kumakuma Posted May 11, 2020 Share Posted May 11, 2020 2 hours ago, sandyk said: However, it is off the original topic , and there are more suitable threads to discuss the niche upsampling of all music to DSD such as https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/19715-hq-player/, or another thread can be started on this subject. Your argument would be more compelling if your own posts to this thread had followed this rule. Solstice380 and sandyk 1 1 Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby Edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley Through the middle of my skull Link to comment
4est Posted May 11, 2020 Share Posted May 11, 2020 7 hours ago, kumakuma said: Your argument would be more compelling if your own posts to this thread had followed this rule. Agreed, and the ability to upsample and convert is not unique to one player program. Forrest: Win10 i9 9900KS/GTX1060 HQPlayer4>Win10 NAA DSD>Pavel's DSC2.6>Bent Audio TAP> Parasound JC1>"Naked" Quad ESL63/Tannoy PS350B subs<100Hz Link to comment
Popular Post 4est Posted May 11, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted May 11, 2020 10 hours ago, sandyk said: It doesn't . However, it is off the original topic , and there are more suitable threads to discuss the niche upsampling of all music to DSD such as https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/19715-hq-player/, or another thread can be started on this subject. This thread was about the subjective comparisons of software players. Included in the comparison was HQPlayer, but there was no mention of it's abilities to up, down and cross convert even though that is its primary use case. This is certainly no less off topic than your constant reminders that you think you can hear the differences in bit perfect files saved with different power supplies. Even if you are correct, subjectively there are likely way bigger differences in adjusting the filters and modulators used to upsample regardless of whether they are in the DAC or in the computer feeding the DAC. Some DACs come with them fwiw. If your DAC doesn't have hardware filters to choose from, HQPlayer is one way you can subjectively change your sonics without changing your DAC. This is all for short money considering the software is incredibly well supported and only costs a couple hundred dollars. The fact that it is becoming popular here with some well seeded posters is kinda proof positive. They could just as well try the flavor of the month DAC, but choose to adjust in software. And honestly I do not understand your resentment and ire about this beyond some sort of misplaced jealousy. The PCM filtering facilities are what brought me to HQPlayer from XXHighend long before I ever cared one wit about DSD, and those do not at all require a powerful computer at all. Perhaps it is only my opinion, but I think that if you have not even tried it, you shouldn't knock it. Teresa, kumakuma, Audiophile Neuroscience and 2 others 2 2 1 Forrest: Win10 i9 9900KS/GTX1060 HQPlayer4>Win10 NAA DSD>Pavel's DSC2.6>Bent Audio TAP> Parasound JC1>"Naked" Quad ESL63/Tannoy PS350B subs<100Hz Link to comment
manueljenkin Posted May 11, 2020 Author Share Posted May 11, 2020 On 5/10/2020 at 9:41 AM, Rexp said: I'm playing around with this one: http://flacplayer.ehubsoft.net/ Thanks.. we'll check that out. However we need to be careful since we have even more variables here. Network speed, different browsers, etc Link to comment
manueljenkin Posted May 11, 2020 Author Share Posted May 11, 2020 13 hours ago, jabbr said: Whether you choose to do that is your choice, just as whether to use a particular cable or power supply or really any pice of equipment. The fact that the software is paid or not should not be of concern — do you expect the ISO Regen to be free, or a particular cable? Do you even use Linux or Windows? I use Linux extensively and support its use in audio. Comparing Linux audio distributions such as Audiolinux, wtfplayer, Sonic orbiter and a handful of others including NAA could be a reasonable comparison of similar functions. There is no benefit to the typical consumer in doing anything we do here. The software is a bargain that actually does something as opposed to other things we spend our money on. In any case you ought not criticize something you admit you haven’t done and have no experience with. Any frankly HQPlayer is not the only software package that upsample, for example XXHE, Roon etc ... I refrained from adding the full comparison of hqplayer only because my pc was incapable of using it. I would really love to know your opinions and experiences on the same. I was only comparing on the basis of system level timing/scheduling/noise in my post. That is one aspect of sound and I am confident that hqplayer is equal to winyl on that front. Regarding filtering, not only am I interested in the filters inside hqplayer, I am also interested in custom coding filters using AI (in fact I do a few linear filters in matlab with my audio) and non linear filters like, compressors etc. On a side note I would also love to try different hardware upsampler implementations. Hope that cleared it off. Hqplayer discussion is not off topic but the actual filter comparison can be made in their specific thread. I definitely agree the aberrations are different and cannot be compared oranges to oranges. Wtfplay dev is working on SOX so we could get a more comparable ground between wtfplay and hqplayer in some time. Link to comment
