HQ Player

[LoryWiv]

3 hours ago, Jerry said:

 

Dear @Miska, would you consider creating a variation of sins-L that occupy slightly less than 8 GB of GPU RAM, so that all GTX1080 and RTX 2080 users get to experience this new sing-L filter?

I can easily run  DSD128 with Sinc-L on my humble i7 7700 at 4.2 / GTX 1060 (6 GB) and indeed it plays w/o stutter at DSD256 as well (Modulator ASDM5EC, CPU at 28%, GPU at 18-20%). Caveat: This is with source file = 24 Bit / 96 kHz FLAC

 

With 16 Bit / 44.1 kHz Redbook source files, I can only output DSD128. In both instances it sounds lovely, although not certain I prefer it to my recent "go to" of closed-form-fast.

[Jerry]

2 minutes ago, LoryWiv said:

I can easily run  DSD128 with Sinc-L on my humble i7 7700 at 4.2 / GTX 1060 (6 GB) and indeed it plays w/o stutter at DSD256 as well (Modulator ASDM5EC, CPU at 28%, GPU at 18-20%). Caveat: This is with source file = 24 Bit / 96 kHz FLAC

 

With 16 Bit / 44.1 kHz Redbook source files, I can only output DSD128. In both instances it sounds lovely, although not certain I prefer it to my recent "go to" of closed-form-fast.

 

My OCed i7 6700k / GTX1080 can do DSD256EC easily and I'm hoping to experience sinc-L with DSD256EC...

[Pentagonal]

Sinc-L upscaling 44.1 to 705.6 PCM on my Chord Mojo is the best sound I've ever heard out of it - actually some of the best digital sound I've ever heard! I truly hope, Miska, that you at least consider keeping the PCM side of the Sinc-L filter exactly as it is. It is excellent and makes listening to music fun again for me! I'd be heartbroken if even a few taps were taken out

[DancingSea]

38 minutes ago, Pentagonal said:

Sinc-L upscaling 44.1 to 705.6 PCM on my Chord Mojo is the best sound I've ever heard out of it - actually some of the best digital sound I've ever heard! I truly hope, Miska, that you at least consider keeping the PCM side of the Sinc-L filter exactly as it is. It is excellent and makes listening to music fun again for me! I'd be heartbroken if even a few taps were taken out

 

Which dither are you using?

[DancingSea]

@Miska, or anyone else,

 

Roon has a page with a list of Roon Ready devices.  A list of companies, which then leads to a list of products that work with Roon.  Is there a HQPlayer webpage somewhere with a list of NAA Ready devices?

 

Thanks

[Pentagonal]

@DancingSeaI tried all the options and found no dither to be the best. Every other one seemed to cause a sharp "sss" sibilance-like quality to the high frequencies. I know it's not what Miska recommends as ideal, but I found no dither to let me get into the music best.

[AnotherSpin]

3 hours ago, Pentagonal said:

Sinc-L upscaling 44.1 to 705.6 PCM on my Chord Mojo is the best sound I've ever heard out of it - actually some of the best digital sound I've ever heard! I truly hope, Miska, that you at least consider keeping the PCM side of the Sinc-L filter exactly as it is. It is excellent and makes listening to music fun again for me! I'd be heartbroken if even a few taps were taken out

 

I'm trying the Sinc-L within PCM as well, and I like the sound. Previously I used dither with other filters, without dither there were hardly noticeable but still audible distortions in the sound. However, with Sync-L and without dither, everything sounds quite good. @Miska, would you comment on dither/no dither with Sync-L within PCM?

[Miska]

5 hours ago, AnotherSpin said:

I'm trying the Sinc-L within PCM as well, and I like the sound. Previously I used dither with other filters, without dither there were hardly noticeable but still audible distortions in the sound. However, with Sync-L and without dither, everything sounds quite good. @Miska, would you comment on dither/no dither with Sync-L within PCM?

 

Never do anything without dither. Without dither you will get quantization distortion.

 

[Miska]

8 hours ago, DancingSea said:

@Miska, or anyone else,

 

Roon has a page with a list of Roon Ready devices.  A list of companies, which then leads to a list of products that work with Roon.  Is there a HQPlayer webpage somewhere with a list of NAA Ready devices?

 

There is (incomplete) list of devices on HQPlayer Desktop product page under "Devices with built-in NAA". Antipodes and few other bigger devices not listed there because they can be configured to also run HQPlayer Embedded and NAA is just an option.

 

[Miska]

12 hours ago, Jerry said:

Dear @Miska, would you consider creating a variation of sins-L that occupy slightly less than 8 GB of GPU RAM, so that all GTX1080 and RTX 2080 users get to experience this new sing-L filter?

 

No, it wouldn't be sinc-L then. You can experience it at DSD128 on those smaller memory boards.

 

[LowOrbit]

I upgraded to HQP Desktop 4.6.0 this morning and have been listening to some familiar music using the new Sinc L filter. Early impressions indicate a nice step forward in retrieval of low level detail and a nice musicality. I like it. It does seem to present a very calm, clear portrait of the music. I am running ASDM7EC at DSD256 from my i7-9700K/RTX2080ti pc via NUC/Audiolinux.

 

Thanks Jussi.

[AnotherSpin]

12 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Never do anything without dither. Without dither you will get quantization distortion.

 

 

What is quantization distortion in common man language? Can one hear it?

[Miska]

19 hours ago, Markus87 said:

Do you have experience with the AK4499 - would ASDM5EC or ASDM7EC be better? 

Which hardware would I need? i9 9900K (or KS which I could still get)?

Is a GPU essentially needed? If so, what would be the lowest option? 

