[Somatic]

Cool. Seems like the Farad3 is due to arrive today or tomorrow. I ordered some cheap well rated 14awg power cords to use in the meantime. Good to compare before I get the customs ones. Also bought a grounding wrist and mat to use while doing Dave surgery to be safe. .

So hopefully I mess around with it tomorrow.

Any more info on the Farad3? @SteveHulk

 

[adrianm]

Seeing that mscaler still sounds better than pre-rendered pggb and HQplayer files... It demonstrates the measurements has little correlation.

Have to disagree here, but to each his own. I do agree with him that the M-scaler is a mess in terms of noise and I'm much happier with src-dx+Hqp. Though in the long term, I could see myself going off up-sampling completely. The one PGGB file I have and listened to sounded much better than anything I've ever heard out of Dave ( M-scaler, or HQP) , but I don't have access to the original file, so I'll reserve judgement on it for now. It's too much hassle for me anyway.
His testing methodology was manipulative as always, but the fact that the M-scaler increased the noise floor is a fair point, and one of the reasons I got rid of it.
Contrary to what ASR thinks , I do think those changes are perceivable, but contrary to what people here think, I don't think M-scaler is worth the tradeoff. I need to start my own forum it seems lol.

 

[801evan]

Have to disagree here, but to each his own. I do agree with him that the M-scaler is a mess in terms of noise and I'm much happier with src-dx+Hqp. Though in the long term, I could see myself going off up-sampling completely. The one PGGB file I have and listened to sounded much better than anything I've ever heard out of Dave ( M-scaler, or HQP) , but I don't have access to the original file, so I'll reserve judgement on it for now. It's too much hassle for me anyway.
His testing methodology was manipulative as always, but the fact that the M-scaler increased the noise floor is a fair point, and one of the reasons I got rid of it.
Contrary to what ASR thinks , I do think those changes are perceivable, but contrary to what people here think, I don't think M-scaler is worth the tradeoff. I need to start my own forum it seems lol.

I can hear the noise on the HMS, but overall, it's still a better sound. PGGB and HQplayer files already has an unfair advantage by being pre-rendered and already processed and streaming off the Zen stream or my phone. On the zen stream, HQplayer and pggb sounds artificially wide and flat. Timbre is quite off which makes it a deal breaker. I tried 0dbfs, -1dbfs and -3dbfs and the recommended -3dbfs sounds the worse. So my comparisons stayed with 0dbfs. On the phone it's relatively better than mqa and 44.1. Which proves that distortion likes distortion and the only reason HQplayer and pggb can sound good is because of the weaker performance of the transport. I mean ....sure we see the Taiko server doing pggb but there's so many components going on in that thing. The elegance of a custom psu powering the Zen stream is a better way to judge it.

 

[adrianm]

I can hear the noise on the HMS, but overall, it's still a better sound. PGGB and HQplayer files already has an unfair advantage by being pre-rendered and already processed and streaming off the Zen stream or my phone. On the zen stream, HQplayer and pggb sounds artificially wide and flat. Timbre is quite off which makes it a deal breaker. I tried 0dbfs, -1dbfs and -3dbfs and the recommended -3dbfs sounds the worse. So my comparisons stayed with 0dbfs. On the phone it's relatively better than mqa and 44.1. Which proves that distortion likes distortion and the only reason HQplayer and pggb can sound good is because of the weaker performance of the transport. I mean ....sure we see the Taiko server doing pggb but there's so many components going on in that thing. The elegance of a custom psu powering the Zen stream is a better way to judge it.

Hqp does real time rendering as well. If you're using a USB connection, than you're hearing Dave's crappy USB controller and the reason you like M-scaler more is because dual BNC sounds much better. Been there, made that mistake. Once you add the SRC-DX, configure HQP correctly and you compare apples to apples, you'll find some filters are better, some are worse, and some are identical but without the added noise. Timbre is a problem with some of the filters, but the new Sync-LI filter is...identical to the M-scaler.
AFAIK Zen stream can only output 384 though, so no dual bnc. Not sure about your phone.

 

[801evan]

Hqp does real time rendering as well. If you're using a USB connection, than you're hearing Dave's crappy USB controller and the reason you like M-scaler more is because dual BNC sounds much better. Been there, made that mistake. Once you add the SRC-DX, configure HQP correctly and you compare apples to apples, you'll find some filters are better, some are worse, and some are identical but without the added noise. Timbre is a problem with some of the filters, but the new Sync-LI filter is...identical to the M-scaler.
AFAIK Zen stream can only output 384 though, so no dual bnc. Not sure about your phone.

I've been using src-dx. HQP real time rendering is too taxing on the cpu and creates noise. That's why pre-rendered is better apples to apples.

Rank:
ZS- 384khz
Phone - 768khz
Phone - 384khz

ZS 384khz still sounds better than phone's 768 khz.

 

[Ards]

Oh dear, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry as the ASR cult get into full swing again. He couldn’t hear any difference at 2x upsampling so why on earth didn’t he try 16x which is what everyone uses?

For me, that Amir couldn't hear any differences dissolves any remaining credibility he had. Cult is the appropriate word here for ASR and it's adherents.

