HQ Player

[GoldenOne]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

And lot of the problems also source from the MQA support code for XMOS, which some say is a horrible mess in itself. Many just can't move away from XMOS because MQA provides their code implementation for XMOS. But this code also adds unnecessary extra load on the USB controller. That's why iFi had to drop out lot of features from their DAC firmware when they introduced MQA support.

Yeah I've heard some interesting tales of frustration from manufacturers about the mqa implementation.

 

It seems the 'upsample everything using the mqa filter even if it isn't mqa' thing is becoming more and more widespread too. 

The D90 had that issue. Use the USB input and the filter options were useless cause it was stuck on the mqa one

[Chris PRaT]

2 hours ago, Miska said:

No no, ASIO4ALL is not a real ASIO driver. Real drivers are always provided by the hardware manufacturer.

 

Thanks, @Miska, I'm learning as I go.

 

But still no luck.  USB out from PC with ASIO driver gives the same results.  I messed around with the buffer settings in the ASIO driver control panel, switched 'safe mode' in the control panel on and off, changed the settings/modulators in HQP, reset the SMSL DAC, enabled/disabled volume control on DAC, etc etc... Still having the exact same issue.

 

I also sent DSD to NAA from a MacBook and again, the exact same thing: DSD128 has zero background noise but 256 does.

 

I went ahead and bought a low cost DDC so I'll be able to try the I2S connection, not sure if that will make a difference but it'll be here tomorrow.

 

Thanks for the help.

[mfsoa]

Miska - Without getting too technical, can you please describe what happens when we take HQP data that has been filtered w/ HQP, and then send it to a DAC that has its own filtering? 

If I send an HQP minimum phase filtered signal to a DAC with a linear phase filter - What happens?  A 50:50 split? Who wins? Are we really hearing what HQP can do, or are the HQP goodies being subsequently mangled by the DACs own filter?

 

Is this the advantage of a DSD dac that does native DSD - No additional filtering beyond HQP?

Do you know if the Rotel Michi P5 implements their AKM dacs in this manner?

Thank you

[bogi]

1 hour ago, mfsoa said:

Is this the advantage of a DSD dac that does native DSD - No additional filtering beyond HQP?

Yes, no additional filtering in DAC is the advantage of outputting DSD from HQPlayer.

 

When you output PCM from HQPlayer, there is no way to skip complete oversampling in DAC chip. You can do it only partially.

[TJHUB]

On 2/5/2022 at 6:13 PM, Miska said:

 

If the x64ramfs image doesn't work, try the regular x64 image. Latter one has somewhat more up to date hardware support.

 

 

I just wanted to report that my MINIX mini PC is up and running without issue booting from a USB stick with the x64ramfs image.

 

I don't know if I'm imagining things, but the sound seems better in so many ways over using my Z390, i5-9400T audio PC as a NAA.  More clarity which enhances everything.  Spectacular!  I thought the sound was great before, but this is a very nice improvement for little money.  I am powering the 12v MINIX PC with a linear PS.

 

So now the question is: should I install Linux on the internal 120gb storage to run as a NAA, or just stay with the USB stick as the boot?  Does it matter beyond freeing up a USB port?  

[ericuco]

19 minutes ago, TJHUB said:

So now the question is: should I install Linux on the internal 120gb storage to run as a NAA, or just stay with the USB stick as the boot?  Does it matter beyond freeing up a USB port?  

 

I seem to recall that @Miska has said that the NAA image is written to RAM so you can pull the USB stick once booted. There is no log-in allowed so no changes can be made so there shouldn't be any I/O going on with stick. Could be wrong on this so perhaps it can be confirmed.

 

I am using the Embedded OS image which allows you to log-in and make some changes that ultimately need to be written to the stick.

[Miska]

2 hours ago, mfsoa said:

Miska - Without getting too technical, can you please describe what happens when we take HQP data that has been filtered w/ HQP, and then send it to a DAC that has its own filtering? 

If I send an HQP minimum phase filtered signal to a DAC with a linear phase filter - What happens?  A 50:50 split? Who wins? Are we really hearing what HQP can do, or are the HQP goodies being subsequently mangled by the DACs own filter?

 

No, it is not mangled by DAC's filter, because you have plenty of "empty space" at end of upsampled frequency spectrum. You should always use linear phase filter at DAC side in such cases where you end up chaining filters like that. If you use minimum-phase filter at DAC side too, it may modify the phase response. Linear phase filter there will leave things untouched.

 

But in most cases when you reach 352.8k/384k input rate to a DAC, it's own digital filters are already bypassed. This is the case for AKM chips for example.

 

Unless the DAC is NOS R2R, it will still likely do basic sample-and-hold (S/H aka ZOH aka zero-order-hold) oversampling and run it's modulators to produce SDM type output (similar to DSD). Just like it would after it's own digital filters too.

 

2 hours ago, mfsoa said:

Is this the advantage of a DSD dac that does native DSD - No additional filtering beyond HQP?

