I am actually using a similar setup (i7-13700 HX, 32G RAM, RTX 4050/6G) + ifi ZEN DAC v2 + HQPlayer.
The ZEN DAC is so good especially it supports
DSD Direct. It works perfectly with HQPlayer and DSD upsampling. Together with the TI/BB sound, it is really "music to my ears".
Some DAC (e.g. E30 II) claims that they support DSD Direct but their actual implementation is questionable. In the following thread
Best native DSD DACs for use with HQPlayer? - Audio Gear Talk / HQ Player - Roon Labs Community, the HQPlayer developer and some pro users checked and seemed some DACs' implementation of DSD Direct based on AKM chip are questionable. (The thread is really long have fun reading it if you want)
That thread you linked gives me a headache. lol. It inspired me to start writing an easy, fairly concise summary of the
'pure DSD' Dacs, how they ALL work around Thermometer/unary coding/dynamic element matching on my blog at euphonicreview.com. This has just been an idea in my mind but looks like this post may be a start.
The Signalyst DSC is an excellent proof of concept of 'true' 'pure' 'native' 'insert adjective of choice here' DSD DAC, but it's the same technique used (of course with minor variations with different makers) by
Burr-Brown,
T-A, any
AKM DAC that actually has the bypass option available as a choice.
ROHM (a new player on the hi-fi scene as best I can tell. Not new to the IC market. My SMSL D300 is powered by their top chip, and I love it.) They offer no choice how you convert DSD. If you put in PCM, it is converted just like PCM typically is in a Delta Sigma DAC. If you send DSD, the ONLY way it will process it is native DSD via its analog FIR filter. There is no possibility for any DSD DSP. (I love it lol. To be fair, when it comes the DSD conversion Burr-Brown/TI chips work in similar manner)
Holo Audio is essentially the same thing although they use marketing jargon and call their DSD conversion a 'ladder' DAC.
In TRUTH, ALL DSD FIR DACs that use resistors have a so called 'ladder' of usually equal weight elements. What confuses/interests me about Holo is how they use a redundant 'ladder' for each filter. I have some educated guesses how that might work, and at the same time I have actually no idea! But I do know that depending on the version, its either an 8tap (9level) or a 16 tap (17 level) FIR moving average filter.
Denafrips uses marketing to muck things up too.... calling it a 6 bit DSD converter?? No its not a mulit-bit delta sigma converter. Its a PURE DSD Direct analog FIR filter with 32taps/33 levels. By MY math, it could technically convert, if you used parallel in parallel out registers just barely over 5 bits.. by 1 tiny level. I guess they like to round up... WAY up lol. Or maybe there is another explanation. I have asked many times to no avail. But as it actually is, its a 1-bit converter, with serial in parallel out shift registers just like the pure DSD DACS mentioned above.
And yes, there are others out there. All the DACs of the above types that I have had the change to evaluate, which is most, sound truly OUTSTANDING with HQPlayer. It's the best of both worlds. The simplest, cleanest Digital to Analog Conversion out there, with the best digital DSP you could have, IMO. This is especially true with the lesser expensive DACS. Realistically, no one in their right mind would have a PC over 1000 bucks, a nearly 400 dollar piece of software to maximize out a 250 dollar DAC lol. BUT, IF YOU DO HAPPEN TO HAVE THE CHANCE TO TRY IT, you would be amazed at the sound you would get. One would swear they were listening to a multi-thousand dollar DAC in a blind-test. And yeah, in a sense they would be lol. Diminishing returns would be found as you get better and better DAC's though. I have not tried it yet, but I don't expect HQPlayer running my iFi IDSD PRO at DSD512 or DSD1024 is going to sound that much better than the already outstanding DSP on FPGA custom made by iFi. Still, these kind of pure DSD DACs can be and are audibly some of the most impressive, especially at the budget level when given the source to shine.
As far as DSD DACS that don't belong with those above.
ESS--YES the actual DAC section is an unary coded 64 element trimmed resistor FIR filter per channel (what many still consider 1-bit conversion, because unary code can be seen as multiple 1-bit streams), but the hyperstream DSM works at 6 binary bits. Getting ahead of ourselves though. back to where things begin in the DAC, not end...
Way back Before all that, ALL DSD first goes to a specific DSP that converts DSD to a multi-bit intermediate via FIR filter.(* see ESS diagram attached)
However many bits comes out of the FIR filter, is multiplied by a 32 binary bit gain control. It would be easy to think if one doesn't use the volume control, the entire DSP of filter and gain control is bypassed. This is incorrect.
The FIR filter is the first necessary step to go from a bitstream to something multi-bit. You can go all the way back to Sony's white papers on DSD-Wide, and see this is EXACTLY how they accomplish the same thing. Nothing new under the sun!
Of course the FIR filter will leave redundant samples as in ANY type of filter, although they do NOT remove the redundancies, keeping the sample rate at the same DSD rate that came in. Thats how DSD can go through a ASRC for jitter control as well. Oh, and before the ASRC, there is another more specific IIR filtering stage for noise control before the noise shaper.
Yes, filtering and 'redundancy' in samples happens in a Pure DSD DAC too, but at the DAC side it only happens ONCE (twice if you count the completely different analog I-V or RC filter that will follow). But it happens in the actual digital to analog conversion itself (the analog FIR output filter) and doesn't have the massive amounts of DSP and remodulations attached to it.
Any
AKM NOT specifically in DSD DIRECT or BYPASS mode. See ESS above for how it works lol. In the most basic sense, that is. It has its own nuances and functions that lead to the same thing.
Chord... his FPGA DAC isn't Pure DSD in the sense we have defined already with the Signalyst DSC DAC as the example par excellence. Its more like the ESS types, or actually a lot like the
PSAudio DirectStream, except the
output stage of the PSAUDIO Direct Stream IS a true 128x DSD 1-bit modulator with analog filter.
And there are many others.. and I don't want to knock these things. I am just saying they are not pure native DSD conversion in its simplest form.
Some of them may have BETTER sounding results with their ingenious DSP. Like
Mola-Mola which converts all to a PCM rate over 3 megahertz I think for processing, then the final DAC is a true 1 bit Pulse Width Modulator with noise shaping converted via an analog filter with further smoothing accomplished with its I-V converter. I would LOVE to hear one of these. The implementation sounds amazing.
Another GREAT one is
DCS and their 'ring' DAC.
Its actually a lot like the ESS chip in how it works. ALL data PCM and DSD is processed by a 5 binary bit delta sigma modulator, that then is (still) on FPGA converted from binary to unary code, uses dynamic element matching to something like 48 elements? More elements than necessary, but all the better for linearity. (yeah, I forgot to mention that ESS in their output stage uses similar dynamic element matching and calls it a revolver DAC)
Now for those who will misunderstand me and get me wrong... I consider all these examples to be actual, real DSD DACS. With different ideas on how to best do conversion.
They are NOT in the category of what I would consider NON-DSD DACS that still accept DSD. Now THAT third if you will category of DSD DAC are non-native PERIOD.
DACS like this tend to be R2R DACs that do a full filtering and removal of all redundant samples, to something like 24bit 176.4khz for direct non-oversampling conversion with their R2R ladder. In other words decimating DACs.
(well, this is what most people think of when they hear decimation, although I could have used that word earlier in this post and still have been correct, but people would not have understood what I indeed meant and a fanboy argument would persist.)
What kind of DACs do this? I know there a few but none are coming immediately to mind that accept DSD, display DSD, yet convert immediately to a standard PCM rate and never look back.
Anyway... there is a start to the next part of my blog series... sorry I fried my brain a bit.. .which was my original complaint about this subject in the first place lol!!!