A toast to PGGB, a heady brew of math and magic

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I am still reading through the thread. A quick question.

 

Would I need 64GB RAM on a i9-10900 machine to do 32fs conversion, or 32GB RAM is enough. My DAC is Denafrips Terminator +. Most of my collection is 44.1 PCM (90%), about 200 DSD 64 rips, and some 192, 96kHz, downloads. I can add another 32GB if I buy the software, trial purposes for now. Thanks.

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I will get another 2-32GB stick, it will be 96GB for now. I have a 500GB SSD on hand. I will be using this machine for playback as well, running HQPe on Audiolinux, that is what I do right now. NVMe v/s SSD is for the speed of conversion or it affects the sound quality for those who rum HQP on the hard disk?

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18 minutes ago, Zaphod Beeblebrox said:

For the purpose of PGGB, the NVME is for speed of conversion. Think of virtual memory as a extension of physical memory, so faster NVME will help with faster conversion. (Edit: main thing to note is the SSD needs to be internal, windows will not use external drives for virtual memory and correctly so as they are too slow for paging)

From a SQ perspective, my playback server is Audio Linux too and I use 4TB Intel NVME and  8 TB Sabrent Rocket NVME for storing gargle-blasted albums and am happy with them.

 

My workstation which is a intel i9 based with 64GB of RAM is my gargle-blasting machine and has two 2TB Samsung NVME sticks.

How much RAM on your AL machine? You play from flash drive or RAM ROOT? If not using playback computer for upsampling in HQPe, then maybe a NUC can be used for playback?

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11 minutes ago, Zaphod Beeblebrox said:

64GB on my AL server, built by @lmitche and in RAM Root. 64GB is a overkill 16GB would have been plenty for playback and for Roon.  But my requirements were different. I use HQPe + NAA for playback of gargle-blasted library and Roon->HQPe->NAA for streamed music.

 

Having moved from a NUC, I would say, a high powered low latency, low noise server direct to my DAC is better than using my previous i7 NUC.. Also if you were to enable compression, the higher horse power will come in handy during playback.

 

Edit: Answering your question, even if not using HQPe for upsampling, and just using it for pass through, I felt moving to the AL AMD server was better in comparison to a NUC when playing back gargle-blasted tracks.

Thanks. So we are looking at two high powered machines, got one for now. Let me give it a try and we will see.

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14 minutes ago, Zaphod Beeblebrox said:

If you can run Windows on your current playback server and boot AL in RAM ROOT from a stick, then you can make it work. If you already have a NUC, you could try that and compare results for playback.

That's the plan for now.

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Anyone experiencing 32 fs PGGBs file buffering? My i9-10900, 32 GB PC is directly connected to Terminator+ DAC, and it is buffering like crazy. I am using Audiolinix and HQPe.

 

Files are stored on internal NVMe.

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2 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

 

What are your DAC Bits and Buffer Time settings in HQPe?

DAC bits 24, buffer; I tried 250 and 0, both cause buffering.

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Is it correct to say that if your track lengths is 5-6 minutes, then having 64 or 128 GB RAM is not necessary and would not result in any better sounding up-sampled files compared to say 16 or 32 GB RAM, or does higher RAM size always improved SQ (Taps). I have read a few posts but they are generally in the context of longer tracks, like in classical music.

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Now if one wants to upgrade to 128 GB RAM, is there any suggested manufacturer, speed, etc. for a PC which will be used for PGGB and playback as well. I remember lot of discussions about this on other threads as to what provides better SQ. etc. I only know of kit of four stick to make 128 GB, are there any manufacturers who can give you 128 in 2x64?

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I have been listening to Gargle Blasted files for several days now. Amazing improvement in SQ. Only a big leap in speakers, cables, amp, or pre might give you this kind of improvement in sound. My system sounds best ever. I am feeding 20bit 32fs files to Terminator Plus DAC.

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As I move towards getting the license, few logistical questions come to mind; storage, and playback file location.

 

Am I correct in thinking to add several 18TB Western Digital SATA HDDs to a NAS for storage? Not thinking of converting everything, but still, there is no spare capacity available at this time, so need something. I have read Rajiv's advise for warehouse/jukebox type of system, but need to build a warehouse and a jukebox, as the house is full right now. My current library is about 2.7TB, and I will be converting to 32fs for my Terminator Plus DAC at 20 bits.

 

Is it preferred (based on sound quality) to playback from internal NVMe or files stored on NAS. 8TB NVMe is $1,400 currently, that can buy 2-18TB HDD's for NAS. Thoughts?

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3 hours ago, davide256 said:

Trying to figure out if the Denafrips Pontus/Venus/Terminator with dual AES/EBU inputs are an alternative to the dual BNC Chord solution. Anyone use this?

Struggling to find a description/limitations.

I am not answering the question you asked as I have not experimented with that, but I have a Gaia and T+. I am going direct USB into T+ at 32fs and it sounds just amazing. Gaia may hit the auction block soon (less clutter). I can praise the SQ all day long, but it is just unbelievable. This is what one can call End Game, truly. I really don't crave for any further improvement in SQ. Time to finally just enjoy the music, which I/we love.

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I might just be stating a known fact, but to my ears PGGBd DSD files with 64GB RAM (2048M available taps) sound better than 32GB RAM PGGBd files (limited to 512M taps). My sample tracks were 3-5 minutes long DSD64 originals.