HQPLAYER and High-Rate DSD Playback

[RCanelas]

This is the endless component churn mentality that fuels the industry and empties the pockets of those less knowledgeable. Not for me any more, I know how to make my own wine to my liking and with HQPLAYER others can too.

I appreciate and admire it. My work with Cinnamon stems from that, so I couldn't have it any other way.

But you believe you've cracked some code or achieved escape velocity from something? From my POV you appear to have simply traded convenience by time and effort, but are otherwise still orbiting the same sun as everybody else, at exactly the same orbit I'm afraid. Other people have other goals and stories in life. Why characterize people with different opinions in a dimmer light than yourself?

 

[Carlos269]

I appreciate and admire it. My work with Cinnamon stems from that, so I couldn't have it any other way.

But you believe you've cracked some code or achieved escape velocity from something? From my POV you appear to have simply traded convenience by time and effort, but are otherwise still orbiting the same sun as everybody else, at exactly the same orbit I'm afraid. Other people have other goals and stories in life. Why characterize people with different opinions in a dimmer light than yourself?

I think that you are mischaracterizing my assertions. I’m like no other and no others are like me, let’s just leave it at that.

 

[Carlos269]

Carlos do you use roon ?

Yes I do. I use ROON for my music management.

Do you use two pc Boards ?

I use two separate custom built PC’s plus an NAA. One PC host ROON Core and the other PC host HQPLAYER and does the processing.

I’ve had two pc main board systems for many years
your comment of pcm and dsd is I think spot on
and do prefer pcm for this reason

Many will prefer the extra crisp presentation offered by PCM. With my Berkeley Audio Design Alpha Dac, PCM from HQPLAYER sounds fantastic and I greatly enjoy it.

roon kills music in many ways but has gotten better
what is your pc server setup ?

They are custom built based on the Intel 14900KS CPU and NVIDIA 4090 GPU.

what kind of PSU used ?

Platinum series Seasonic.

 

[Carlos269]

Could it be that only StreamFidelity and I are the only ones on this forum who have heard digital playback at its finest, HQPLAYER outputting DSD512x48 or DSD1024x48 to a chipless DSD digital to analog converter? There must be others who have experienced an optimized, per Jussi Laako’s guidance, HQPLAYER set up.

 

[racerxnet]

Could it be that only StreamFidelity and I are the only ones on this forum who have heard digital playback at its finest, HQPLAYER outputting DSD512x48 or DSD1024x48 to a chipless DSD digital to analog converter? There must be others who have experienced an optimized, per Jussi Laako’s guidance, HQPLAYER set up.

You might want to head over to Computeraudiophile and take a look at the DAC's which bypass processing for PCM or DSD. The assumption that you are the leader of the pack seems silly.

Which DACs bypass digital filtering?

I have been unsuccessfully searching for a list of high-performance* commercial DACs that allow user to bypass digital filtering (NOS), leaving that task to a software music player such as HQ Player. It would be interesting if we could compile such a list in this thread. * - no TDA1543-based DACs...

audiophilestyle.com

MAK

 

[Carlos269]

You might want to head over to Computeraudiophile and take a look at the DAC's which bypass processing for PCM or DSD. The assumption that you are the leader of the pack seems silly.

Which DACs bypass digital filtering?

I have been unsuccessfully searching for a list of high-performance* commercial DACs that allow user to bypass digital filtering (NOS), leaving that task to a software music player such as HQ Player. It would be interesting if we could compile such a list in this thread. * - no TDA1543-based DACs...

audiophilestyle.com

MAK

I’m familiar and have used discrete DSD chipless dacs for many years. As I mentioned before I currently own four different DSD512+ dacs that I use with HQPLAYER. Never mentioned being the leader of the pack in this regard. There are many users of similar equipment over at AudiophileStyle and DIYAudio who are at the same or similar level to what I am implementing.

 

[Daverich4]

I don’t post here very often but have spent quite a bit of time with HQPlayer so I thought I’d stick my 2 cents into this thread. I use Roon/HQPlayer in my headphone setup. That feeds a Sonore opticalRendu into a Holo Audio May KTE DAC. Because I had so much trouble getting HQP to play without dropouts I actually spent quite a bit of time listening to the May without it, both in NOS and with it’s built in upsampling. The sound with HQP was such a step up over the DAC without it that I kept after getting it to work properly and I’m really glad I did. I’ve experimented with DSD 512 but have settled on DSD 256 as my preference. Jussi considers DSD 256 to generally be the sweet spot and is what he uses in his own system.