Popular Post jabbr Posted May 11, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted May 11, 2020 2 hours ago, manueljenkin said: I refrained from adding the full comparison of hqplayer only because my pc was incapable of using it. I would really love to know your opinions and experiences on the same. HQPlayer is more of a system than simply a player per se. It would be a project to fully employ its capabilities: 1) filters and modulators which run on a high powered PC and output to either a local device (ALSA) or a network device (NAA) 2) loadable convolution kernels usable for room correction, digital crossovers as well as arbitrary convolutions 3) stream input either HTTP or NAA. 4) CUDA offload 5) NAA remote/network ALSA protocol including OS distribution (intended for low power devices) 2 hours ago, manueljenkin said: I was only comparing on the basis of system level timing/scheduling/noise in my post. That is one aspect of sound and I am confident that hqplayer is equal to winyl on that front. Presumably a NAA (networkaudiod.xxx.deb) package could run on wtfplay OS. Aside from @Miska's custom linux distributions, the scheduling on an NAA player device is determined by the underlying Linux OS. I have run NAA on custom compiled/patched linux kernels. 2 hours ago, manueljenkin said: Regarding filtering, not only am I interested in the filters inside hqplayer, I am also interested in custom coding filters using AI (in fact I do a few linear filters in matlab with my audio) and non linear filters like, compressors etc. On a side note I would also love to try different hardware upsampler implementations. That is an entire area of investigation and to one extent convolution kernels can be deployed and tested. I think what is unique to HQPlayer in this area is that the kernels are running or can be running in SDM space, not PCM, which is a really unique capability! Custom filters and non-linear transforms that cannot be expressed as a convolution kernel are not, to my understanding, deployable with HQP. 2 hours ago, manueljenkin said: Hope that cleared it off. Hqplayer discussion is not off topic but the actual filter comparison can be made in their specific thread. I definitely agree the aberrations are different and cannot be compared oranges to oranges. Wtfplay dev is working on SOX so we could get a more comparable ground between wtfplay and hqplayer in some time. It would be really terrific to see further work incorporated into SOX. I understand that Jussi has done a tremendous amount of work and has developed the NAA protocol for his purposes, but I see that as the best remote ALSA implementation available. If an open source lightweight remote ALSA protocol were developed that would be terrific, and then, for example, you could use SOX or HQplayer on a workstation, and then send the audio to a low powered (or underclocked) audio machine, running wtfplay and then you could compare wtfplay against NAA which would be a great comparison! motberg, 4est, Audiophile Neuroscience and 2 others 1 4 Custom room treatments for headphone users. Link to comment
Popular Post jabbr Posted May 11, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted May 11, 2020 @manueljenkin let's look at this from the point of view of what the perfect music player should do: I am using Linux ALSA here because its open and documented and anyone can look at the source code. The audio will be in memory. A very simple user mode program will communicate with the DAC (setup phase) and then enter a loop where it will send buffers of audio to the ALSA USB audio driver. The job of the music player is to ensure that the ALSA USB driver has filled buffers so that an underrun doesn't happen. Very simple. How does the audio get into memory? Could be already in memory as a RAM filesystem, could be read from a serial filesystem or could be in memory as a memory mapped filesystem etc. In most cases an OS process will read the audio into a buffer and the music player simply needs to move the data from the read buffers into the ALSA buffers. This could be done with a FIFO buffer. This is really simple and there is no need for all the GUI gunk that involves selecting a playlist etc ... I think in both cases wtfplay as well as NAA eliminate all this extraneous GUI. Of course there are a few details about how these things should be handled, for example the ALSA driver sending interrupts to the player process to feed it more data, or the player could poll etc. Now ... hmmm ... MPD has gotten waaay too complicated for this simple function (IMHO) so yes I agree that there a need for a refactored and simplified music player. motberg and manueljenkin 1 1 Custom room treatments for headphone users. Link to comment
