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

[Fourlegs]

ANTIPODES Streamers and PGGB Files.

 

For anyone owning or looking to own an Antipodes streamer and use it to play PGGB files they might be interested that since the roll out of the new Antipodes 3.1 software we now have access to later versions of the Server and Player apps.

 

Some of us have been playing with the Squeeze Server and Squeezelite Player apps and have been pleased to find that when the C-3PO plugin is enabled it is possible to play the PGGB 705 and 768kHz files through Squeeze / Squeezelite.

 

I had previously been using MPD to play PGGB files on my K50 but I am now totally bowled over by the SQ of PGGB when played through the Squeeze Server and Squeezelite Player apps on the K50. This is outputting USB to a PhoenixUSB connected to a SRC-DX which then outputs via dual BNC to a DC4 ARC6 Dave. The SQ with Squeeze/Squeezelite just took a big leap forward for me playing PGGB files (this is with 24bit files which is the limit for BNC).

[seeteeyou]

While I fully understand the fact that PGGB-RT could only handle individual tracks (i.e. actual lossless music format) that are stored on local drives / NAS, reading these threads by @Cebolla below provided some hints for bridging foobar2000 to LMS

 

https://forum.vb-audio.com/viewtopic.php?t=747

https://www.avforums.com/threads/streaming-mqa-using-tidal.2076126/page-2#post-24721823

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/29124-how-to-route-signals-to-acourate-convolver-using-asio4all-vb-cable/#comment-576854

 

Someone wrote this Wave Input plugin for LMS as follows

 

https://sourceforge.net/projects/bpaplugins/files/OtherPlugins/WaveInputWin-v105.ZIP

https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?35718-Announce-Wave-Input-plugin-v1-00

 

Basically we could do something similar to this by replacing HQ Player with LMS

 

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/the-hqplayer-thread.11376/

 

foobar2000 → PGGB-RT → HIFI-Cable & ASIO Bridge → Wave Input → LMS & C-3PO → Squeezelite → USB DAC

 

Though not sure if that were able to go above 96KHz

 

https://forum.vb-audio.com/viewtopic.php?t=397

 

Then there's also Reaper and Synchronous Audio Router

 

http://sar.audio

https://www.reaper.fm/download.php

https://www.bilibili.com/read/cv7364768

https://github.com/eiz/SynchronousAudioRouter

https://groupdiy.com/threads/768-khz.74336/#post-941017

Quote

Reaper handles 768 kHz just fine. I suspect some other DAWs do too.

 

[No Quarter]

3 hours ago, Fourlegs said:

For anyone owning or looking to own an Antipodes streamer and use it to play PGGB files they might be interested that since the roll out of the new Antipodes 3.1 software we now have access to later versions of the Server and Player apps.

Thanks Nick for that info, I have been slumming it with an IFI Zen stream since I traded in all my gear for new speakers. I see you no longer list an Innous Statement as one of your components, but have the Phoenix and Zenith listed…along with the Antipodes. I am thinking about starting my next round of upgrades with the Zenith, adding a Phoenix and new Dac as funds allow it. Do you think this is a good path to take, or Antipodes would be better?

I am still interested in PGGB eventually.

[seeteeyou]

FYI - here's a highly optimized version of Squeezelite (by Ralph Irving instead of Squeezelite-R2 by Marco Curti) for Arch Linux

 

https://www.stsd99.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=20388#p20388

 

Source code

 

https://www.my-hiend.com/vbb/showthread.php?13157-piCorePlayer6-1-0-Xenomai-44-1-48KHz雙機入門簡易安裝教學&p=244803#post244803

 

ALSA Library for Arch Linux

 

https://www.my-hiend.com/vbb/showthread.php?13157-piCorePlayer6-1-0-Xenomai-44-1-48KHz雙機入門簡易安裝教學&p=245405#post245405

[Progisus]

I have my local library all converted to 16fs 24b pggb. I use an mscaler/tt2 with src-dx dual coax to the bnc mscaler inputs for streamed music. I have been playing my pggb files through the mscaler in dual bnc mode. I wondered if the mscaler processed these files or passed them through, so I asked Rob on head-fi and he answered,

 

”705/768 files are treated as the same as pass through mode - that is, scaled in volume (so all inputs stay at the same volume level) and then aggressively noise shaped to 24b for the BNC OPs. This means that 32b inputs are properly and transparently converted too”

 

What effect does this have on my pggb’d file? They still sound very good and it is very convenient. 

