[TonyNewman]

... Many genres and decades but progressive rock from 70's is the genre my heart is beating for.

Rich pickings there. Fantastic decade for music.

 

[bogi]

Given this, what filters would yo recommend that I use or try out?

I think many people like long filters like sinc-L, sinc-long or sinc-Mx because they are searching for warmer, more relaxed sound with their chain. We live in environment where recordings are brightened more than it would be appropriate (look at tonal balance of recordings form 70's ...), DACs are often on brighter side too. Then people need somewhere to compensate for convenient listening.

With a headamp like yours you IMO don't need necessarily to go for those long filters. You could try filters which are very precize, like poly-sinc-gauss, poly-sinc-xtr-mp - particularly for pop music with faster transients. Otherwise the filters from my previous post - they are universal middle lenght filters. With some kind of recordings or concerts the other modulators I suggested may work better.

With your ESS DAC you can try 5th order modulators instead of 7th order ones. They could bring a bit blacker background, make sound a bit less bright and perhaps make low level details a bit better audible. That's since ESS chips leave more ultrasonic noise and with 5th order modulators it is better filtered.

Important is that you find yourself what you like with your chain. My suggestions need not to work for you. Maybe you will remain to stick on the closed-form-16M one. I like on it how it opens midrange.

Maybe you can try some kind of USB isolation between your computer and DAC if not yet used.

 

[amrutmhatre90]

Hey guys,

You guys know any filter combos which sound airy like this ?
Tried Sinc L & M and Sinc Long & M but didn't like them.

Dac is Gustard R26 via LAN
PC: i7 with 64 gb RAM and 4070 super ti 16gb vram

Need DSD upsampling and 256 is fine instead of 512.

 

[plumpudding2]

Hey guys,



You guys know any filter combos which sound airy like this ?
Tried Sinc L & M and Sinc Long & M but didn't like them.

Dac is Gustard R26 via LAN
PC: i7 with 64 gb RAM and 4070 super ti 16gb vram

Need DSD upsampling and 256 is fine instead of 512.

If you like gauss-long and want more air the next ones to try are gauss-xla and sinc-MGa.
Do you like the R26 with DSD? The measurements didn't make the DSD module look fantastic, have you tried PCM with bits set to 16?
https://www.l7audiolab.com/f/gustard-r26/

 

[ra990]

Hey guys,



You guys know any filter combos which sound airy like this ?
Tried Sinc L & M and Sinc Long & M but didn't like them.

Dac is Gustard R26 via LAN
PC: i7 with 64 gb RAM and 4070 super ti 16gb vram

Need DSD upsampling and 256 is fine instead of 512.

Try Sinc-LI, that's the one that enhances soundstage and is the airiest in my experience. Someone recommended that to me earlier in this thread and I didn't believe them at first, I figured Sinc-L would be even better. But, there's something to Sinc-Ll that makes it sound a bit bigger.

Also try the xla variant of the one you're already using.

 

[jlaako]

If your range is (-60, 0) as on the picture of the above post then you get 20 individual steps of 3 dB, so very fine adjustment at digital level is not possible. If your area of interest is (-20, 0) or (-30, -10) then you get 20 volume steps of 1dB. I see on the picture @Born2Cuddle has set 0dB or -1 dB level in HQPlayer. Therefore I suggested him to raise the minimum volume level (max. attenuation level) in HQPlayer settings to allow finer digital setting in the volume area of his interest.

HQPlayer volume knob gives you 1 dB steps always, regardless of the range. If you use the spinbox on HQPlayer Desktop server interface, you always get 0.1 dB steps and you can manually specify volume in 0.01 dB steps.

P.S. And if you use hqp5-control, you can specify volume up to about 15 decimals precision...

 

[Erick Muller]

I think many people like long filters like sinc-L, sinc-long or sinc-Mx because they are searching for warmer, more relaxed sound with their chain. We live in environment where recordings are brightened more than it would be appropriate (look at tonal balance of recordings form 70's ...), DACs are often on brighter side too. Then people need somewhere to compensate for convenient listening.