 

With all AKM and TI DAC chips as well as T+A, Holo Audio and Denafrips type DACs you can use ASDM7EC.

 

For 8 channels I would likely go for i9-10900K and powerful GPU, not below RTX2080.

 

[Miska]

22 hours ago, asdf1000 said:

I need to install Ubuntu 18.04 LTS with your custom kernel though for USB input NAA right?

 

It still doesn't work with your HQP OS image yet on Up Board Gateway?

 

Ubuntu or Debian yes. Not yet on HQPlayer OS.

 

[asdf1000]

5 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Ubuntu or Debian yes. Not yet on HQPlayer OS.

 

 

Ok thanks. Will try.

 

I'm just trying some of the AutoEQ Harman Curve files with headphones, with convolution in HQPlayer (and then upsampling to DSD256 of course).

 

https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/AutoEq/tree/master/results/oratory1990/harman_over-ear_2018

 

In this use case (2-channel headphones) is "gain compensation" in convolution applied in the same place by HQP as "start up volume" ?

 

So -8dB gain compensation + 0dB startup volume is equal to -4dB gain compensation + -4dB startup volume?

 

 

[Miska]

38 minutes ago, asdf1000 said:

In this use case (2-channel headphones) is "gain compensation" in convolution applied in the same place by HQP as "start up volume" ?

 

So -8dB gain compensation + 0dB startup volume is equal to -4dB gain compensation + -4dB startup volume?

 

It is different because gain compensation applies in a different way and depends whether you have convolution engine enabled or not.

 

I would not use 0 dBFS (startup) volume setting ever, but keep it at -3 dBFS for example and adjust the gain compensatio value equivalently. So -1 dBFS in this case to reach -4 dBFS.

 

[ray-dude]

On 5/28/2020 at 3:07 AM, Miska said:

Note about the new sinc-L filter (in HQPlayer Desktop 4.6.0); to use this one especially to higher DSD rates you'll likely need a GPU. To DSD256 it requires about 8.3 GB of GPU RAM, so my RTX2080 runs out of memory and thus doesn't play. However, on RTX2080Ti plays fine to DSD256 with a bit over 10% GPU load. For DSD512 (not tested) you'll likely need TITAN RTX with it's 24 GB of RAM should be enough for the ~16 GB needed.

 

Memory bandwidth is biggest bottleneck for massive filter on CPU because it doesn't fit in the cache anymore.

 

At DSD256 number of taps is about 32M and at DSD512 64M. DSD128 with 16M taps works on GPUs with less RAM.

 

With 16x ratio to 705.6/768k PCM it is not so bad with 2M taps.

 

P.S. The filter is totally different kind of design from sinc-S/sinc-M although named similarly.

 

@Miska I'm looking forward to trying sinc-L this weekend!  Could you speak more to what you were trying to achieve with this filter vs sinc-S/sinc-M and filter performance? (appreciate the insights you shared on the sinc-S filter a couple weeks ago)

 

Looking forward to hearing this one!

 

[jimdukey]

"appreciate the insights you shared on the sinc-S filter a couple weeks ago)"

 

I like the Sinc S Filter, but missed the explanation. 

Can someone please repost it?

TIA!

[asdf1000]

On 2/25/2019 at 3:47 PM, Miska said:

I've recommended to use Acourate's brickwall extension when creating filters for 384k.

 

Hi @Miska I'm reading Mitch B's book and his screenshots only show option for creating 192k filters

 

I don't have Acourate yet (still playing with Audiolense) but is this screenshot from an old version? 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

18 minutes ago, asdf1000 said:

 

Hi @Miska I'm reading Mitch B's book and his screenshots only show option for creating 192k filters

 

I don't have Acourate yet (still playing with Audiolense) but is this screenshot from an old version? 

 

Let’s ask @mitchco

[asdf1000]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Let’s ask @mitchco

 

Great idea Chris.

 

I just went through the Quick Start guide of Mitch's book.

 

Thanks to his great book it's not as daunting as I first thought.

 

Highly recommend it, even though I haven't used the thing yet, because it just makes everything less daunting. 

 

Sometimes the fear is enough to drive people away from even starting, like the case with me.

 

[StreamFidelity]

28 minutes ago, asdf1000 said:

I don't have Acourate yet (still playing with Audiolense) but is this screenshot from an old version? 

 

Yes! This is the new one. I'm using 384 mono WAV:

 

 

[Pentagonal]

3 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Never do anything without dither. Without dither you will get quantization distortion.

 

If the Mojo is taking in data at 32bits over USB, and possibly processing it at a high bit rate, wouldn’t the quantization distortion be below audibility or the DAC’s S/N ratio?

[mitchco]

Yes, as @StreamFidelity shows the later versions of Acourate supports 352.8 kHz and 384 kHz correction filters.

[Miska]

5 hours ago, ray-dude said:

 

@Miska I'm looking forward to trying sinc-L this weekend!  Could you speak more to what you were trying to achieve with this filter vs sinc-S/sinc-M and filter performance? (appreciate the insights you shared on the sinc-S filter a couple weeks ago)

 

Looking forward to hearing this one!

 

This is a totally opposite approach on a very long filter if you compare to something like sinc-S/sinc-M. Practically nothing else in common than being very long. Less attenuation, steeper roll-off (at start), and non-apodizing.

 

Another kind of flavor if you like to compare to Chord's WTA.

 

So this won't fix problems in source recordings like apodizing filters do. Modern RedBook productions tend to be just as bad as they are. So source quality matters more. Good ones continue to be good and bad ones are as bad as they are even if they could be fixed.