Do better DACs benefit from upsampling the source (HQPlayer)? Does HQPlayer just change the sound?

KostasP.

Well-Known Member
May 6, 2016
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Melbourne
Amir,

Thank you for your knowledge and detailed explanations on this ( and other topics ) rather complex and obscure digital school with its different philosophies, approaches and implementations.

If one can't make quintessential knowledge a servant, then make her a friend!. Some, by the way, should allow their axes to slowly rust and jettison their small-heartedness and revengefulness.

I listen always learning. Cheers, Kostas.
 

Mike Lavigne

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 25, 2010
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What "fully developed" means, exactly, could be open to interpretation. However, in the frequency domain, the desired analog signal band is fully present. It's located from D.C. to 22kHz. The issue is that there also are undesired repeating copies of the signal band present.

there is that word 'fully' again.

i'll agree that the 'intended' analog signal band is present. whether we would all agree it's 'fully developed' is a question for another thread.

let's move on.
 

amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
15,813
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0
Seattle, WA
Amir,

Thank you for your knowledge and detailed explanations on this ( and other topics ) rather complex and obscure digital school with its different philosophies, approaches and implementations.

If one can't make quintessential knowledge a servant, then make her a friend!. Some, by the way, should allow their axes to slowly rust and jettison their small-heartedness and revengefulness.

I listen always learning. Cheers, Kostas.
Kostas, as always, you have an elegant way to put things to words. Thank you for the kind words. :)

Cheers to you too.
 

cat6man

Well-Known Member
Feb 6, 2013
891
995
1,155
west of NYC, east of SF
Taiko is the manufacturer of the Sound Galleries Music Server. All of us on the team are agnostic about the DAC's we have tested, and try to highlight each DAC's strengths

The Chord Dave's high level of filter taps was indeed the motivation for Jussi Laako, the author of HQ Player, to develop Polysinc XTR.

Mike Moffat, of Schitt was indeed the inspiration and motivation for Jussi to develop and implement the Closed Form Filter in HQ Player which in our humble opinion is the best sounding filter for many RTR DAC's

one point worth mentioning here, regarding HQP, is that moving the renderer function to the PC makes my system significantly better.
i use HQP to feed a uRendu set up as an NAA, feeding a TotalDAC d1-dual............no upsampling, no dither..........the improvement is dramatic so somehow reducing the processing (noise?) at the uRendu improves the sound,
smoother and wider imaging, great detail without fatigue.

i have experimented very little with upsampling/filters and found nothing sounded better than plain unfiltered native PCM.

however, this was before the latest XTR and closed form filters were available and i plan to test those in the coming days.

@eurodriver: can you tell me what settings (dither, data rate) you used with the closed form filter and D1-six?

i'll be having Vincent upgrade my d1-dual this summer to d1-six
 

mirekti

New Member
Feb 3, 2015
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Dallas, TX
One thing I don't understand. If one applies filters to signal on PC, then this filtered signal is passed on to DAC via USB, will DAC again apply its own filters to the signal and if not how are they bypassed?
 

bibo01

Member
Nov 26, 2013
201
1
16
It depends on the DAC itself.
Some have a NOS button selector.
Some (most) by inputting at highest frequency.
Some by inputting DSD signal.

Some DACs accept PCM4x but internally they oversample at 8x. In that case, it is still worth upsampling because the first stage of upsampling is the most effective. So one upsamples to 4x (176.4/192 kHz) in the PC and let the DAC upsample another 2x because it would not affect the sound much.

What DAC have you got?
 

Ken Newton

Well-Known Member
Dec 11, 2012
243
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One thing I don't understand. If one applies filters to signal on PC, then this filtered signal is passed on to DAC via USB, will DAC again apply its own filters to the signal and if not how are they bypassed?

Yes, the PC filtered signal will be passed on to the DAC via the data link, where the PC filter impulse response and the DAC filter impulse response will self multiply, and the resulting overall response will be the product of the two. For example, if the PC filter and the DAC filter are both feature brickwall SINC responses, the resulting overall response will be a brickwall SINC with a longer impulse response. Some D/A chips enable their internal digital filter to be bypassed, in which case the resulting overall filter response will be that exhibited by the incoming data as generated br the PC's filter.
 

mirekti

New Member
Feb 3, 2015
26
0
0
Dallas, TX
Ok, it makes sense, thanks.

What DAC have you got?

I am using Vinnie Rossi LIO which has two options to choose from, linear and minimum phase, but plan on the module upgrade, soon to be released DAC 2.0. It will have an option to select NOS so I guess this will be the way to go. I'll also be able to upsample to DSD512 in HQPlayer. At the moment I can "only" send DSD128.
 

bibo01

Member
Nov 26, 2013
201
1
16
Ok, it makes sense, thanks.



I am using Vinnie Rossi LIO which has two options to choose from, linear and minimum phase, but plan on the module upgrade, soon to be released DAC 2.0. It will have an option to select NOS so I guess this will be the way to go. I'll also be able to upsample to DSD512 in HQPlayer. At the moment I can "only" send DSD128.

Are they going to use a different D/A chip in DAC 2.0? The present AKM AK4399 is capable up to DSD128.
 

mirekti

New Member
Feb 3, 2015
26
0
0
Dallas, TX
Are they going to use a different D/A chip in DAC 2.0? The present AKM AK4399 is capable up to DSD128.

Yes, it will be a dual mono using AKM 4497EQ, new clocking etc.
You can check the details on Vinnie's Circle, I wouldn't like to hijack this thread.
 

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