[dericchan1]

Yes, what you describe is why so many people love the Chord DACs and their extremely long filters. I am not being critical here or saying there is anything wrong with that, but I think you already what I was thinking very, very well.

Nah, I am finding the longer filter, the more smear in the highs and muddies the bass too, which is perfectly fine for slower pace music, or jazz/classical, but it’s really apparent say you listen to more complex/faster pace/bass music - say Green Day, Rancid, Metallica…

 

[MLGrado]

would poly-sinc gauss-short be also ideal for high rez PCM and 44.1/48khz

as I like to use a universal filter instead of keeping to change them

yeah, it would be fine I think, but you don't have to change them... you set one for each. The software applies your choices appropriately.

But if I were going to just set one filter for everything, I probably would go for poly-sinc-gauss for all before I would use the short filter on 44.1/48k material.

Here we get into the benefits of such powerful filtering software in HQPlayer. If I were using the onboard filtering of most DACs, for the sake of transient preservation I would use a short filter or even NOS filter on 44.1/48khz files. But HQPlayer does an excellent job preserving transient response without leaving behind many aliasing/imaging artifacts using a 'medium' filter like poly-sinc-gauss. Transient response will still be fine with high rez files.

 

[MLGrado]

Nah, I am finding the longer filter, the more smear in the highs and muddies the bass too, which is perfectly fine for slower pace music, or jazz/classical, but it’s really apparent say you listen to more complex/faster pace/bass music - say Green Day, Rancid, Metallica…

indeed.

that is my preferred genres, (jazz/classical) and the longer filters with their delay lines create a larger reverberation in the sound stage.

While I indeed am not always a purist when it comes to audio (I like what I like haha), the purist indeed comes out in this case. I prefer accurate sound stage for say, a jazz club, than a overly large or reverberant stage. So I tend to stay away from the overly long filters even though so many enjoy them. Again, I would never say there is a right or wrong answer here. Sometimes I think 'audiophiles' shame folks for their preferences. My mantra has always been to listen to what you like, and listen to it in the way you enjoy it most. Who cares what others think


I actually do a lot of DAC reviews, and the filters that come on-board any given DAC really don't sound very different at all. They DO, but it can be a mind-bending exercise to hear it.

Not the case with HQPlayer. The superiority of the software run on powerful PC hardware takes things to a whole new level.

 

[dericchan1]

indeed.

that is my preferred genres, (jazz/classical) and the longer filters with their delay lines create a larger reverberation in the sound stage.

While I indeed am not always a purist when it comes to audio (I like what I like haha), the purist indeed comes out in this case. I prefer accurate sound stage for say, a jazz club, than a overly large or reverberant stage. So I tend to stay away from the overly long filters even though so many enjoy them. Again, I would never say there is a right or wrong answer here. Sometimes I think 'audiophiles' shame folks for their preferences. My mantra has always been to listen to what you like, and listen to it in the way you enjoy it most. Who cares what others think


I actually do a lot of DAC reviews, and the filters that come on-board any given DAC really don't sound very different at all. They DO, but it can be a mind-bending exercise to hear it.

Not the case with HQPlayer. The superiority of the software run on powerful PC hardware takes things to a whole new level.

Indeed last night I let qobuz keep playing piano solo, violin and some chamber music through the night with the pro idsd and using the poly sinc hb 2s and thought that was really good haha

 

[MLGrado]

Indeed last night I let qobuz keep playing piano solo, violin and some chamber music through the night with the pro idsd and using the poly sinc hb 2s and thought that was really good haha

The Pro iDSD is one of the exceptions where a lot of care went into the filters on their FPGA. Honestly I have NOT really used HQPlayer with it. Seems like an obvious thing to do with native DSD up to 1024fs. (Although the best performance may come at 512fs... the sweet spot. At the fastest speeds the digital logic can create extra noise that actually causes the SNR to be lower at DSD1024 vs DSD512. I imagine this will be the case with many DACs. DSD512 is more than enough headroom for the HQPlayer noiseshapers to reach insane performance levels)

 

[sendler2112]

I'm still struggling to find any settings that allow direct DSD over LAN into the Gustard A26 to sound even close to the best I can get when selecting PCM. The DSD is overly smooth and lacking details and speed in the highs. I can use ASDM7EC-super (for a while until my processors start to overheat and skip) and have tried several of the oversamplers. PCM768 using P-S-G xla on the other hand is a big step up from just playing a 44.1k file out through Foobar ASIO.

