Can you hear upscaling?

[FunkyBassMan]

You certainly are the master of out of context quotes. Did you miss the discussion of HQplayer, a relatively inexpensive software title performs better with more options than mscaler? Rob Watts intentionally misrepresents inaudible low level content as audible. If you’re into buying a multi thousand $ box that essentially does nothing, you’ve defintely found the right product. I have an idea - fill the mscaler with crystals and pebbles - then it will be extra awesome

HQPlayer performs even better than MScaler? So upscaling works! Thanks for clarifying that.

 

[bfreedma]

HQPlayer performs even better than MScaler? So upscaling works! Thanks for clarifying that.

HQplayers filters work better than the $mscaler. I forgot that you didn’t know the basics and needed everything spoonfed.

At a fraction of the price, and without the absurd claims made by Rob Watts. The problem you’ll find is that HQPlayer assumes the user has some knowledge of its operations and parameters, so it’s probably not a good solution for you.

 

[FunkyBassMan]

HQplayers filters work better than the $mscaler. I forgot that you didn’t know the basics and needed everything spoonfed.

At a fraction of the price, and without the absurd claims made by Rob Watts. The problem you’ll find is that HQPlayer assumes the user has some knowledge of its operations and parameters, so it’s probably not a good solution for you.

Right - again, despite your desperate puerile attempts to insult, thanks for confirming that upscaling is useful.

 

[bfreedma]

Right - again, despite your desperate puerile attempts to insult, thanks for confirming that upscaling is useful.

I’ll repeat myself one last time - filters are useful. Upscaling in isolation is not. Sorry I can’t make it any clearer than that.

Last word can be yours - troll away!

 

[FunkyBassMan]

Last word can be yours - troll away!

Ah yes, the standard SS technique: call anyone you disagree with a troll. As predictable as sunrise.

 

[gregorio]

Is it an appropriate comparison to test the performance of the M-Scaler with current Chord DACs against it’s performance with a non Chord DACs? Asking because I do not know, and was shocked by the poor performance of the M-Scaler with a Topping DAC in ASR review.

The ASR review used both a Topping and a Chord DAC. It’s entirely valid to test the M-Scaler with DACs other than Chords own, unless Chord makes it absolutely clear that it should not be used with any other make of DAC.

I don't think that it's possible to prevent someone from extracting something as simple as the impulse response of a digital linear filter...

Yes, I didn’t mean to imply the M-Scaler made it impossible to workout the impulse response, just that it blocks the obvious method of feeding it a Dirac pulse.

In particular, good to see that "it will most definitely provide a nice upgrade to any DAC you use it with."

Yes, a jitter performance worse than even the cheapest DACs from 30 years ago but at 500 times the price is obviously a “nice upgrade”! Have you considered upgrading your headphones by battering them with a hammer? Would it be a better upgrade if you used a $5,000 hammer? lol. The only thing you do get for your money (other than worse performance) is a shorter transition band but the difference between this and a typical anti-image filter in a modestly priced DAC are well outside the range of adult hearing.

HQPlayer performs even better than MScaler? So upscaling works!

Again, “upscaling” works on images, not on digital audio, so “no” upscaling does not work! However, oversampling does work, which is why even some of the very earliest DACs (in CD players) back when digital audio was first released to consumers in 1984 performed oversampling and virtually all did by the early 1990s.

Ah yes, the standard SS technique: call anyone you disagree with a troll. As predictable as sunrise.

Duh, of course! If someone disagrees with the facts/science with no reliable evidence at all, only ignorance, and just keeps repeating that BS disagreement, then “yes” obviously they are a troll! If someone goes to a science or engineering discussion forum and keeps stating that the Earth is flat even after it’s been explained to them, are they a troll or not? And, is the answer to that question “as predictable as sunrise”?

G

 

[FunkyBassMan]

And, is the answer to that question “as predictable as sunrise”?

Yes, of course it is. Because, as predictably as sunrise, you respond to something no one ever said.

 

[bigshot]

Admins. This thread should be locked too.

 

[BS5711]

-

 

[gregorio]

Yes, of course it is. Because, as predictably as sunrise, you respond to something no one ever said.

So it wasn’t you who stated the MScaler is an upgrade and then argued that “upscaling” works, who was I “quoting” then?

G

 

[knownothing2]

The ASR review used both a Topping and a Chord DAC. It’s entirely valid to test the M-Scaler with DACs other than Chords own, unless Chord makes it absolutely clear that it should not be used with any other make of DAC.

OK, I think you are right, it is valid to test the M-Scaler with any DAC you would want. But from the GoldenSound review, it may not be reasonable to expect peak performance by combining it with another company’s DAC.