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

3 hours ago, Progisus said:

I have my local library all converted to 16fs 24b pggb. I use an mscaler/tt2 with src-dx dual coax to the bnc mscaler inputs for streamed music. I have been playing my pggb files through the mscaler in dual bnc mode. I wondered if the mscaler processed these files or passed them through, so I asked Rob on head-fi and he answered,

 

”705/768 files are treated as the same as pass through mode - that is, scaled in volume (so all inputs stay at the same volume level) and then aggressively noise shaped to 24b for the BNC OPs. This means that 32b inputs are properly and transparently converted too”

 

What effect does this have on my pggb’d file? They still sound very good and it is very convenient. 

 

That is correct, HMS is not a true pass through as BNC can only do 24 bits, it noise shapes and also reduces gain by 3dB. 

 Since you use the SRC-DX 32 bits is not an option and I do prefer 24bits via SRC-DX to 32 bits. So, the next choice for you is to see which you prefer, PGGB 16fS 24bit Dither or Noise shaped. I would suggest trying dither (the latest PGGB version supports dither).

[simorag]

@Innuos owners, have you been able to use your server with PGGB'ed files?

 

I know from a previous post from @Fourlegs that Innuos added support for 705.6/768kHz wav playback in version 2.0.4, then reverted back about this in version 2.0.5 for stability reasons.

 

I am at v2.0.8 here (latest build), so I was wondering if that capability has been restored.

 

P.S.: I have sent an e-mail to Innuos support about this during the weekend and will report here when I get a reply.

[Kalpesh]

Hello everybody, I'm thinking of giving PGGB a try. What are the best use cases ? in which conditions do you find it to best players such as HQP, Audirvana etc? with redbook ? with hires source ? does it work better with recent digital or old digital ? music genre ?

[Kalpesh]

is there a way to losslessly compress 64 bits wav file (I did not find on Google) ? 32 bits PGGBed files lose the immediacy of the 64 bits files that might make PGGB worth the trouble, at least with DDD piano recordings of late 80's/early 90's where I found going 8FS through PGGB to be beneficial so far. 64 is twice 32 but since I can't compress it's 4 times heavier !! 20 Gb per CD is crazy ! 5 would be more acceptable !!

64 bits no dither because I explore a PGGB/HQP combo with HQP doing the last mile

[peterlim8]

13 hours ago, Kalpesh said:

is there a way to losslessly compress 64 bits wav file (I did not find on Google) ? 32 bits PGGBed files lose the immediacy of the 64 bits files that might make PGGB worth the trouble, at least with DDD piano recordings of late 80's/early 90's where I found going 8FS through PGGB to be beneficial so far. 64 is twice 32 but since I can't compress it's 4 times heavier !! 20 Gb per CD is crazy ! 5 would be more acceptable !!

64 bits no dither because I explore a PGGB/HQP combo with HQP doing the last mile

 

I don't have the answer for you. However, I am curious to know what dac supports 64 bit? Thank you! 

[seeteeyou]

FYI - recently Intel updated the file tbb12.dll that's required for running PGGB-RT

 

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/release-notes/intel-oneapi-threading-building-blocks-release-notes.html

https://registrationcenter-download.intel.com/akdlm/irc_nas/18399/w_tbb_oneapi_p_2021.5.0.714_offline.exe

 

We could use 7-Zip to extract tbb12.dll from either file linked below

 

https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/7b/8d/b70ec6d0bcbeac5e74d3bf1ddf537907d91d11f66ab9e36b53d7fccfd555/tbb-2021.5.0-py3-none-win_amd64.whl

tbb-2021.5.0.data\data\Library\bin\tbb12.dll

 

https://globalcdn.nuget.org/packages/inteltbb.redist.win.2021.5.0.714.nupkg

runtimes\win-x64\native\tbb12.dll

 

[Kalpesh]

16 hours ago, peterlim8 said:

 

I don't have the answer for you. However, I am curious to know what dac supports 64 bit? Thank you! 

NOT a DAC !! the idea was to use a player, ie HQPlayer, to do the last upsampling mile, PGGB recommends 64 bits when further processing is intended (I  hear it's better than 32) . But since 8 FS 64 bits can not be compressed it's 4 times bigger than 8FS 32 bits compressed thus as big as 32 FS : not a good solution to save storage space.

 

I have a live recording of Richter and tried to combine putting the attached, adapted from your gift, it does not work

I have  tried to combine tracks of a live recording by putting the combine.json file provided by ZB, adapted of course, in the same folder as the tracks ; it does not work

 I even tried dropping all the tracks in the combine.json file, creating a list...

nothing works for me… what do I do wrong ?

@Zaphod Beeblebrox

is this a trial limitation ?
 