sandyk Posted May 11, 2020 Share Posted May 11, 2020 8 hours ago, jabbr said: HQPlayer is more of a system than simply a player per se. It would be a project to fully employ its capabilities: Which is exactly my point. Neither are my system or Teresa's system for that matter, capable of doing this . Most people do not need, or want, the added complexity and cost of implementing this kind of thing with numerous settings in Software , with no setting that appears to give a universally accepted best quality. This is exactly why I originally rejected Peter's generous offer of a free copy of XXHE some years ago, with numerous program updates. However, if the more technically adventurous wish to go this route , then that is there choice, however as Rexp said : Quote OP is correct, why bother with DSD upsampling when only .001% of the population use or will ever use it. kumakuma and PeterSt 1 1 How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file. PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020 Link to comment
kumakuma Posted May 11, 2020 Share Posted May 11, 2020 35 minutes ago, sandyk said: Which is exactly my point. Neither are my system or Teresa's system for that matter, capable of doing this . Most folks here have no interest in nor the capability to do the DIY tweaks you do but this doesn't stop you from mentioning them. Teresa 1 Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby Edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley Through the middle of my skull Link to comment
sandyk Posted May 11, 2020 Share Posted May 11, 2020 20 minutes ago, kumakuma said: Most folks here have no interest in nor the capability to do the DIY tweaks you do but this doesn't stop you from mentioning them. That's absolute garbage. Many members do far greater and WAY more expensive tweaks than I do. https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/#comments There are now 654 pages in that thread alone, let alone the Uptone area etc. How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file. PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020 Link to comment
kumakuma Posted May 11, 2020 Share Posted May 11, 2020 2 minutes ago, sandyk said: That's absolute garbage. Many members do far greater and WAY more expensive tweaks than I do. https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/#comments We all see what we want to see. What percentage of registered users do you think are actively participating in that thread? I'm guessing it's way south of 5%. Probably closer to 1%. Teresa 1 Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby Edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley Through the middle of my skull Link to comment
jabbr Posted May 11, 2020 Share Posted May 11, 2020 1 hour ago, sandyk said: Neither are my system or Teresa's system for that matter, capable of doing this . You ought not speak for @Teresa, she is very articulate and has spoken well for herself. I believe she has spoken of an affinity for SACD for example. No one need do what I personally do and if cost constraints are an issue I have often posted of cost effective approaches including Raspberry Pi. In other cases simplicity is paramount. To each his or her own. 1 hour ago, sandyk said: Most people do not need, or want, the added complexity and cost of implementing this kind of thing with numerous settings in Software , with no setting that appears to give a universally accepted best quality. This is exactly why I originally rejected Peter's generous offer of a free copy of XXHE some years ago, with numerous program updates. Yes I get the point that you have an active distaste for software and the use of software under any circumstances—and networks. You have endlessly posted about the evils done both by software and networks to your precious bits. Teresa 1 Custom room treatments for headphone users. Link to comment
Audiophile Neuroscience Posted May 11, 2020 Share Posted May 11, 2020 15 minutes ago, kumakuma said: We all see what we want to see. 10 minutes ago, jabbr said: . To each his or her own. Amen ! kumakuma 1 Sound Minds Mind Sound Link to comment
Popular Post Audiophile Neuroscience Posted May 11, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted May 11, 2020 It is one thing to argue about counting what counts, another to argue about what counts, but I think it is futile to argue about what shouldn't count for someone else. There are simply different roads to the truth and yes the caveat is, sometimes that path turns out to be 'up the garden path' as we are all capable of fooling ourselves. Whatever. it's still nice to stroll in the garden 😁 4est, Teresa, jabbr and 2 others 5 Sound Minds Mind Sound Link to comment
Popular Post manueljenkin Posted May 12, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted May 12, 2020 I hope everyone understands the entire audio sector of us is a niche. Most people never buy more than 5$ earbuds. I really don't see the point of trying to pull in things like 99% don't care or whatever. This post and this place is for those who care. And the differences is there, so it is worth caring for if you are a serious music afficionado. I only started this thread as a more or less a starting place to pull in music player comparisons. As long as things are well organized, I have no issue with anyone adding anything into this. Different people have different usability requirements and different softwares cater to it. However make sure you clearly specify what you are comparing and based on what merits. Different aberrations have different characters. I am really thankful to most people who posted here, since I did learn a thing or two. I only started this post. It's everyone's (for those who care) playground. Audiophile Neuroscience, Rexp, andrewinukm and 5 others 3 3 2 Link to comment