 

One of those yes. You also get to skip the poor sample-and-hold or linear interpolation stage that is used due to lack of DSP power to do any better. And instead you get full proper digital filters run to final modulator rate, such as 256x, 512x or 1024x of the source rate.

 

2 hours ago, mfsoa said:

Do you know if the Rotel Michi P5 implements their AKM dacs in this manner?

 

It is hard to know without measuring. If it doesn't have digital volume control available for DSD, then maybe yes. AKM chips have possibility to process DSD inputs or bypass processing and just send the data straight to the actual D/A conversion.

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, TJHUB said:

So now the question is: should I install Linux on the internal 120gb storage to run as a NAA, or just stay with the USB stick as the boot?  Does it matter beyond freeing up a USB port?  

 

No it doesn't matter especially when you are using the ramfs image. Because once it is booted up, the USB stick is not used anymore. You can even remove it if you like.

 

You can write the image on internal storage as well, but for the ramfs image it would be only used during boot time too.

 

[dericchan1]

20 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

No, it is not mangled by DAC's filter, because you have plenty of "empty space" at end of upsampled frequency spectrum. You should always use linear phase filter at DAC side in such cases where you end up chaining filters like that. If you use minimum-phase filter at DAC side too, it may modify the phase response. Linear phase filter there will leave things untouched.

 

But in most cases when you reach 352.8k/384k input rate to a DAC, it's own digital filters are already bypassed. This is the case for AKM chips for example.

 

Unless the DAC is NOS R2R, it will still likely do basic sample-and-hold (S/H aka ZOH aka zero-order-hold) oversampling and run it's modulators to produce SDM type output (similar to DSD). Just like it would after it's own digital filters too.

 

 

Hi Miska, does it mean the burr brown chip used in my ifi neo dac - even though they have a choice for Bitperfect mode for pcm, if I upsample to pcm 24/768 with hqplayer, will still go through basic sample and hold oversampling and sdm modulator output?

[Schafheide]

Occasionally we have to rip a multi-disk set - say Tchaikovsky 6 Symphonies, which has 3 disks.

Once ripped, we end up with 3 lots of tracks each numbered the same as the other lot ie there are 3 track  #1.

Other GUI's allow you to assign a disk number to each lot ie Symphonies 1 & 2 tracks are labelled Disk 1 and so on.

What is the best way of dealing with this in HQP Client ??

[Fredc]

7 minutes ago, Schafheide said:

Occasionally we have to rip a multi-disk set - say Tchaikovsky 6 Symphonies, which has 3 disks.

Once ripped, we end up with 3 lots of tracks each numbered the same as the other lot ie there are 3 track  #1.

Other GUI's allow you to assign a disk number to each lot ie Symphonies 1 & 2 tracks are labelled Disk 1 and so on.

What is the best way of dealing with this in HQP Client ??

Probably do it in the folder structure. Something like <Artist>/<Album>/<Disc #>/

[ericuco]

17 minutes ago, Fredc said:

Probably do it in the folder structure. Something like <Artist>/<Album>/<Disc #>/

 Don’t think that will work. It will show up as different albums. I downloaded a double album off Qobuz today and it came in as
 

<Artist>/<Album>/CD1/ and <Artist>/<Album>/CD2/ which showed up in Client as two separate albums.

 

I made sure meta tag for Disc was 1/2 or 2/2 for each track then dumped all tracks into a single directory and that seemed to work. Used the same approach on another album and it worked as well.

[Miska]

1 hour ago, dericchan1 said:

Hi Miska, does it mean the burr brown chip used in my ifi neo dac - even though they have a choice for Bitperfect mode for pcm, if I upsample to pcm 24/768 with hqplayer, will still go through basic sample and hold oversampling and sdm modulator output?

 

Yes, it will. But it has true native DSD D/A conversion. It is always "direct". It doesn't even have option for performing DSP on DSD inputs.

 

[Miska]

42 minutes ago, ericuco said:

 Don’t think that will work. It will show up as different albums. I downloaded a double album off Qobuz today and it came in as
 

<Artist>/<Album>/CD1/ and <Artist>/<Album>/CD2/ which showed up in Client as two separate albums.

 

I made sure meta tag for Disc was 1/2 or 2/2 for each track then dumped all tracks into a single directory and that seemed to work. Used the same approach on another album and it worked as well.

 

Having such disc separation in modern download is a bit strange. Since it is old remnant from physical media days. I wish those downloads would be just one big bunch with linear track numbering. Downloads I've got from highresaudio.com have been in such way, just one set of tracks.

 

[ericuco]

45 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Having such disc separation in modern download is a bit strange. Since it is old remnant from physical media days. I wish those downloads would be just one big bunch with linear track numbering. Downloads I've got from highresaudio.com have been in such way, just one set of tracks.

 

I have bought several albums from David Grisman’s Acoustic Disc website because I like the music plus good price but meta data is horrible so had to go in and correct it, a real PITA.

[bogi]

7 hours ago, Miska said:

Unless the DAC is NOS R2R, it will still likely do basic sample-and-hold (S/H aka ZOH aka zero-order-hold) oversampling and run it's modulators to produce SDM type output (similar to DSD). Just like it would after it's own digital filters too.