[seeteeyou]

https://audiophilestyle.com/profile/12166-kelvinwsy/?tab=field_core_pfield_3

Quote

iFi iDSD BL to 300B tube monobloc amp output to resistance box to HD800 modified with analixus foam mods/Hifiman HE560/AudioTechnica AD1000/Sonorous VI Headphones

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/19715-hq-player/page/922/#comment-1174168

19 minutes ago, kelvinwsy said:

I ran conparisions of 705.6 PGGB fikes(44.1 khz orig) with zero filters and dither.. The PGGB tracks sounded vague and stereo location of instruments not dead center was off .. sort of vague location.. PCM upsampling to ..705.6 gave far suoerior cleaning up of the sound of the original 44.1 khz source track.. 

This was done with Hqpkayer 4.15.1!!

DSD512/EC7v2 wiped the floor vs the PGGB tracks.. 

I had done same comparisions with Hwplayer  4.13.1 doing 705.6 khz PCM upsampling.. Results were not so conclusive to my ears! 

Hqplayer 4.15 has made great SQ improvemts even for PCM upsampling..

 

Very bold statements IMHO, maybe results really are DAC-dependent (i.e. no such thing as NOS from iFi) while we might also need either MPD or LMS + Squeezelite to keep PGGB tracks "untouched" so to speak?

 

https://ifi-audio.com/products/micro-idsd-bl/

Quote

PCM 768/705.6/384/352.8/192/176.4/96/88.2/48/44.1kHz

All native decoding, no internal hardware conversion

[kelvinwsy]

Of course .. All observations and comments are totally Dac and system dependent' zmy ears and my tastes as well as my gear are Mine!!

No slight on what PGGB hopes to achieve but online upsampling with especially aphrodising filters is much more to my tastes..

YMMV As usual

[ted_b]

2 minutes ago, kelvinwsy said:

but online upsampling with especially aphrodising filters is much more to my tastes.

I would love to play my wife some aphrodising filters.  😎

[kelvinwsy]

Another personal observation.. Purist audiophiles prefer Native Format and optimize their system to this end!

I can understand that BUT I own more than 25000 CD quality tracks .. a Small collection compared to Others. 

And I want to listen and enjoy each of these 25000 tracks as musically satisfying as possible...

But as many hv commented .. so much music out there has been damaged in the transfer to the digital medium..

So my simple aim is to set up my gear to enjoy as much of my collection as possible.

Listening to many 'flawed 44.1khz' tracks is just not possible without DSP to fix the flaws.

Just my few cenrs worth..

 

[Fourlegs]

29 minutes ago, seeteeyou said:

Very bold statements IMHO, maybe results really are DAC-dependent (i.e. no such thing as NOS from iFi) while we might also need either MPD or LMS + Squeezelite to keep PGGB tracks "untouched" so to speak?

 

Indeed and as you allude to, the software playback can have a significant effect on the overall sound quality such that if I was comparing PGGB I would want to use LMS server and Squeezelite player when comparing PGGB to anything else.

[austinpop]

2 hours ago, kelvinwsy said:

Of course .. All observations and comments are totally Dac and system dependent' zmy ears and my tastes as well as my gear are Mine!!

No slight on what PGGB hopes to achieve but online upsampling with especially aphrodising filters is much more to my tastes..

YMMV As usual

 

Interesting comments. It must be a DAC-dependent thing. 

 

I have no experience with the Micro iDSD Black Label, but I have compared PGGBed 24/16FS files on the iFI Pro iDSD. The comparison was:

• native files, using the built-in GTO (Gibbs Transient Optimized) filter
• PGGBed 24/16FS file, which automatically triggers the bit-perfect (BP) mode in the DAC.

For this comparison, the benefit of PGGB was large, and obvious. This was on a friend's setup, and he doesn't have HQP, so we never compared to HQP.

 

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

On 12/19/2021 at 7:04 PM, Kalpesh said:

NOT a DAC !! the idea was to use a player, ie HQPlayer, to do the last upsampling mile, PGGB recommends 64 bits when further processing is intended (I  hear it's better than 32) . But since 8 FS 64 bits can not be compressed it's 4 times bigger than 8FS 32 bits compressed thus as big as 32 FS : not a good solution to save storage space.

 

I have a live recording of Richter and tried to combine putting the attached, adapted from your gift, it does not work

I have  tried to combine tracks of a live recording by putting the combine.json file provided by ZB, adapted of course, in the same folder as the tracks ; it does not work

 I even tried dropping all the tracks in the combine.json file, creating a list...

nothing works for me… what do I do wrong ?

@Zaphod Beeblebrox

is this a trial limitation ?
 

I was taking a break for the past wo weeks. Though you should be able to combine files in trial mode, the problem in your case is you are trying to combine more than 5 tracks and so you hit the trial limit of 5 tracks. To experiment with combine, you will have to try and combine just the first 5 tracks.