sandyk Posted May 12, 2020 Share Posted May 12, 2020 10 hours ago, kumakuma said: We all see what we want to see. What percentage of registered users do you think are actively participating in that thread? I'm guessing it's way south of 5%. Probably closer to 1%. We all see what we want to see. What percentage of registered users do you think are actively participating in ALL threads? I'm guessing it's way south of 5%. Probably closer to 1%. How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file. PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020 Link to comment
Popular Post Teresa Posted May 12, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted May 12, 2020 20 hours ago, sandyk said: Which is exactly my point. Neither are my system or Teresa's system for that matter, capable of doing this . I'm not sure what you are saying my system is not capable of, if it's software upsampling I can't do that as I use a very basic player for DSD and PCM downloads, the Teac HR audio player. OTOH I do hardware upsampling. My Teac DAC's maximum PCM upsample rate is 192kHz PCM, I often wonder if I would enjoy PCM music files better if the Teac DAC upsampled to DSD instead. 20 hours ago, kumakuma said: Most folks here have no interest in nor the capability to do the DIY tweaks you do but this doesn't stop you from mentioning them. Add me to your list, I prefer finished audio products that I can plug in and enjoy my music. Also I don't know enough nor have the desire to learn how to DIY. 20 hours ago, sandyk said: That's absolute garbage. Many members do far greater and WAY more expensive tweaks than I do. https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/#comments There are now 654 pages in that thread alone, let alone the Uptone area etc. I only visited that thread once by accident since I don't stream music. But I would guess less 1% of audiophiles are into expensive tweaks, Which would be less that 0.01% of the general population. 19 hours ago, kumakuma said: We all see what we want to see. What percentage of registered users do you think are actively participating in that thread? I'm guessing it's way south of 5%. Probably closer to 1%. Personally I think 1% is a little on the high side. Could it be it is popular among a handful of posters who are very interested in the subject matter? 19 hours ago, jabbr said: You ought not speak for @Teresa, she is very articulate and has spoken well for herself. I believe she has spoken of an affinity for SACD for example... Thank you. You are correct I prefer SACDs and DSD music files over PCM. Although I am impressed with high resolution PCM downloads from Chesky and Reference Recordings and a few others I can't think of right now. Audiophile Neuroscience, jabbr, andrewinukm and 1 other 1 3 I have dementia. I save all my posts in a text file I call Forums. I do a search in that file to find out what I said or did in the past. I still love music. Teresa Link to comment
Popular Post jabbr Posted May 13, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted May 13, 2020 7 hours ago, Teresa said: I'm not sure what you are saying my system is not capable of, if it's software upsampling I can't do that as I use a very basic player for DSD and PCM downloads, the Teac HR audio player. There are different ways of doing things and I entirely respect the real value of simplicity. Quote OTOH I do hardware upsampling. My Teac DAC's maximum PCM upsample rate is 192kHz PCM, I often wonder if I would enjoy PCM music files better if the Teac DAC upsampled to DSD instead. The Teac DAC does convert internally to something like DSD (perhaps multibit SDM). This is the crux of the issue. Quote Add me to your list, I prefer finished audio products that I can plug in and enjoy my music. Also I don't know enough nor have the desire to learn how to DIY. You should not need to DIY! There are those of us who have fun on the bleeding edge, but I also understand the real value of "push a button and listen" Quote You are correct I prefer SACDs and DSD music files over PCM. Although I am impressed with high resolution PCM downloads from Chesky and Reference Recordings and a few others I can't think of right now. Exactly. I like to acquire music in whatever format is closest to how it was recorded and mastered, most likely HD. For old tapes such as Coltrane etc, then a DSD transfer is also what I prefer. That said, I have been very impressed with the ability of DSD upsampling to drastically reduce the difference between HD and CD. So much so that I can't tell if the HD is better because of better mastering. For example acousticsounds.com / analogue productions or hdtapetransfers -- no need to upsample a DSD256 tape transfer! It's too bad that SACD was crippled with DRM, likewise Blu-ray audio (HD PCM), but we have downloads so not all is lost. For the huge catalog of CD, upsampling is really great, yet at the cost of fiddling with computers and software etc etc etc. There is no one right answer. I tolerate command line and fiddling to set things up, but when I am listening I like an intuitive GUI. I use Roon's GUI and HQPlayer under the hood for its sound (filters and modulators). I also appreciate open source but ...hmm ... DLNA just isn't so easy to use, nor sounds so good for me. You know the old iTunes and iPod was what got me to rip my CD collection to disc, but it doesn't do DSD/DSF nor FLAC ... so I think there is a big market for people like yourself who don't want to fiddle with software and just want it to work (iTunes) but not compromise on sound (support DSD/FLAC) so IDK keep using what works, or perhaps try Roon? (The Linux community really needs to support people like @Teresa better) Teresa and 4est 1 1 Custom room treatments for headphone users. Link to comment
