting point) and make sure DAC Bits setting is set to 16 just in case.

 

When you play 24-bit files you should always enable dither to maintain maximum possible quality on a 16-bit DAC.

 

thanks for the Tip i have a very good sound with no oversampling and Gauss1 dither , so i have just bought the license key after the trial , and now my wife hates me a little more again , just a normal day..

[juanitox]

Great! Thank you for posting the update, I didn't notice this myself! If it is supposed to be on par with GTX 980, then it is supposed to be faster than GTX 980 with HQPlayer, because 1000-series is supposed to have improved 64-bit double precision floating point performance.

 

Should be pretty good price/performance ratio!

 

hi , what brings this kind of powerfull videocard with HQplayer for 16/44 PCM / DSD512 , is it better for the sound or is it just to help for other more demanding conversion ? the I6700K run at 30% using polysync/adsm7 DSD512 with ROON/TIDAL/HQPL

[juanitox]

is there a particular DSD optimized setting for native DSD64 to DSD512 ? i found the same track 16/44PCM/ DSD512 sounding better ( Polysync/ADSM7)

[juanitox]

i will say HQP don't have a particular sound , i have a NOS R2R dac and a PCM 384k/ DSD 512 one .

using HQP in straight mode ( no upsampling, no dither) with the NOS dac it sounds wery analog with a gentle roll-off using the upsampling with it turns the kustening into disaster.

same experience with the T+A play PCM in native mode is very boring and lifeless, than upsample 16/44 to 352K with polysync and NS5 filter and the magic is back with very delicate and natural sounding.

DSD in native mode sounds boring too and less good than PCM upsampled.

DSD upsampled to 512with polysinc filter is just out of this world

i can't find this level of tuning in any of the other software i have Puremusic, Audirvana + , Roon ..

 

(PS i run HQP in in a ramdisk )

[juanitox]

with HPplayer doing 512DSD with windows is there a difference in System CPU between programmes or services preferences ?

[juanitox]

Yes, huge :-)

 

Happy experimenting !

 

always

[juanitox]

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..

[juanitox]

i also think DSD512 is somehow ZE hype of the year , yes 16/44PCM to DSD512 sounds very good , but depends of the tracks DSD128 or 256 sounds also very good and native DSD64 sounds even more natural with HQP SDM direct mode than upsampled to 512 and will continue to sounds as good even when the DSD1024 hype will appears.

[juanitox]

not on my modest system too ,

but i had the chance to listen this DSD64 native DSD file ( the firsdt track) on one of the biggest system in my region and we were unanymous to say Direct SDM sounds more real than upsampled to DSD512 ( polysync ADSM7)

 

we found that the Upsampled DSD files gives sometimes too much 3D effect and don't have the "analog" higs roll off we were used too with the analog Rig.

 

perhaps we are just not used to listen the truth

[juanitox]

Juanitox, I am not questioning your ears. That dac and that cpu may very well have different sweetspots and different lifting/processing capabilities than mine. Fine. What I was questioning is your generality when you called DSD512 "hype". Not in my system; not even close.

 

sorry for my poor english by let's replace the word "Hype" with "SaintGraal" of the years...

[juanitox]

spmething i still don't understand , doing 16/44PCM to 512DSD do i have to put direct SDM in DSD settings or non direct SDM and - in volume setting ?

 

thanks

[juanitox]

nobody for my Direct SDM / -3db question ? come on guys

[juanitox]

If I recall correctly, Direct SDM means that incoming DSD files are fed through without upsampling or change. If you are starting with PCM files and upsampling to DSD it should have no effect on that. The -3db is recommended, but has no impact on the upsampling/conversion work.

 

Hope that helps.

 

so direct SDM are not needed for PCM to DSD conversion but -3db setting yes.

 

that's what i wanted to know.

 

thanks !

[juanitox]

is there a thread or a manual somewhere to explain how too include a DSP proceed in HQP ?

[juanitox]

Sorry, no one answer to these questions.

filtering, etc.: you have to listen and see what sounds best to you on your setup.

 

HDtracks: this is like asking is it better to buy the Redbook, 96 or 192 version of the same master. Depends.

I'm upsampling everything to either DSD or 192 with HQP and think it sounds best that way. I still think my best sounding music is the best sounding stuff recorded in hi-res PCM or DSD.

 

I do think using HQP takes away some of the advantage hi-res remasters have over stuff recorded for CD/LP. In other words, HQP improves the sound, but I don't think it makes hi-res irrelevant.

 

In the end, your best sounding recordings are going to sound the best, no matter what their format is.

 

is there a solution to use HQplayer as a soundcard it would be nice to listen some youtube concert with hqplayer doing is DSD512 magic

[juanitox]

Yep. There is something in it. Cymbals of drum kit are the best to notice that. For example in opeth windowpane. I went back to 3.15 because there is this harshness in 3.15.1 and in beta versions as well.

 

i don't focus on cymbals but 3.15.1 sounds better for me doing 44,1pcm / DSD 512

with polysync , adsm7 512s ( more body to the sounds and better image)

( after a dozen of 3.15 / 3.15.1 re-install)

 

hope 3.15.2 will satisfy us all

[juanitox]

Hi Miska ,  what is the difference between DSD5/DSD7/ASDM7/ASDM5V2 etc..  the differences between filters are notified in the manual but not these.    i found somehow the ASDM5 softer than the ASDM7 ?

[juanitox]

19 hours ago, tboooe said:

Curious if anyone else is using the Minring FIR filter??? I was using the poly sinc xtr mp but I think I like the Minring FIR more.  

i use it for DSD to DSD512 and polysync for PCM to DSD512  but you need a lot of focus to hear the differences between them

[juanitox]

Quote

I need to think about a graph of the DSP data paths, which could clarify a bit.

 

totally agree ,  Miska what will be nice is a simple notice about the 5 principal used of HQP  and what are the optimal settings for them.

 

1 native PCM

2 PCM / umpsampled PCM

3 PCM/  DSD

3 native DSD

4 DSD / upsampled DSD

5 DSD/  PCM

 

 

[juanitox]

2 hours ago, ted_b said:

1). I read Jud's comment as asking whether anyone had written dac drivers for Mac.  I answered it.  Yes of course exaSound is dsd256 but native, not DoP.

2). AudioDoctor, if you are not going to use HQPlayer then why post here?  Give it a try, man, its significantly better sounding than any other player IMHO.

 

same experience here ,  i have ended 10 years of OSX to be free of it's dop DSD rate  limitation , i begin with double boot on my mac mini and now only use windows 10 on a dedicated PC  , no turning back (speaking just for audio )

[juanitox]

for the experts  how too choose HQplayer as outptut device for KODI ?   can't find a simple solution

[juanitox]

hi Miska ,  do you plan in the future to make HQplayer seen by windows as an output card  ( don't know if it's something possible)   many of us would like to use the HQplayer to output and umpsampling to DSD  some great live concert  in youtube or  movies..