With a headamp like yours you IMO don't need necessarily to go for those long filters. You could try filters which are very precize, like poly-sinc-gauss, poly-sinc-xtr-mp - particularly for pop music with faster transients. Otherwise the filters from my previous post - they are universal middle lenght filters. With some kind of recordings or concerts the other modulators I suggested may work better.

With your ESS DAC you can try 5th order modulators instead of 7th order ones. They could bring a bit blacker background, make sound a bit less bright and perhaps make low level details a bit better audible. That's since ESS chips leave more ultrasonic noise and with 5th order modulators it is better filtered.

Important is that you find yourself what you like with your chain. My suggestions need not to work for you. Maybe you will remain to stick on the closed-form-16M one. I like on it how it opens midrange.

Maybe you can try some kind of USB isolation between your computer and DAC if not yet used.

I don't have any USB isolation between my PC and my DAc but I have thought about it, what do you recommend I get?

Thx for your recommendations btw, I will try them out and see what I like more.

 

[suno23]

I have an ifi Galvanic Isolatior for sale in classified. Its what I used when I had the Gustard A26. But new Spring 3 has galvanic isolation built in so ifi is for sale

I don't have any USB isolation between my PC and my DAc but I have thought about it, what do you recommend I get?

Thx for your recommendations btw, I will try them out and see what I like more.

i put up an iFi iGalvanic 3.0 in the classifieds https://www.head-fi.org/classifieds/ifi-igalvanic-3-0.59269/
its what I used with gustard a26 but spring 3 kte has one built in for usb so dont need this anymore

 

[bogi]

You guys know any filter combos which sound airy like this ?

I would suggest sinc-MG or sinc-MGa to try. For my ears it brings similar effect like ASDM7EC-super 512+fs over ASDM7EC-super. Less upfront and thus more laid back presentation, improved instrument separation and more feeling of air between instruments.

 

[bogi]

I don't have any USB isolation between my PC and my DAc but I have thought about it, what do you recommend I get?

I am using the set Topping HS02 with 2x iSilencer from my signature, price together is about 200 EUR. More known may be Intona USB isolator. They are small devices and don't require external power with self powered DACs.

 

[Erick Muller]

I'm already trying it out this modulator and filter combination, it sounds great and the bass is incredibly, but it seems to collapse the soundstage somewhat, a little bit more intimate.

 

[LoryWiv]

Try Sinc-LI, that's the one that enhances soundstage and is the airiest in my experience. Someone recommended that to me earlier in this thread and I didn't believe them at first, I figured Sinc-L would be even better. But, there's something to Sinc-Ll that makes it sound a bit bigger.

Also try the xla variant of the one you're already using.

Aren't the xl and xla versions identical except for the apodizing quality of the latter, which doesn't apply unless "activated" based on the recoding being played? or are the versions different in other ways?

 

[bogi]

Aren't the xl and xla versions identical except for the apodizing quality of the latter, which doesn't apply unless "activated" based on the recoding being played? or ate the versions different in other ways?

Yes, that's the case. AFAIK there is no other difference between these two.

 

[bogi]

I'm already trying it out this modulator and filter combination, it sounds great and the bass is incredibly, but it seems to collapse the soundstage somewhat, a little bit more intimate.

For my ears it brings less "dense" presentation - more laid back, relaxed one.

Do you use any headphone crossfeed solution? It helps with instrument positioning within soundstage. You can try the built in Bauer crossfeed with Jan Meyer setup (in Matrix Pipeline dialog), how it affects soundstage. There are other solutions too, but not so easily integrated with HQPlayer.

 

[Daiyama]

I'm already trying it out this modulator and filter combination, it sounds great and the bass is incredibly, but it seems to collapse the soundstage somewhat, a little bit more intimate.

You can try to improve your signal path by streaming to HQP bit perfect. Meaning in your case no EQ in Roon. PEQ can be done also in HQP, unfortunately not with such a nice GUI as in Roon.