HQ Player

[Yviena]

@Miska Just wondering but what is the actual stop band attenuation of the poly sinc-shrt filter as i noticed that my dac likes higher than -175db attenuation.

[Miska]

2 hours ago, Yviena said:

@Miska Just wondering but what is the actual stop band attenuation of the poly sinc-shrt filter as i noticed that my dac likes higher than -175db attenuation.

 

Most of poly-sinc family is -192 dB, matching resolution of 32-bit PCM. poly-sinc-xtr takes this further to -240 dB matching 40-bit PCM resolution. poly-sinc-mqa is both slow roll-off and just -100 dB, so still several orders of magnitude more than MQA's filters (and many DAC chip filters).

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, RamUwe said:

I upgraded my DAC from iFi Micro DSD BL to T&A DAC 8 DSD Any recommendations on the settings of HQPlayer? I would appreciate.

 

Run in at DSD512, filter of your choice and ASDM7 modulator and it will perform very well indeed!

 

[Miska]

4 hours ago, richard kimber said:

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS will be out soon (26 April), will there be an 18.04 version of HQPlayer around then also?

 

Current HQPlayer should work fine there too. But I will transition builds to 18.04 LTS when it becomes upgradeable from 16.04 LTS, meaning at the time Canonical releases 18.04.1. Meaning that support for 16.04 will be dropped at that point on.

 

[juanitox]

On 06/04/2018 at 8:32 PM, Miska said:

 

Run in at DSD512, filter of your choice and ASDM7 modulator and it will perform very well indeed!

 

 

sometimes i wonder how better would be the " high end" model of T+A dac  ( PDP 3000 HV ) compares DAC8DSD.

any rich guy here ?

[louisxiawei]

4 hours ago, juanitox said:

 

sometimes i wonder how better would be the " high end" model of T+A dac  ( PDP 3000 HV ) compares DAC8DSD.

any rich guy here ?

I think PDP3000's analogue filter is a bit different from DAC8 DSD or MP3100.

 

From the manual, DAC8 DSD and MP3100's analogue output filter can be switched between 60 kHz (normal mode) or 120 kHz (wide) while PDP 3000 has four modes of  filters. (DSD1, 2, 3, 4)

http://www.ta-hifi.de/wp-content/uploads/um_pdp3000hv_122_de_en.pdf

 

Another thing is: PDP3000 plays SACD disc via PCM route at 88.2 PCM while MP3100 plays SACD via DSD64 route. This has been confirmed by the T+A.

 

[Miska]

6 hours ago, louisxiawei said:

From the manual, DAC8 DSD and MP3100's analogue output filter can be switched between 60 kHz (normal mode) or 120 kHz (wide) while PDP 3000 has four modes of  filters. (DSD1, 2, 3, 4)

 

That sounds more like the filter selection in TI/BB DAC chips instead of the discrete DSD DAC implementation of DAC8 DSD...

 

Before buying anything it would be good to verify which of their other devices share similar DSD DAC implementation as DAC8 DSD.

[ambre]

On 5-4-2018 at 10:16 PM, Miska said:

 

If it's dual-core, then most likely it won't go much above DSD128. At least my dual-core i5 Mac Mini cannot.

 

 

Since macOS' CoreAudio doesn't support native DSD you need to use DoP which means maximum DSD rate you can output is 16x the maximum PCM rate the device supports. Since so far DACs have been limited to 768k PCM rate, that imposes the limit of DSD256 over DoP. (this doesn't apply to exaSound DACs with ASIO drivers)

 

If you use NAA running some other operating system (assuming it has compatible native-DSD drivers), then that removes the limitation because CoreAudio is not anymore involved in the playback.

 

 

My old quad-core i5 iMac can do DSD256. Probably some quad-core (or more) iMac / iMac Pro from current range is suitable. But since I don't have any of those, it is really hard to say which one.

 

With modern CPUs and -2s filter variants the requirements for DSD512 are not excessive, since my i5-7600T machine running Linux and HQPlayer Embedded can do it just fine. But you can sort of consider that CPU as representative of minimum baseline requirement.

 

Hi Jussy,

Many thanks for your extensive and very meaningful explanation. I have learned a lot.

 

[aps]

I’m running a dedicated PC / Roon to Stinger SU-1 (I2S) to Holo Springs Level 3 (NOS) with the set-up using convolution filters (PCM) created in Acourate to deal with room equalisation. The Roon DSP engine involves the following sequence: Bit Depth Conversion – Sample Rate Conversion – Convolution – Bit Depth Conversion – Output. The computer based up-sampling is to 352.8 or 384kHz with convolution applied at these rates. All this is working well.

 

I’m wondering, though, if there is benefit in moving to HQ Player given the reports of good success with DSD512 with the Holo Springs DAC. It'd be good to know @Miska though how the convolution filters / up-sampling would work. Is it a case that I’d be able to use my existing (PCM) filters with conversion to DSD occurring after convolution? And, if this is the case, then would it be advisable to run 44kHz or 48kHz filters or do up-sampling to higher PCM rates before convolution?