 

[Carlos269]

I don’t post here very often but have spent quite a bit of time with HQPlayer so I thought I’d stick my 2 cents into this thread. I use Roon/HQPlayer in my headphone setup. That feeds a Sonore opticalRendu into a Holo Audio May KTE DAC. Because I had so much trouble getting HQP to play without dropouts I actually spent quite a bit of time listening to the May without it, both in NOS and with it’s built in upsampling. The sound with HQP was such a step up over the DAC without it that I kept after getting it to work properly and I’m really glad I did. I’ve experimented with DSD 512 but have settled on DSD 256 as my preference. Jussi considers DSD 256 to generally be the sweet spot and is what he uses in his own system.

Yes, the optimal rate is dac dependent. On my T+A DAC200 I’m currently using DSD512x48 instead of DSD1024. HQPLAYER is a game changer and as good as digital playback gets. Jussi has a lot of experience with both the Holo Audio May KTE DAC and the T+A DAC200. I’m aligned with Jussi’s settings with my DAC200 as well. Thank you for sharing your experience on here with your use of HQPLAYER outputting high-rate DSD to a chipless DSD digital to analog converter.

 

[Alrainbow]

here is my two cents and I’ve also used roon hq two pc setups
yes HQ player can be an important change
compared to jriver where they are more centered
roon has had its ups and downs as its design is heavy cpu usage. Where j river is light
Im not a fan of up sample if on the fly
And built some very powerful main boards to play it on the fly
I have a few questions for anyone up sampling on the fly
what PSU are you using ?
a switching or Linear ?
answer this question please

 

[Alrainbow]

Silence is deafening lol.
someone answer please.
If not I’ll give an answer later not to be rude but a possible reality check of audio sound

 

[Daverich4]

Silence is deafening lol.
someone answer please.
If not I’ll give an answer later not to be rude but a possible reality check of audio sound

I’ll be your Huckleberry. Linear

 

[shawnf]

In case anyone is wondering why the “chipless dac” requirement is crucial, it is because it avoids or eliminates any further digital processing of the data stream after HQPLAYER has processed and optimized it. Any digital processing of the data stream following HQPLAYER is detrimental to the resulting sound quality.

I know that @StreamFidelity on this forum listens to this HQPLAYER setup and it would be interesting to read his commentary and to see if he has done any direct or indirect comparisons with the Taiko sever & some of the favorite dacs on this forum to see how they compare sound wise to an optimal HQPLAYER digital playback system.

@StreamFidelity also lives in Germany and it would be interesting to hear if he heard any digital or analog systems at the Munich show that approach the level of resolution and detail that an optimized HQPLAYER based digital playback system can offer.

I posted on another forum what I saw on some japanese sites reporting about the Digital Director being able to disable filters entirely, essentially making the MSB a NOS DAC.

Hope @Daniel Gullman or someone from MSB can verify this? If true, would be interesting for HQplayer users.

 

[Carlos269]

Silence is deafening lol.
someone answer please.
If not I’ll give an answer later not to be rude but a possible reality check of audio sound

Seasonic Prime Ultra Platinum switching power supply.

 

[Carlos269]

I posted on the another forum what I saw on some japanese sites reporting about the Digital Director being able to disable filters entirely, essentially making the MSB a NOS DAC.

Hope @Daniel Gullman or someone from MSB can verify this? If true, would be interesting for HQplayer users.

Yes, this is an interesting development and news to me. If the internal filters can be disabled and the MSB dacs can be used in NOS mode then they could be used and their owners could make use of HQPLAYER. Looking forward to @Daniel Gullman confirming if this is indeed the case.

 

[Alrainbow]

Seasonic Prime Ultra Platinum switching power supply.

I have this one as well. It’s close to linear psu
one thing in toying of the years is this
on a Linux os be it nas or server the psu is much less important
on a nas it’s almost impossible
On a server it more obvious
another thing I do is use a separate psu to spin the disks alone
and a linaer just for the 5 volts of the Drives
These two methods help to use a linear psu
I have a few dacs that have Nos settings , maybe I need to try again as I don’t like them in nos
I’ll post the models shortly and will be happy on advice please

 

[Daniel Gullman]

I posted on another forum what I saw on some japanese sites reporting about the Digital Director being able to disable filters entirely, essentially making the MSB a NOS DAC.

Hope @Daniel Gullman or someone from MSB can verify this? If true, would be interesting for HQplayer users.

Hey there Shawn. The digital processing of the Digital Director can be turned off to pass bit perfect files directly to the DAC unit. We use music files for code updates and this is the only way to get them there without corrupting the data. The DAC will still process the data with onboard digital filters when the digital director is shut down, so I fear this won't suit this application.

Yes, this is an interesting development and news to me. If the internal filters can be disabled and the MSB dacs can be used in NOS mode then they could be used and their owners could make use of HQPLAYER. Looking forward to @Daniel Gullman confirming if this is indeed the case.

See above.