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

[Johnseye]

@ray-dude, @romaz and @austinpop here I thought you guys were just kicking back and enjoying your Extremes.  Great to hear you're continuing to explore new improvements.  Thanks for all your efforts, and of course thanks to Zaphod.  I'm looking forward to hearing how this impacts the music.  I'll be checking this out with the Hugo TT2 and Omegas as well as with the new Holo May in my main listening environment.  I know you guys are huge DAVE fans, but if you ever get the chance to listen to the May, I'd love to know what you think.  I'm very impressed so far and it's just breaking in.

 

I now have the PGGP trial and have made a bunch of files for comparison of your different "preferences".  I had been enjoying real time upsampling with HQP's sinc-L filter and LNS15 shaper.

 

[Johnseye]

16 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

Hi John,

 

Long time no see. Hopefully we'll get to meet in person at AXPONA some year.

 

I think we both still have our comp tickets waiting in the wings.  Looking forward to it as well as the CSO when we can start seeing the orchestra again.

 

16 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

 

You're teeing up an exciting comparison for sure! Are you able to run the May at 32FS? I've been tracking the discussion on the thread, and getting the thing to operate at 20/32FS seems to be difficult. Hopefully you'll at least get it to work at 16/32FS and at 20/16FS. And as Ray already mentioned, be sure to process content for the TT2 at 32/16FS.

 

I will be curious to know for each DAC, the SQ difference before and after PGGB. Additionally, how they both compare to each other with the best configuration of PGGB.

 

With a firmware "downgrade" I'm able to listen at 32FS.  The May shipped with a firmware version that made it more compatible with a wider variety of usb devices, but by doing so they limited that version to 16FS.  Mine now works perfectly at 32FS and will be upsampling some tracks with PGGB to listen this evening.  I expect to further be astounded and will share my experiences.

 

I do have an open question however as the May is a 32 bit dac.  Jussi has recommended output at 20 bit for the Holo Spring.  I'm curious as to why we wouldn't be creating 32 bit upsampled files, as you mention 20/32FS.  Was that based on feedback in the thread alone?

 

[Johnseye]

16 minutes ago, Miska said:

Sending 32 bit to Holo Audio DACs will just result in last 8 bits being truncated (thrown away). The USB interface even reports that it is 24-bit in 32-bit sample container. HQPlayer can auto-detect this on Linux too. But 20-bit recommendation combined with NS5, NS9 or LNS15 noise shaper is based on measurements. Sending 24-bits there will just significantly increase distortion of especially low level signals and linearisation effect of noise shaper designed for this purpose is just lost because the conversion ladder doesn't have enough precision.

 

Correct way to come up with number of DAC bits is to measure the DAC's analog output. (I have a reason why I have invested tens of thousands of Euros on measurement gear)

 

 

If the 20 bit recommendation was based on measurements with NS9 or LNS15 then could it be different for PGGB?

 

There is a difference in sound that @hols is experiencing.  I suppose it's possible Hols likes the sound of some distortion.  I don't mean that in a negative way because a lot of what characterizes the sound of something, can be some form of distortion.

[Johnseye]

10 minutes ago, Zaphod Beeblebrox said:

In addition to what Jussi has said above, which I agree with, if file size is a concern, you could disable noise shaping in PGGB and set the output to 32bits. Then use HQPe as you normally do.

 

 

 

Is this done by turning Adaptive Noise shaping off?  Then does that disable the three preferences: transparency, presentation and HF filter?

 

[Johnseye]

3 hours ago, Gavin1977 said:

Gustard X26 Pro up and running .  Little bit lack luster to start with, but then I installed the latest firmware and drivers and it took a very nice step forward.

 

One thing I can't get past though is the USB driver (either v5.0 or v5.4) on Windows LTSC only seems to allow 32 bit / 384kHz max sample rate, yet X26 Pro is capable of 32 / 768...

 

Is this a Windows issue, am I forced to use HQPlayer or Euphony to pass the PGGB files through?

 

Chord DACs do 32 / 768 no problems in Windows, but the X26 doesn't have an ASIO driver set by the looks of it.

 

@SwissBear and @kennyb123 What do you do?

 

Euphony Stylus doesn't support wave pack above 192k. I'm dealing with similar issues. HQPlayer does though. 

 

I know you're looking for a Windows solution but thought I'd share.