 

[adrianm]

I've been using src-dx. HQP real time rendering is too taxing on the cpu and creates noise. That's why pre-rendered is better apples to apples.

Rank:
ZS- 384khz
Phone - 768khz
Phone - 384khz

ZS 384khz still sounds better than phone's 768 khz.

What hqp server are you using? On my pc it barely goes over 1% cpu usage. Any differences between sources are most likely caused by noise.

 

[griff500]

Have to disagree here, but to each his own. I do agree with him that the M-scaler is a mess in terms of noise and I'm much happier with src-dx+Hqp. Though in the long term, I could see myself going off up-sampling completely. The one PGGB file I have and listened to sounded much better than anything I've ever heard out of Dave ( M-scaler, or HQP) , but I don't have access to the original file, so I'll reserve judgement on it for now. It's too much hassle for me anyway.
His testing methodology was manipulative as always, but the fact that the M-scaler increased the noise floor is a fair point, and one of the reasons I got rid of it.
Contrary to what ASR thinks , I do think those changes are perceivable, but contrary to what people here think, I don't think M-scaler is worth the tradeoff. I need to start my own forum it seems lol.

So he stuck a Topping on the end of it and tried it with 2x upsampling only and declared that it does nothing. What a great test. It's almost as if it is a test designed to produce a certain result.

Maybe he'll start reviewing sports cars by driving them to the supermarket and parking them.

 

[801evan]

What hqp server are you using? On my pc it barely goes over 1% cpu usage. Any differences between sources are most likely caused by noise.

I use a NUC powered by LPS, win 2012 server + audio optimizer 3 + fidelizer pro + bios settings optimized for audio. Even with that setup, no filter sounds best. A simple CDT can best that setup by many fold. Zen stream simply confirms further with a pre-rendered file that HQplayer and pggb OS is not good.

 

[adrianm]

I use a NUC powered by LPS, win 2012 server + audio optimizer 3 + fidelizer pro + bios settings optimized for audio. Even with that setup, no filter sounds best. A simple CDT can best that setup by many fold. Zen stream simply confirms further with a pre-rendered file that HQplayer and pggb OS is not good.

Well I'm using my gaming pc running Hqp and Roon cores and clients because i can't be bothered with anything else. I'm with Jussi that different filters just sound different. And for the M-scaler sound...there's Sync-Li, which i couldn't A/B from the M-scaler. Hqp does come with frustrations and occasional static in some updates though, so I see it more of a temporary solution.
If a Nuc + HQP OS will still have these issues, I might just move on to an up-sampling streamer or away from it entirely. I found that adding an external headphone amp fixed most of my gripes (soundstage and imaging) so I'll revisit the source stuff later. If you're judging all of these via a Susvara/Stealth directly from Dave...it might be this

I tried 0dbfs, -1dbfs and -3dbfs and the recommended -3dbfs sounds the worse. So my comparisons stayed with 0dbfs. On the phone it's relatively better than mqa and 44.1. Which proves that distortion likes distortion and the only reason HQplayer and pggb can sound good is because of the weaker performance of the transport. I mean ....sure we see the Taiko server doing pggb but there's so many components going on in that thing. The elegance of a custom psu powering the Zen stream is a better way to judge it.

I'm sorry, What, you're all over the place. That would induce clipping and distortion. What " performance " of the transport? There's just noise, since Dave is mostly jitter resistant. Don't get me started on Mqa and Taiko...

 

[Somatic]

Well I'm using my gaming pc running Hqp and Roon cores and clients because i can't be bothered with anything else. I'm with Jussi that different filters just sound different. And for the M-scaler sound...there's Sync-Li, which i couldn't A/B from the M-scaler. Hqp does come with frustrations and occasional static in some updates though, so I see it more of a temporary solution.
If a Nuc + HQP OS will still have these issues, I might just move on to an up-sampling streamer or away from it entirely. I found that adding an external headphone amp fixed most of my gripes (soundstage and imaging) so I'll revisit the source stuff later. If you're judging all of these via a Susvara/Stealth directly from Dave...it might be this

I'm sorry, What, you're all over the place. That would induce clipping and distortion. What " performance " of the transport? There's just noise, since Dave is mostly jitter resistant. Don't get me started on Mqa and Taiko...

Can we make a list of upscaler streamers? I’m curious on this as well.

 

[alxw0w]

Can we make a list of upscaler streamers? I’m curious on this as well.

Grimm Mu1 - by many confirmed as being extremely good.

 

[adrianm]

Grimm Mu1 - by many confirmed as being extremely good.

Can we make a list of upscaler streamers? I’m curious on this as well.

And extremely expensive I recently found out that Lumin's streamers also do upsampling. I guess that's where the "house sound" and perceived streamer performance comes from. I'm keeping an eye out for the new Lumin U2 mini.

 

[801evan]

Well I'm using my gaming pc

I rest my case....

 

[adrianm]

I rest my case....

Had a streamer, sold it. Streamer + M-scaler sounded a lot worse than gaming pc + Hqp. So I'm fine until i find a replacement streamer that works with NAA. I'm also willing to bet half the things you think matter are self induced, as a lot of them have been proved otherwise. How can you do DSP without adjusting for headroom and say it sounds better? It literally distorts.