Offline Upsampling

[bodiebill]

Xivero's SiSCR. Handles DSD512. Slow, but does the job.

https://www.xivero.com/xisrc/

[bodiebill]

I compared SiSRC to AuI for DSD256. Could not hear the difference.

[bodiebill]

Yes, amongst other formats. According to their website: 
Output Audio Formats: WAV, AIFF, FLAC and DSD 
Input Audio Formats: WAV, AIFF, FLAC, ALAC, DSD and MP3
Supported DSD Sample Rates: DSD64, DSD128, DSD256 and DSD512

[bodiebill]

Too technical for me, I only used my ears. But maybe ask Xivero?

https://www.xivero.com/xisrc/

[bodiebill]

First you asked, then you used the word 'questionable', and now you know for sure? How do you know for sure?

And how do other converters (AuI, JRiver, Tascam) do this?

[bodiebill]

Thanks, copy_of_a, for the explanation.

Would SiSRC's conversion from PCM to DSD on the other hand be OK?

[bodiebill]

Does the "beyond me" imply "I can't see the logic"?

Or "I can't hear the difference"?

 

 

[bodiebill]

I just tried this converter to upsample DSD64 to DSD256:

https://www.poikosoft.com/dsd-converter

and my first impression is very positive. Fast and sounds better than conversions by XiSRC, JRiver or fb2k. It also seems versatile; many formats and settings are available.

Anyone else tried this?

[bodiebill]

My ears grouped then as follows, best to less good:

- EZ AC, AuI

- fb2k

- XiSRC

- JRMC

but the differences are rather subtle.

[bodiebill]

7 hours ago, Undertone said:

Thanks to bodiebill for posting the link to Poikosoft EZ CD Audio converter. I tested the software on several 24/96 PCM classical music recordings and 24/192 Blue Note jazz reissues, resampling to DSD128. Conversion is very quick, about 4 minutes. Cover art and metadata tags are preserved and copied over to the destination folder. Sound quality is excellent, and the load on the CPU is very light compared to converting on the fly. 

 

Mac Mini late-2012 i5 16GB RAM, Audirvana 3.5, USB direct to Gustard DAC X-26.  

 

Good to hear. More info, quoted (with permission) from a PM from @pm325 :

 

On 6/14/2020 at 8:16 AM, pm325 said:

Test results of DSD64-to-DSD256 conversion by CZ CD Audio converter in attachment. As you can see, it decreased the HF noise from original DSD64 (via internal conversion to DXD), but without complete suppression. Subjectively, the algorithm gives good results.  

 

[bodiebill]

18 minutes ago, jamesg11 said:

This means that the EZ dsd upsampling method includes a conversion to dxd? Or ...?

 

That seems to be correct.

 

As @pm325 has explained to me, for DSD upsampling studios use one of two approaches: internal conversion to DXD (Pyramix DAW) or to DSD-Wide (Sonoma DAW). Neither is bit exact as each sigma-delta modulation step adds additional HF noise. Algorithms with 64-bit floating point resolution may reduce errors. Only HQPlayer Pro seems to use internal processing within the DSD domain.

 

All a bit too technical for me. I tried the trial version of HQPlayer Pro and it did produce DSD256 files. However these would not play. Surely my bad, but I was not as persistent as I usually am, knowing that I could not afford the licensed version anyway. So back to just using my ears and skipping the technical details.

 

Happy with EZ for now.

[bodiebill]

1 minute ago, jamesg11 said:

Yes, knowledge of hqp led to my query - as you say, Pro is not priced for us domestic users! But, of course, that same internal processing occurs on the fly with hqp ... you just need a stellar pc installation for the best results, again $s.

 

Yes, and this stellar PC is bound to produce noise that lowers the SQ in a single PC setup. A solution would then be to separate this PC from a Spartan audio endpoint with NAA in a 2 box setup. However, this requires network that again adds noise. Which needs to be minimized using expensive routers, switches, an audiophile network card, fiber etc. More dollari / euri...

 

Hence my great recent relief to skip the network altogether and play from a lean fanless SATA-less wtfplay endpoint. It beats my previous 2 box setup.

 

A lot of money spent to no end, but that is the beauty of this hobby.

[bodiebill]

Another good option is xrecode3:

https://xrecode.com/

I think I prefer it to EZCDAC for upsampling DSD64 => DSD256. 

Anyone else using this?

 

[bodiebill]

On 7/6/2020 at 3:53 PM, rando said:

Main use I've found for it was rescuing ISO from SACD that ISO2DSD didn't like.

 

Indeed, I finally managed to extract an ISO that Sonore's software could not cope with. Thanks for this pointer!