Best investment to upgrade my digital chain?

[frieddr]

57 minutes ago, dericchan1 said:

OP = Original poster 

 

Please take a screen shot of your hqplayer settings so we can see what pcm filter, dithering settings you have chosen…… I have a feeling it might be a matter of settings or filter choices.

 

Filter choice can also depend on the genre of music being played.

 

Deric

 

[frieddr]

56 minutes ago, dericchan1 said:

OP = Original poster 

 

Please take a screen shot of your hqplayer settings so we can see what pcm filter, dithering settings you have chosen…… I have a feeling it might be a matter of settings or filter choices.

 

Filter choice can also depend on the genre of music being played.

 

Deric

 

[dericchan1]

Hi I would try the following: 

 

There should be an option to choose "default output mode", set to "PCM"

 

PCM settings

1X and NX Filter - Sinc-LI that's fine for jazz/classical. You can experiment the poly-sinc gauss filter variants as well

For pop-rock/alternative ...... try Poly-sinc short MP or poly-sinc XTR short filters

Dither - try Gauss1

Sample rate and rate limit set to 768k

set buffer time to 100ms as a starter

 

Cheers

 

Deric

 

 

 

[frieddr]

On 11/2/2022 at 1:18 PM, creativepart said:

It's a problem with some Linux Audio module. Sonore has put a work around in it's admin panel that you can click to automatically install and set a volume setting that solves this issue. But SoTM doesn't and doesn't provide SSH Login for a user that is Linux Savvy to modify the Linux Kernal to fix the issue.

 

On my SoTM after installing the SRC-DX the output volume was so low that you couldn't tell that there was any sound from the unit. However, if I raised the volume to it's highest point I could hear it a little. So, it was working.

 

When I contacted the developer he wanted me to request a SSH login from SoTM and custom install a Linux Audio setting module and then set up some specific volume settings in the module. I refused to attempt this. The developer said he did have one user that had done this step and found it to work. I didn't want to do command line Linux customization to get the product to work - which would have required me to do this each and every time I updated the device's firmware.

 

The developer said he would charge a restocking fee of 10% and I complained. I had the unit only one or two hours. He said, "Send it back and I'll do what I can about the fee." So, I sent it back in the oem packaging and shipping materials and he refunded my purchase price minus the full restocking fee.

 

It does say in a disclaimer on his website that "some linux" devices have a sound issue - but to me the SoTM is a plug and play device. Sure, like many devices it runs on a custom Linux background but I didn't expect it to be a "Linux device." And, the developer had run into this previously with the SMS200 - why not disclose that up front before purchase, as well.

 

If I sound bitter it's because he didn't disclose the SoTM problem and charging a restocking fee seems unreasonable in this instance. He told me if I sent it back with all the OEM packaging and shipping that he'd see what he could do about the fee. I expected him to wave the fee. The unit was new and unused in OEM packing. So, when he charged the $50 fee without comment I felt taken advantage of.

I've finally got Hqplayer setting sorted and running and its a significant increase in holographic separation. The SRC-DX is something I would definitely try, but it sounds like a nonstarter with SoTM.  Bummer.  Im going to check with SoTM in Korea to see if there's been a software update.

[davide256]

2 hours ago, frieddr said:

I've finally got Hqplayer setting sorted and running and its a significant increase in holographic separation. The SRC-DX is something I would definitely try, but it sounds like a nonstarter with SoTM.  Bummer.  Im going to check with SoTM in Korea to see if there's been a software update.

The SRC-DX volume issue I also had  with HQPe and Euphony last year after a Linux kernel update... Linux had changed default volume to 65% for some  devices, and

it was classifying the SRC-DX as equivalent to a DAC dongle.

Later version of Euphony reset the volume back to 100%, not sure if this was Euphony developer coding or a later Linux kernel changing the default back.

[frieddr]

On 11/1/2022 at 4:26 PM, creativepart said:

My $.02... I have the SoTM SMS200 Ultra, the SP500 Power Supply and Chord Qutest powered by a Sbooster power supply. I feed the SMS200 Ultra via a separate low cost switch so, my setup is kind of similar to yours. It's sounds pretty good. But like you, I assume it could still be better.

 

I looked at a lot of the same things as you. I concluded that a used TT2 would "probably" be the best next step up. Either that or go to a HoloAudio Spring Level 3 DAC or similarly priced DAC.

 

I decided the least expensive thing to try was HQPlayer via Roon. It's a couple hundred dollars and it was easy to set up. You get a 30-day Free Trial but I like the sound improvement enough that I bought the license on day three of the trial.

 

I started with 708/32 PCM settings and an included filter that was developed to be a "software Mscaler" with a million taps. That worked really well and the sound was improved for a couple hundred dollars. Since then with some more trial and error I've switched the HQP settings to DSD256 and I like that even better.

 

I'm still convinced a DAC upgrade would improve things even more - and the TT2 or the Spring Level 3 or similar would be further improvement. But I'm happy enough at this point to hold right here for a while more.

Hey did you ever experience pops or snow at 768K.  Something about my chain makes higher than 192k hard to digest...  

[creativepart]

4 minutes ago, frieddr said:

Hey did you ever experience pops or snow at 768K.  Something about my chain makes higher than 192k hard to digest...  

Sometimes when playing Qobuz 48k PCM files at 768k I had some glitches, but not at the slightly lower 708k. But now I'm using DSD256 all the time without any problems. Putting in 10msec of buffer helped as well.