[Miska]

1 minute ago, aps said:

I’m wondering, though, if there is benefit in moving to HQ Player given the reports of good success with DSD512 with the Holo Springs DAC. It'd be good to know @Miska though how the convolution filters / up-sampling would work. Is it a case that I’d be able to use my existing (PCM) filters with conversion to DSD occurring after convolution? And, if this is the case, then would it be advisable to run 44kHz or 48kHz filters or do up-sampling to higher PCM rates before convolution?

 

You should generate either 352.8k or 384k filters in Acourate and use those in HQPlayer instead. This way you don't need to use the HF Expansion option in HQPlayer, because Acourate has equivalent option when it is creating the filter, see the "Brick" check box below.

 

 

Convolution works also for DSD files, you just need to turn off the "DirectSDM" option. When you perform processing for DSD files, I also recommend to perform upsampling to higher DSD rate at the same time. This way you gain extra headroom.

 

[Kilauea50]

I am curious what filter you guys are using for jazz music? Thanks

[aps]

37 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

You should generate either 352.8k or 384k filters in Acourate and use those in HQPlayer instead. This way you don't need to use the HF Expansion option in HQPlayer, because Acourate has equivalent option when it is creating the filter, see the "Brick" check box below.

 

 

Convolution works also for DSD files, you just need to turn off the "DirectSDM" option. When you perform processing for DSD files, I also recommend to perform upsampling to higher DSD rate at the same time. This way you gain extra headroom.

 

 

Thanks.\ @Miska. Will the output of HQPlayer be in DSD or PCM format (for PCM files)? (I'm thinking that it'd be good to get to DSD512 based on the feedback of the performance of the Holo Springs DAC). Or put differently: what is the chain in terms of up-sampling / convolution / conversion?

[pkane2001]

1 hour ago, aps said:

 

Thanks.\ @Miska. Will the output of HQPlayer be in DSD or PCM format (for PCM files)? (I'm thinking that it'd be good to get to DSD512 based on the feedback of the performance of the Holo Springs DAC). Or put differently: what is the chain in terms of up-sampling / convolution / conversion?

 

You can select PCM or DSD output in HQP. It’ll do the necessary conversions, apply convolution and then output in your chosen format. I usually output everything in DSD512 to SU-1/Holo Spring, regardless of the format or rate of the source material.

[Allan F]

Is it possible to play music files with HQP without adding them to the library? I know that I can add a folder to the library and and then delete it. But, is it possible to eliminate that step and play directly from a USB stick or drive if I just want to sample an album before deciding if I want to keep it?

[ted_b]

You mean HQP's own library?  Sure!  Just drag the tracks onto the HQP screen.

[Miska]

And one can hide the library view if needed in the main window, by dragging the splitter between library and playlist/transport views fully up...

[juanitox]

On 10/04/2018 at 12:17 AM, Kilauea50 said:

I am curious what filter you guys are using for jazz music? Thanks

 

DSD512  polysync  DSD5V2 256fs , most natural to my ears  on horn speaker.

[craighartley]

On 10/04/2018 at 12:17 AM, Kilauea50 said:

I am curious what filter you guys are using for jazz music? Thanks

 

DSD512 polysync AMSDM7 512+fs

[Kilauea50]

Thanks guys!

[Allan F]

12 hours ago, ted_b said:

You mean HQP's own library?  Sure!  Just drag the tracks onto the HQP screen.

 

6 hours ago, Miska said:

And one can hide the library view if needed in the main window, by dragging the splitter between library and playlist/transport views fully up...

 

Many thanks to both of you.

[paulmckwan]

Just to share I just compared DSD to PCM conversion SQ of different methods, as I'm using Roon -> HQP -> Mutec -> Devialet, the conversion can take place at either Roon / HQP / Mutec / Devialet.

 

I thought down sampling is simple and no rocket science there before. But I was wrong, HQP is obviously superior in SQ even doing down conversion, Devialet internal native PCM 40 bits / 384 kHz conversion is slightly more deligate, and join HQP as top 2 SQ, but Devialet suffer from a small pop noise when playback switch between DSD & PCM.

 

Thank you and highly recommended.

[juanitox]

is there a way to have  Direct SDM settings for listening  DSD and -3db volume enabled for PCM to DSD in the same time ?

[Miska]

5 hours ago, juanitox said:

is there a way to have  Direct SDM settings for listening  DSD and -3db volume enabled for PCM to DSD in the same time ?

 

With Direct SDM enabled, PCM to DSD volume is at the moment fixed to -2.5 dB.

 

[juanitox]

thanks miska,   good to know as roon don't show it.

[manishex]

In core WS 2016, was messing about with SU-1 drivers, then my HQplayer stopped playing music and I closed it after that. Since then I can't open HQplayer again. I've installed the latest build 3.20.4 and the previous version but it no longer opens Hqplayer even with Audiophile optimizer disabled. Works perfectly on W10.

 

I've tried almost everything, seems like the only option is to reinstall WS2016 all over again but that will use up a new AO licence and take some time to reinstall everything.