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

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Sounds interesting but I wonder if I can utilize this effectively with the Yggdrasil DAC. I have a rather small library of flac files which sound really good in their default redbook format. Would the idea be to upsample these files using PGGB to the highest input sample rate of the DAC? Or, would it not be so worthwhile with a DAC that accepts only up to 24/192?

 

Cheers,

-Rob

 

 

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Well - my trusty Lenovo P1 laptop seems to be up to the task. I maxed out the specs and thought it would be overkill but those 32 GB of RAM and 6 cores (with hyperthreading) are coming in handy for PGGB. Probably not the "ideal" machine but it seems to be getting through 5 songs in a rather timely manner.

 

Goal of this test:

To determine if the Yggy can benefit from 4FS PGGB files. (in my system)

 

The Yggy is rated at 21-bits, so, assuming the spec is applicable here I have chosen that bit depth. I will also try 16 bits, since some have measured the Yggy to be linear to that point as well.

 

Here is my starting point. The plan is to try the "Airy" mode for my DSD albums:

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14 hours ago, Zaphod Beeblebrox said:

I would also also suggest trying 1024M taps, will come in handy for DSD and see how that goes.

Done.

 

During my lunch break today I decided to play an assortment of PGGB processed files.

 

For the 4FS Folk

I started with the DSD64 Dave Brubeck - Take Five track. Front Row, Moderate, Moderate, 4FS output. This really sounds good. Much better than the original.

 

I moved on to some harsher sounding tracks, like Daft Punk's "Contact" where I left the default configurations in place, converting from Redbook to 4FS. The song is a lot more listenable now and bass just sounds more detailed and dynamic. Highs are detailed and much smoother.

 

Then moved on to Jazz at the Pawnshop. It was the "highlife track" that I had chose to process 3 times because my daughter really enjoys this track. First file was with default settings, the 2nd version Front row, the 3rd version Front row with moderate presentation. I got through the first version and i'm really liking the new presentation. I listen to this track often so I am very familiar with it. PRAT seems better, more dynamics, better defined soundstage. I got to the 2nd version the file to compare with the default version but then I got a work call and had to switch gears.

 

Long story short, I will be buying a PGGB license. There are benefits for 4FS input limited DACS and it will likely be even more impactful down the line.

 

Cheers,

-Rob

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On 5/1/2021 at 12:57 PM, bbosler said:

OK, I tried it. I processed a variety of files with the default settings in PGGB to 16FS. I played them back using HQplayer with all processing settings set to none , volume at 0dB. 

 

Mac Mini >>> HQP >>> USB >>> Denafrips Hermes DDC >>> I2S >>> Denafrips Terminator Plus set to NOS

 

a little different but definitely not a "game changer." You may think the Mac Mini is the "problem" and maybe you are correct, but as is it sounds fantastic and no way I'll ever invest $25,000 in an Extreme computer to play music.

 

Maybe it is the difference in a Chord DAVE and the T+. If that's the case is it possible you are compensating for inherent deficiencies in the DAVE that the T+ doesn't have? Maybe I just prefer the R2R with no processing versus whatever additional processing the DAVE does. It does strike me as being a bit extreme to use PGGB to upsample to 16FS  and then the DAVE takes that file and upsamples it to 256FS. That said, if it works for you then I'm all for it ... for you. 

 

Not worth the trouble of converting and managing another library of files. Not worth buying all of the albums I really like that are included in my Tidal and Qobuz subscriptions. Not worth switching back and forth from Roon with HQP set to upsample  when I stream to HQP alone and changing settings each time I want to listen to the PGGB files. . Not worth $500... I would rather have 15-20 new records. 

 

Not worth means not worth it to me. I'm glad you guys are enjoying this so much but in case you haven't figured it out ......this isn't for me. 

 

Enjoy, and thanks to Zaphod for helping me get it set up.

Thanks for sharing your experience with us. Secretly I was hoping it would be of no benefit to me with a 4FS dac, that way I could hold off on buying a license until I had a DAC fully capability of accepting higher sample rates. Unfortunately for my wallet that ended up not being the case :)

 

BTW:

I misspoke in my original post. The Daft Punk album was actually 88.1k Hi-Res, not Redbook.