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

On 12/18/2021 at 1:09 PM, Kalpesh said:

is there a way to losslessly compress 64 bits wav file (I did not find on Google) ? 32 bits PGGBed files lose the immediacy of the 64 bits files that might make PGGB worth the trouble, at least with DDD piano recordings of late 80's/early 90's where I found going 8FS through PGGB to be beneficial so far. 64 is twice 32 but since I can't compress it's 4 times heavier !! 20 Gb per CD is crazy ! 5 would be more acceptable !!

64 bits no dither because I explore a PGGB/HQP combo with HQP doing the last mile

• Have you tried to compare results with 32bit dither option out of PGGB and further processing with HQP?
• What further processing are you doing on HQP? PGGB allows you to apply a EQ and also apply a fixed gain.

[Kalpesh]

2 hours ago, Zaphod Beeblebrox said:

I was taking a break for the past wo weeks. Though you should be able to combine files in trial mode, the problem in your case is you are trying to combine more than 5 tracks and so you hit the trial limit of 5 tracks. To experiment with combine, you will have to try and combine just the first 5 tracks.

yet you replied to a few emails during your break : thank you. I wanted to try combine with a live recording of Beethoven's Diabelli variations : 33... won't do then. never mind

[Kalpesh]

1 hour ago, Zaphod Beeblebrox said:

• Have you tried to compare results with 32bit dither option out of PGGB and further processing with HQP?
• What further processing are you doing on HQP? PGGB allows you to apply a EQ and also apply a fixed gain.

yes. 32bit sounds congested compared to 64f when further processed on HQP for eQ and last mile from 352 to 1.4M. 

 

 

[davide256]

I really wanted the Ares II to work out as a budget DAC for 7xx/24 playback but in the end Chord Mojo despite its lesser mid range won out purely because it played

tracks with polyphonic chords accurately, the Ares on up-sampled 3xx/7xx music created a false harmonic. Have since tried an SRC-DX even though with a Mojo its

limited to 3xx rates out ( does down sample from 7xx to 3xx without doing anything in software using Stylus or HQP so thumbs up for compatibility).

There is a fine trade off, using the SRC-DX at 3xx is less resolving, more irritants,  but piano attack is clean vs clangorous using USB in at 7xx.

 

Wondering at this point whether I should proceed with upgrade to a Hugo 2 using the SRC-DX or whether something like a Holo Spring 3 with its USB in would be comparable?

[davide256]

deleted

[seeteeyou]

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/62699-a-toast-to-pggb-a-heady-brew-of-math-and-magic/page/32/#comment-1145137

On 7/3/2021 at 1:25 PM, romaz said:

Where PGGB has the potential to be a leveler is with DACs, especially DACs incapable of high sample rates.  For example, I found the $1,500 Gustard X26 Pro + PGGB to outperform (at least to my ears) another much more expensive DAC without PGGB.

 

PGGB (especially PGGB EQ) has the potential to also be a leveler with amplifiers.  I am still seriously astounded by how much better my bass has gotten with PGGB EQ.  I feel like I have seriously upgraded my amplifiers.

 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/cx-ex-k-s-antipodes-owners-unite.932942/page-71#post-16597377

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/cx-ex-k-s-antipodes-owners-unite.932942/page-74#post-16621566

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/cx-ex-k-s-antipodes-owners-unite.932942/page-92#post-16672302

Quote

The Gustard was a significant step up from the TT2, which is astonishing given the price difference. PGGB is a factor in this as I run the Gustard in NOS mode. It‘s not truly non-oversampling but it lets the magic come through. Likewise for scaling with HQPlayer for everything else.

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/63585-article-denafrips-terminator-ii-review-and-comparison/#comment-1150886

On 8/4/2021 at 3:32 AM, Fourlegs said:

As to the Holo May, I owned a L2 one for three weeks and just couldn’t like it no matter how hard I tried. But then I was comparing it to a Dave powered by a Sean Jacobs DC4 LPS. I had hoped that the Holo May would shine when playing PGGB 16FS or even 32FS files in NOS mode but it was not to be.

 

Most likely Gustard should be one of the best choices for PGGB, its I²S input is also compatible with Titans Audio Lab Helen

 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/review-titans-audio-lab-helen-jitter-reducer-signal-enhancer.895007/

 

So we could do something like Gustard S16 → Titans Audio Lab Helen → Gustard X26 Pro or music server → Gustard U18 → Titans Audio Lab Helen → Gustard X26 Pro etc.

 

Those 4K HDMI cables from Nordost / 8K HDMI cables from AudioQuest are great for I²S connections

 

https://forum.psaudio.com/t/which-hdmi-cable-are-you-getting-for-your-new-perfectwave-sacd-transport/21409