M Scaler vs. HQPlayer

[dmance]

From a purely number crunching perspective of Sinc filters and noise shapers, both MScaler and HQPlayer are very close ...with HQPlayer's SINC-L PCM filter at 2M taps (vs MScaler 1M taps) and LNS-15 15th order noise shaper (vs MScaler 11th order) being able to retrieve more details at 16fs upsampling, IMO.

However that is not the entire story. If you are using USB to get the bitstream to your DAC, any RF noise accompanying the digital signal gets into the DACs clocking and small-signal processing. So a comparison of PC+HQP->DAC vs PC->MScaler->DAC also includes the variation in RF emissions from the PC doing the heavy lifting vs the MScaler. 

If you want a revelation in sound quality from your Chord DX DAC, your chain should be: PC+HQP->SCR-DX->DAC or, if you have the funds, PC+HQP->SRC-DX->OPTO-DX->DAC with OPTO-DX on battery power. Yes, its a chain of black boxes and wires that needs to be tucked away ... but it gets you a pragmatic solution to the elimination of RF noise (at least in the signal!).