 

[jlaako]

NAA should be hardwired, I was never able to get it an NAA to work reliably over WiFi even at lower rates. Someone smarter than me can chime in here but I believe it has something to do with latency.

It should now work better with NAA v5...

I believe Red OS is still on NAA v4 component. But you could have another microSD card with NAA OS.

 

[sendler2112]

What settings do you have on the A26?
And what are your go to musical genres?

I couldn't get my laptop to find the correct permissions to share a LAN directly to the Gustard A26 so I'm running generic Cat6 LAN from the laptop to my router (ripped it off the wall and drug a cable across the house on the floor into my bedroom-some things are important), and Cat6 form the router to the A26. which, is set to DSD direct, Wild Filter, LAN, and shows that is is receiving DSD 11.2M. The ASDM7ec-super is the best sounding modulator for DSD256 I've tried and I have tried several fan favorite oversampler settings and am now on Poly-Sinc ext2.
The PCM 768 P-S-G-xla/ TPDF has a deeper/ wider soundstage with better fine resolution of reverb tails and more separation between the instruments. But can sound a bit lean. And I can still hear the filters in the DAC. The faux NOS Super Slow still has some reduction in the high treble so I have to use the Fast to keep from attenuating the highs. Even though I think I might be hearing some pre-ringing of the snare. with this filter The Low Dispersion Short is also ok. DSD is more robust and pure but loses some depth and fine detail of the reverb and hall sound.

I don't really accept that music genre should matter. Sounds better is sounds better. But my personal collection tends to focus around rock and progressive. Many of the Steely Dan recordings are excellent test tracks. Drum kit is important. But I also test with audiophile recordings like Chesky samplers.

 

[dericchan1]

With rock and pop those shorter minimum phase filters are going to help. Long linear filters will disrupt transients.
Do you have the A26 set to listening or monitoring?
Also some of what you are describing to hear just might not be in the recording but are caused by “effects” of the filters.
Reverb could be pre echoes, hall sound/space could be blurred transients caused by post ringing of long filters.
Then comes what you have trained your ears to hear.
Many people don't mention this but over time our brains become trained to accept certain sound. Any deviation from that sounds “off”. Even if it’s better or more accurate. Our brains are not used to it and they tend to reject what they aren’t used to. Just something to consider.

Yes, for many of us having been listening to pcm for the longest times, it may take our ears some times to adjust to the cleaner, smoother, better coherency of dsd. I might be the odd exception that the moment I listened to dsd, I was in love with it and could not have ditched the harsh boxy sound of pcm soon enough

 

[dericchan1]

The Pro iDSD is one of the exceptions where a lot of care went into the filters on their FPGA. Honestly I have NOT really used HQPlayer with it. Seems like an obvious thing to do with native DSD up to 1024fs. (Although the best performance may come at 512fs... the sweet spot. At the fastest speeds the digital logic can create extra noise that actually causes the SNR to be lower at DSD1024 vs DSD512. I imagine this will be the case with many DACs. DSD512 is more than enough headroom for the HQPlayer noiseshapers to reach insane performance levels)

Hi chief. For your dsc2, just like to confirm if you have any issues with some kind of interference/noise when you do dsdx44.1? I previously had enabled 48k dsd, and checked adaptive family rate so 44.1 source gets upsample to 22Mhz dsd and that gives me some weird interference like RF.

I have now set to dsd512x48 and checked on 48k, disabled adaptive rate family so everything gets upsample to 24Mhz dsd regardless of 44.1 or 48 source and no such interference/noise

 

[MLGrado]

Hi chief. For your dsc2, just like to confirm if you have any issues with some kind of interference/noise when you do dsdx44.1? I previously had enabled 48k dsd, and checked adaptive family rate so 44.1 source gets upsample to 22Mhz dsd and that gives me some weird interference like RF.

I have now set to dsd512x48 and checked on 48k, disabled adaptive rate family so everything gets upsample to 24Mhz dsd regardless of 44.1 or 48 source and no such interference/noise

not that I have noticed. well not yet.


Although that is one of the things with true DSD converters... they can be picky like that. The SMSL D400 PRO with AK4191 + AK4499EX that allowed access to the AKM bypass mode (the AK 4499 series is the first that uses trimmed resistors and not switched capacitors for the DSD digital to analog conversion) was very picky with 44.1 vs 48khz rates. Anything at 48khz would actually playback at 44.1khz... yeah, it sounded like a tape with its battery running down!! HAHAHA it was kind of comical.