Rexp Posted May 20, 2020 Share Posted May 20, 2020 Amarra is also very good and has Tidal/Qobuz integration. Link to comment
bluesman Posted May 20, 2020 Share Posted May 20, 2020 On 5/3/2020 at 7:58 PM, The Computer Audiophile said: Wow! Someone still using Media Monkey! No complaints from me, just hadn’t heard anyone discuss it for about a decade. Sorry I’m late to this party. I ranked MM 5th in my front end software comparison AS article back in October 2019. It does a lot of things very well and sounds great. But as I recall, it doesn’t do DSD. The Computer Audiophile 1 Link to comment
bluesman Posted May 20, 2020 Share Posted May 20, 2020 On 5/11/2020 at 7:40 AM, manueljenkin said: I refrained from adding the full comparison of hqplayer only because my pc was incapable of using it If your PC is incapable of using it, I don't understand how you made these observations: "Hqplayer - it's as good as winyl in equivalent settings. But it's a lot more feature rich. Lets you try custom upsampling PCM or DSD conversion options and can help get a better stream to your dac than the internal digital filters which can sometimes be low fidelity in the DACs. Also lets you try high precision fir filter convolution for a usable high precision eq." Link to comment
manueljenkin Posted May 20, 2020 Author Share Posted May 20, 2020 2 hours ago, bluesman said: If your PC is incapable of using it, I don't understand how you made these observations: "Hqplayer - it's as good as winyl in equivalent settings. But it's a lot more feature rich. Lets you try custom upsampling PCM or DSD conversion options and can help get a better stream to your dac than the internal digital filters which can sometimes be low fidelity in the DACs. Also lets you try high precision fir filter convolution for a usable high precision eq." Well I meant that I was only able to use the lower precision filters without issues on my pc. Since the analysis is incomplete without the higher precision ones I refrained from commenting on that aspect though I am welcome to anyone else's opinion after they have covered like @jabbr. Comparison to winyl is easy "under equivalent settings" which is no upsampling or any processing. I have tried FIR filter convolutions both on hqplayer and on MATLAB. Link to comment
bluesman Posted May 20, 2020 Share Posted May 20, 2020 22 minutes ago, manueljenkin said: Well I meant that I was only able to use the lower precision filters without issues on my pc. It might help us understand more about your observations and conclusions if we knew the equipment you used to make them. I may have missed it, but I don't see any description of your computer(s) and audio system(s) at all. Could you please share some detail with us? Link to comment
manueljenkin Posted May 20, 2020 Author Share Posted May 20, 2020 Umm I did mention every detail of my chain in the original post. "Gear used - surface book 2015, apogee groove, supra usb cable, burson fun, sparkos ss3601 opamps, shure srh1540, OnePlus 3. Few other headphones, dac and amp were also used to ensure coverage on other parameters, and they fit well with the same descriptions." I had missed out uptone uspcb cable, so you can add that too. Link to comment
bluesman Posted May 21, 2020 Share Posted May 21, 2020 You don’t identify some key pieces, and I’m a bit surprised that you heard such a broad spectrum of sound quality with the named products on that list. Because the list is vague and incomplete, I hoped that identifying the unspecified pieces might shed some light on it. Sparks op amps are nice little $39 units, but they’re just discrete chips that don’t do anything by themselves. What are they doing in your system - did you use them in the Fun? You don’t tell us what those “few other DACs and amps” are, and the Apogee DAC you do identify is limited to 24/192 - so you couldn’t get the most from many of the players you included without using a more sophisticated DAC. And while the Apogee is very nice, it has enough 2nd harmonic product to be audible as added warmth despite a very flat measured frequency response (per multiple reviews- see Ken Rockwell’s measurements for confirmation). Your Shure ‘phones also add some bottom and mid bass, which combines with the Apogee’s SQ to be quite noticeable. This combination will definitely color whatever it’s playing. The Apogee only has an analog output designed for driving headphones, so I assume you didn’t run its output into the line input on the Fun. So with what did you drive the Fun, which only has an analog input? Link to comment
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