Lucky/Unlucky with HQPlayer on Mac platform

[Kalpesh]

 

This thread is intended to differ from the M1 one by:

 

Ooh, broadening the scope to all Macs
Otoh, narrowing the focus on if a particular Mac Plays fine/Does not with regards to desirable settings

 

My goal, and I guess it will be of interest to others, is to make an informed decision about the replacement (or not) of my MM1 8 Go RAM.

With that machine I can, using convolution and, including Mch downfold to Stereo, ouput :

 

•     @ 256 SDM all PCM sources with rates up to 192 (384 untested) with 7EC Super and its 512 variant with satisfying filters ie Sinc MG/a or gauss hires lp
Guess 512 and 1024 are desirable but no real frustration there

•    @384 PCM all PCM sources with rates up to 192 (384 untested ) with Sinc Long filter.
That is frustrating and far from 1.5 M May (my DAC) capability that proves superior to lower rates with filters I could up that far. Yet with 1x sources it sounds good (I prefer SDM route and hires lp or Sinc MG with higher rates)

•    @128 SDM 64 SDM sources, (above and Mch : NO) with 7EC Light
And source file has to be in a RAM disk and it’s not occasional glitches free
That is very frustrating…..

 

Plus I have RAM swapping almost all the time : I wonder if I would be so eager to churn a 16 Go RAM MM1…

 

And you, what can you play with your Mac ?
 

[Currawong]

I always go for the most RAM that's sanely affordable. I bought the 13" MacBook Pro M2. What is now basically available as an Air but with a larger screen. 

I haven't had anything that can accept beyond DSD512, but I did try out the latest modulator in HQPlayer 5 with good results and no issues beyond weird problems where a directly connected DAC wouldn't accept DSD, but one networked through an iFi Neo Stream would.

 

PCM up to 768k has been fine. The demands are far lower than for DSD.  My 2019 i5 iMac can't do DSD512 reliably from HQPlayer though, last I tried it.