What for effect on sound may cause this sample-and-hold type of simplified oversampling? I know it is unfiltered so it leaves images of audio band at multiples of last digitally filtered fs. These images come to modulator input together with audio band of interest, so then only analog filtering can remove them. Are these images the only drawback of the sample-and-hold stage or it may affect audio band also in some other way?

I read somewhere that ESS DACs use likely something like linear interpolation instead of sample-and-hold. The images of audio band are still present on modulator input, but it gets more contiguous sample values than in sample-and-hold case. What for benefit the ESS solution brings on modulator output in comparison with sample-and-hold?

[Fredc]

On 2/7/2022 at 2:43 AM, Miska said:

 

And then there's of course also Intona products:

https://intona.eu/en/products/

 

Are there any additional benefits NAA has over these products, or it's just another option to isolate the audio PC from the DAC

[dericchan1]

Hi Miska, I have a Marantz HDAMP1 that uses a ESS Sabre 9010K2M chip and supports upto 32/384 or dsd 11.2 what would be the recommended HQPlayer setting for this? SDM or PCM? Thanks

 

Deric

[dericchan1]

1 hour ago, Fredc said:

Are there any additional benefits NAA has over these products, or it's just another option to isolate the audio PC from the DAC

My intona is inserted between NAA and my dac USB connection to provide galvanic isolation.

[mfsoa]

Thank you for the reply, Miska.

 

Regarding the desire to use a linear phase filter after HQP - My preamp uses only a minimum phase filter and weighs 50 pounds so it's not going anywhere soon.

 

Is there an HQP filter recommendation for those situations where you know it will be going into a minimum phase dac? Looks like the point is moot if I send 352.8k/384k as that bypasses the AKM digital filters. 

 

Do you think it's best to convert 44.1 to 352.8 or 384 prior to sending to the AKM? I assumed 384 - let HQP do the heavy math.

 

Thanks very much for your time and input!!

[Schafheide]

18 hours ago, Fredc said:

Probably do it in the folder structure. Something like <Artist>/<Album>/<Disc #>/

The solution was implied in Jussi's response - I renumbered each file so that they numbered consecutively - in my case 01 to 25.

[Miska]

12 hours ago, bogi said:

What for effect on sound may cause this sample-and-hold type of simplified oversampling? I know it is unfiltered so it leaves images of audio band at multiples of last digitally filtered fs. These images come to modulator input together with audio band of interest, so then only analog filtering can remove them. Are these images the only drawback of the sample-and-hold stage or it may affect audio band also in some other way?

 

Those images are reconstruction inaccuracy. For example if images are down -60 dB, then reconstruction accuracy is about 10 bits.

 

They affect modulator behavior by increasing for example noise floor modulation. In addition they can affect audio band directly through intermodulation. This usually causes harshness and unnatural edginess to the sound. In addition if you use class-D amplifier, they can get aliased down to audio range.

 

12 hours ago, bogi said:

I read somewhere that ESS DACs use likely something like linear interpolation instead of sample-and-hold. The images of audio band are still present on modulator input, but it gets more contiguous sample values than in sample-and-hold case. What for benefit the ESS solution brings on modulator output in comparison with sample-and-hold?

 

ESS and Chord do that kind of operations, it lowers the image level by ~10 - 20 dB. However, the way ESS does it causes some phase errors in top range of audio band.

 

[Miska]

11 hours ago, Fredc said:

Are there any additional benefits NAA has over these products, or it's just another option to isolate the audio PC from the DAC

 

It is another option, or you could use it with NAA.

 

It won't help on other things NAA is good for, such as being able to access DAC from multiple servers without having to touch connections. And being able to have server and DAC located in different rooms so that for example loud fans on server don't disturb listening.

 

[Miska]

6 hours ago, mfsoa said:

Is there an HQP filter recommendation for those situations where you know it will be going into a minimum phase dac?

 

No additional recommendations. It is just not optimal case to have, but it is still beneficial to use HQPlayer filters. You just know that it will have some minimum phase behavior left even if you run linear-phase filters in HQPlayer.

 

6 hours ago, mfsoa said:

Looks like the point is moot if I send 352.8k/384k as that bypasses the AKM digital filters. 

 

That is certainly the optimal thing to do in your case. Or alternatively use DSD256 if possible.

 

6 hours ago, mfsoa said:

Do you think it's best to convert 44.1 to 352.8 or 384 prior to sending to the AKM? I assumed 384 - let HQP do the heavy math.

 

Either one works fine. You get a bit more advantage by running 384k always.

 

6 hours ago, mfsoa said:

My preamp uses only a minimum phase filter and weighs 50 pounds so it's not going anywhere soon.

 

No need to! It's a nice preamp! And you can always connect external DAC at later point in time if you feel so.

 

[dericchan1]

 

Hi Miska, I have a Marantz HDAMP1 that uses a ESS Sabre 9010K2M chip and supports upto 32/384 or dsd 11.2 what would be the recommended HQPlayer setting for this? SDM or PCM? Thanks

 

Deric