Clarify for me a bit.. Do you want both 44.1 and 48khz rates to all oversample to the same 'usual' DSD rates? 2.8mhz, 5.6mhz, 11.2mhz, etc?

Or do you just want those rates for 44.1khz based sample rates, with 48khz being 3.1mhz, 6.2mhz, 12.3mhz, (ish) etc?

The DSC2 doesn't care unlike a lot of DACs, it can do 44.1x64 and 48x64 (44.1x128 48x128) etc. etc. no problem.


My HQPlayer settings look like this and it converts both rate families with no noise issues I have yet heard. It all works for me just fine.. No strange noise issues at this time. I have NOT yet upgraded from version 5.02 though. The original version I purchased. Upgrades leave me feeling a bit leery when everything I want to do is working just fine at the time.... if it ain't broke.. yada yada yada...

So you ARE having noise issues with oversampling 44.khz rate family to DSD? I will do some experimenting and see if I can replicate.

 

[dericchan1]

not that I have noticed. well not yet.


Although that is one of the things with true DSD converters... they can be picky like that. The SMSL D400 PRO with AK4191 + AK4499EX that allowed access to the AKM bypass mode (the AK 4499 series is the first that uses trimmed resistors and not switched capacitors for the DSD digital to analog conversion) was very picky with 44.1 vs 48khz rates. Anything at 48khz would actually playback at 44.1khz... yeah, it sounded like a tape with its battery running down!! HAHAHA it was kind of comical.

Clarify for me a bit.. Do you want both 44.1 and 48khz rates to all oversample to the same 'usual' DSD rates? 2.8mhz, 5.6mhz, 11.2mhz, 22.4,mhz, 44.8mhz?

Or do you just want those rates for 44.1khz based sample rates, with 48khz being 3.1mhz, 6.2mhz, 12.3mhz, 24.5,hz, etc?

The DSC2 doesn't care unlike a lot of DACs, it can do 44.1x64 and 48x64 (44.1x128 48x128) etc. etc. no problem.


My HQPlayer settings look like this and it converts both rate families with no noise issues I have yet heard. It all works for me just fine.. No strange noise issues at this time. I have NOT yet upgraded from version 5.02 though. The original version I purchased. Upgrades leave me feeling a bit leery when everything I want to do is working just fine at the time.... if it ain't broke.. yada yada yada...

So you ARE having noise issues with oversampling 44.khz rate family to DSD? I will do some experimenting and see if I can replicate.

Thanks, only in some occasions I think. Setting output rate fixed at 24.5M seem to have fix it.

 

[MLGrado]

Thanks, only in some occasions I think. Setting output rate fixed at 24.5M seem to have fix it.

Something else to consider. I actually politely argued with the guys from Channel Classics (Native DSD) about some of their native DSD files having audible low level noise. Very very low in level, probably close to the limits of human hearing. But it was non-linear distortion. It was not my DAC. I think I was using an iFi iDSD Black Label at the time. It was only on one or two Channel Classics out of about 100 that I ended up owning over the years. I chalked it up to the Pyramix modulators and/or DSP performed in DXD then remodulated.

So in very rare cases, I think noise can be inherent in final bitstream delivery product.

 

[dericchan1]

Something else to consider. I actually politely argued with the guys from Channel Classics (Native DSD) about some of their native DSD files having audible low level noise. Very very low in level, probably close to the limits of human hearing. But it was non-linear distortion. It was not my DAC. I think I was using an iFi iDSD Black Label at the time. It was only on one or two Channel Classics out of about 100 that I ended up owning over the years. I chalked it up to the Pyramix modulators and/or DSP performed in DXD then remodulated.

So in very rare cases, I think noise can be inherent in final bitstream delivery product.

That could very well be possible actually. I will just have to listen to the dsc2 more to see anymore issues.

Cheers

 

[MLGrado]

That could very well be possible actually. I will just have to listen to the dsc2 more to see anymore issues.

Cheers

What is your opinion on oversampling to DSD? Should everything be oversampled to the same rate? I.E, 44.1 and 48khz both to 2,822,400 hz? Or should 48khz be oversampled to (I believe my math is correct) 3,072,000 hz?


I would think the even integer oversampling would be the best way to go, and is how I have my system setup, but considering how many DACs actually do not support DSD at any base rates other than 44.1khz, I wonder sometimes. Perhaps it is easier therefore cheaper to just oversample both to the same sample rate?