“If the MScaler had a USB output option it may have even been worth routing the output of the MScaler through a high quality DDC.
Unfortunately, given the use of Chord’s proprietary dual-BNC output, this is not possible unless you’re happy to stick to 192khz upsampling.
Luckily, this does not really affect Chord DACs specifically as their design makes them highly resistant to jitter.

Chord DAVE jitter fed by MScaler.
Practically perfect”.

Furthermore, the GoldenSound review says earlier on:

“The WTA is a convolution of a rectangular window with cosine tapers. Giving excellent time domain accuracy, though at the expense of increased spectral (frequency domain) leakage.
Filter windows are always a trade off and there is no perfect design. The WTA filter just is heavily geared toward time domain accuracy.
Though with such a high tap count the window itself is of less importance anyway and you will get better time AND frequency domain accuracy than a lower tap count filter built into a DAC.

Additionally we can see from the flat noise floor that the M-Scaler seems to be using standard TDPF dithering. This is a bit surprising as I’d expected it would be using a more advanced noise shaping option given the compute power in this device. It could simply be that Chord feels their DAC’s internal noise shapers for the PWM stage make this irrelevant, but for use with other DACs it would be nice if there was a higher quality dithering/noise shaping method built in.”

This is interesting because in the original interview posted in this thread Rob Watts discusses how in his opinion small timing issues can degrade how listeners experience music reproduction. I do not have enough knowledge or context to understand if the quoted finding in the GoldenSound review is what Watts is talking about when he mentions timing, but according to the GoldenSound review, the M-Scaler filter has “excellent time domain accuracy”.

kn

 

[eq1849]

bcbfd

Again, “upscaling” works on images, not on digital audio, so “no” upscaling does not work! However, oversampling does work, which is why even some of the very earliest DACs (in CD players) back when digital audio was first released to consumers in 1984 performed oversampling and virtually all did by the early 1990s.


G

In your opinion what is the difference between Upsampling and Upscaling?

Both seem, IMHO, to be inserting INTERPOLATED samples between the ACTUAL samples to increase the sampling rate on playback.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

No, it’s me again, and I still know pretty much nothing. @sunjam is another entity altogether. As if anyone who is curious about different approaches to the recreation of soundstage in digital reproduction of music must be such a rare bird that there can only be one. LOL

I am sincerely curious what readers and contributors in this forum think of Watts “logic” in discussing his techniques and his new product. If this is snake oil, there is probably a much cheaper way than his claim of spending years developing and honing a new approach to bilk hifi snobs out of their capital gains. Maybe he is delusional. Maybe he is flat-out lying. Or maybe he is onto something real.

FWIW, I have tried upsampling digital files in PCM to 352.8 kHz or 384 kHz using JRiver on my laptop and USB out to several different DACs, and I did not care for the outcome. With that upsampling implementation in my system, the music sounded smoother, but lost some bite and immediacy. I did not notice an improvement in soundstage reproduction.

Watts new product, as with the current Chord Hugo M-Scaler, as I understand it, is optimized to use with dual BNC out for upscaling to 705.6 up to 768 kHz. This would make the Chord DACs that Watts also helped design with their dual BNC inputs and 768 kHz capability the logical partnering equipment. In my limited experience, Chord DACs have excellent reproduction of soundstage when used on their own.

As discussed in another thread in this Forum - to death - there is no current equipment or method available to measure soundstage reproduction, which I am sure in objectivist views would make this subjective element of reproduction fertile grounds for marketing abuse.

kn

Somebody send this guy a HiBy with BRIR convolution and maybe he'll know what real soundstage in headphones sounds like. No DACs will be harmed during the process.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hiby-r8-ii-hibys-new-high-end-dap.970808/page-47#post-18152464

 

[Joe Bloggs]

I got the following graph from a fellow member.

They show the effects of different oversampling filters on square wave. This may give you an idea of how critical the filter is when the DAC reconstruct the final audio signal.

It's critical, if you listen to square waves for enjoyment and you do it with your eyes

Which, I suppose, will lead you to choosing NOS as your "non filter" of choice when that is one of the worst choices you can make in DAC filter selection in reality.

But since all this actually matters not two hoots in the wind and people have no trouble preferring audibly much worse things given the right cognitive bias, it doesn't matter at all.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Right - again, despite your desperate puerile attempts to insult, thanks for confirming that upscaling is useful.

Upscaling is not useful, because all DACs by definition will upscale any digital input, at any rate, to infinity and beyond--that's what analog conversion means.

Considering that it's debatable among audiophiles whether analog conversion should be done sensibly at all, and many people gravitate towards the worst implementations of conversion over any remotely good ones to begin with, contending that a better upscaling algorithm to get half the job done (upscaling to some higher frequency without going all the way to analog) will aid the DAC to make better sound in terms of anything other than cognitive bias is absolutely laughable.