dmbr said:

Can someone explain to me how a player can impact SQ?

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It can hide a load of DSP.
 
In the real world it shouldn't make a difference, and if it does that's probably a bad thing.

kraken2109 said:

  It can hide a load of DSP.
 
In the real world it shouldn't make a difference, and if it does that's probably a bad thing.

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You are entitled to your opinion but I will say that I have been using HQPlayer for about 6 months and I find it superior to anything else available in playback software. I've tried nearly everything out there for Windows and HQP is by far the best sounding player imo. If you don't think it is worth the price don't buy it. There is a free trial available so you can determine for yourself before paying anything. Fair enough.

Just to share HQplayer shines if you have a true native DSD dac (not those DSD convert to internal PCM) and with upsampling. to DSD
 
Here is what I use :
 
Ifi micro idsd to upsample using polysinc-mp and DSD7 to DSD256...there is no doubt HQPlayer sounds better compared to foobar or JRMC upsampling if your PC specs are up to it
 
Based on my limited knowdledge, HQplayer is not using simple equalization or DSP tricks.
 
HQPlayer is using algorithm for filtering and modulation which is more advanced than those implemented inside some of DAC hardware....

chodi said:

  You are entitled to your opinion but I will say that I have been using HQPlayer for about 6 months and I find it superior to anything else available in playback software. I've tried nearly everything out there for Windows and HQP is by far the best sounding player imo. If you don't think it is worth the price don't buy it. There is a free trial available so you can determine for yourself before paying anything. Fair enough.

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Audio playback software has one job - to decode digital audio and send it to a DAC. If two pieces of software sound different then it means they are sending different things to the DAC. This means one of them is performing extra processing to the file.

kraken2109 said:

  Audio playback software has one job - to decode digital audio and send it to a DAC. If two pieces of software sound different then it means they are sending different things to the DAC. This means one of them is performing extra processing to the file.

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Dithering, noise-shaping, oversampling...yeah, HQPlayer does do digital signal processing, and it sounds very different from other players. Just try the free trial here to hear for yourself. You can use these settings if you like. Also read the user manual for lots of background info.

kraken2109 said:

  Audio playback software has one job - to decode digital audio and send it to a DAC. If two pieces of software sound different then it means they are sending different things to the DAC. This means one of them is performing extra processing to the file.

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If you don't like HQP don't use it. I personally love the sound of my Redbook upsampled to DSD 256 through HQP. It is all personal taste. Whatever brings you the most enjoyment from your system. 

dmbr said:

Can someone explain to me how a player can impact SQ?

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One consideration would be reduced noise.  More efficient processing in the computer potentially results in less noise potentially transferred to the DAC along with potentially lower levels of jitter.  Another would be with offloading processing (upsampling, filters) from the DAC to the computer, the lessened processing in the DAC would result in reduced noise within the DAC.  
 
Of course a not uncommon Head Fi response to a DAC being sensitive to the change in noise levels would be that the DAC must be defective.   My experience is there must be a lot of defective DACs out there....

I am mainly interested in upsampling pcm to pcm . currently I use 16bit 44.1khz to upsample to 24bit to 192khz and I find sinc filter with ns9 dither to be best. has anybody tried it ? what other better options can be ? has anybody tried feeding to chord DACs ? cord DACs said to use much more complex upsampling.

Upsampling audio is just silly. You can't magically create detail that is not there. You can put lipstick on a pig, but its still a pig.

rkt31 said:

I am mainly interested in upsampling pcm to pcm . currently I use 16bit 44.1khz to upsample to 24bit to 192khz and I find sinc filter with ns9 dither to be best. has anybody tried it ? what other better options can be ? has anybody tried feeding to chord DACs ? cord DACs said to use much more complex upsampling.

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kraken2109 said:

Audio playback software has one job - to decode digital audio and send it to a DAC. If two pieces of software sound different then it means they are sending different things to the DAC. This means one of them is performing extra processing to the file.

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Exactly. Any perceived difference is placebo, or hidden equalization.

i am  not exper but as per nyquist shannon sampling theorem you can recreate the analog wave form from discrete band width limited signals . say from 44.1khz sampling rate you can recreate a wave form having maximum frequency as 22.05khz. for this theoretically you need infinite filter length which is practically not  possible so using special algorithm this length is reduced to some practical levels. some dacs use longer filter ( more samples to interpolate ) some less . although for the sound of dacs there are many contributing factors but major affecting factor is quality of upsampling  .almost all dacs do upsampling internally. some of the recent  chord dacs have garnered much praise for sound quality in which number of taps ( filter length ) are higher which results in better upsampling (interpolation ). this process can also be performed in real time in computer through softwares like hqplayer, j river, resampler v in foobar etc. i have listened to these and found that sinc filter of hqplayer sounds most natural and transparent. while the quality is one of the best but the software hqplayer itself is a bit tricky to set up mainly because the information about its use and error reporting are very less. there is a forum on computer audiophile which helps in solving the problems of the users of hqplayer.   there is free 30 days trial too.

got my chord mojo and hugo back. i was curious as to how hqplayer will sound if i upsample through it and feed to mojo. so i upsampled a redbook cd file to a number of sample rates and hqplayer upsampled sound was a bit grainy as compared to bit perfect sound through mojo . though hqplayer definitely helps with laptop sound or may be with some other dacs .

harry manback said:

Upsampling audio is just silly. You can't magically create detail that is not there. You can put lipstick on a pig, but its still a pig.

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It isn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oversampling

From what I understand, most DACs do a butt load of over sampling, upsampling, and digital filtering. This software just does all that on the computer and then sends an extremely high res data stream to the DAC. It certainly possibly that this softwares algorithms and customizability are better than the software in many DACs.

allanmarcus said:

From what I understand, most DACs do a butt load of over sampling, upsampling, and digital filtering. This software just does all that on the computer and then sends an extremely high res data stream to the DAC. It certainly possibly that this softwares algorithms and customizability are better than the software in many DACs.

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Exactly that's today's world. I hate all digital filters in DAC's but I use HQPlayer to convert everything to DSD512 and feed T+A DAC8 DSD. It sounds very good in my system.