[LoryWiv]

I have been using HQplayer with my M1 Mac Mini for a month now. While I am able to perform DSD256 conversions, I have been unable to achieve DSD512. As a result, I am contemplating the purchase of a powerful PC solely for the purpose of carrying out DSD512 conversions. However, I am faced with the predicament of not having an extra room to accommodate a noisy and high-powered PC. Additionally, placing a PC with a monitor in the living room would disrupt the harmony of my home setup.

Given these limitations, I am curious if there are any laptops available that possess enough power to handle DSD512 conversions. It would be ideal if I could place the laptop in the living room and enjoy my music in my room without any disruptions.

Although I have similarly been limited to DSD256 on Windows PC with my preferred "EC" shaper, I have come to the conclusion that upgrading just to achieve DSD512 is not compelling to me at present. The sound is spectacular at DSD256 and I suspect the point of diminishing returns may apply. Just me opinion, YMMV of course.

 

[bogi]

I wanted to come back to this statement. Does this mean that your sinc-L and similar very long filters will also output music with constant ringing?

Like it was already mentioned, it depends on music content. If it frequently contains fast transients, then transient smear is easily audible, at least for me. Such a content sounds much cleaner with short or middle lenght filters than with long ones.

It can be heard on cymbals, or percussions in general and for example acoustic guitar transient attacks also with old content created in analog way and then digitized. But transient smear can be particularly audible with pop music content from digital era containing synthesized sounds (drums, percussions and other synthesized instruments with fast attacks and potentially also fast decays).

It is enough to use a clean chain, good ears and best a DAC with direct DSD capability, so no other oversampling (interpolation) filter appears in the chain than HQPlayer one. So then you know you have only HQPlayer oversampling filter in chain so you can easily compare nature of different kind of filters. HQPlayer Client allows filter switching on the fly without playback interruption, so testing that is easy. Playing a PCM stream into a DAC which oversamples itself is not a way to get rid of transient smear.

An examples of such a content, where for my ears short filters with direct DSD help to clean up the smear:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hqp...-settings-rolling-thread.968141/post-18051636
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hqp...-settings-rolling-thread.968141/post-18051842

With such a content IMO the effect can be easiest audible when you compare sinc-L, sinc-long or sinc-Mx with poly-sinc-xtr-short-mp or poly-sinc-gauss-short.

 

[bogi]

As a result, I am contemplating the purchase of a powerful PC solely for the purpose of carrying out DSD512 conversions.

You don't mention your DAC. With some DACs DSD512 helps and some direct DSD capable DACs have sweet spot at DSD256.

 

[TonyNewman]

Although I have similarly been limited to DSD256 on Windows PC with my preferred "EC" shaper, I have come to the conclusion that upgrading just to achieve DSD512 is not compelling to me at present. The sound is spectacular at DSD256 and I suspect the point of diminishing returns may apply. Just me opinion, YMMV of course.

I can only agree. My PC can play 16bit/44.1kHz files at DSD512, but stutters with HiRes files, so I play everything at DSD256. To my ears, the difference between DSD256 and DSD512 is quite small. I would not invest in a new PC just for that (YMMV).

 

[Jake2]

You don't mention your DAC. With some DACs DSD512 helps and some direct DSD capable DACs have sweet spot at DSD256.

I recall mention of this upthread.. how is this sweet spot determined? And/or where would one go to find this info for a given DAC?

 

[photobillyli]

You don't mention your DAC. With some DACs DSD512 helps and some direct DSD capable DACs have sweet spot at DSD256.

I am using the holo audio cyan 2.

The sound is spectacular at DSD256 and I suspect the point of diminishing returns may apply. Just me opinion, YMMV of course.

I also love using a few ASDM7EC modulators at DSD256. However, with my Mac, I am unable to utilize all of the modulators and filters. Only certain modulators and filters are capable of playing music smoothly without any lag. Furthermore, I am interested in purchasing a more powerful PC because, in addition to DSD512, I would like to be able to use various modulators and filters.

 

[camrector]

I recall mention of this upthread.. how is this sweet spot determined? And/or where would one go to find this info for a given DAC?

It’s more the in the theory/ability of how DSD works. Ask Andreas Koch and he will tell you that DSD128 is the “sweet spot” for playback and that DSD256 is ideal for A/D conversion. Maybe his comments were not considering the amount of crazy processing power that we have today, but the guy pretty much invented SACD, built the first multichannel ADC/DAC dsd convertors, designed and built Sonoma workstation etc etc. Hopefully @jlaako can chime in here.
The “sweet spot” could also be determined by your DAC hardware. For instance the AKM4499ex chip used in the Gustard A26 only processes DSD128 and DSD256 natively. DSD64 and DSD512 is just up/downsamples to those rates. ESS chip dacs you cant bypass the internal modulator so those are out of the picture period.
Holo DACs are the only dac measuremets I’ve seen where DSD512 shows an improvement. Every DSD1024 measurement I’ve seen from any dac is pretty sloppy, and does better at lower rates.
Here the convo continues about finding what dacs are the best (and actually work)for HQplayer DSD
https://community.roonlabs.com/t/best-native-dsd-dacs-for-use-with-hqplayer/132298

 

[camrector]

I am using the holo audio cyan 2.



I also love using a few ASDM7EC modulators at DSD256. However, with my Mac, I am unable to utilize all of the modulators and filters. Only certain modulators and filters are capable of playing music smoothly without any lag. Furthermore, I am interested in purchasing a more powerful PC because, in addition to DSD512, I would like to be able to use various modulators and filters.

For instance which filters/modulators are not working for you?
I’m on a 2018 i5 mini
having zero issues with DSD256 ASDM7ECv2, poly-xla/poly-hires, convolution and Roon core.
512 shouldn’t be an issue for your M2pro.
Granted there are some combos that I don’t believe any PCs/macs can even do yet.

 

[photobillyli]

For instance which filters/modulators are not working for you?
I’m on a 2018 i5 mini
having zero issues with DSD256 ASDM7ECv2, poly-xla/poly-hires, convolution and Roon core.
512 shouldn’t be an issue for your M2pro.
Granted there are some combos that I don’t believe any PCs/macs can even do yet.

As I am currently not at home, I can only rely on my memory to recall the details. From what I remember, using "sinc-" filters causes significant lag, while "poly-" filters work quite well. And, I am unable to use the "ASDM7EC SUPER 512＋FS" and can only use the "light" version and the ASDM7EC v3 does not work at all.

The lagging problem becomes much worse for certain songs, especially those in 16/44.1 kHz. It becomes impossible for me to listen to them. However, songs with 96kHz have minimal lagging issues and are much more manageable.

Currently, it seems that using the ASDM7ECv2 with "poly-" filters results in almost no lagging issues in my M1 mac mini for most of my songs, including those with a 16/44.1 kHz.

 

[camrector]

As I am currently not at home, I can only rely on my memory to recall the details. From what I remember, using "sinc-" filters causes significant lag, while "poly-" filters work quite well. And, I am unable to use the "ASDM7EC SUPER 512＋FS" and can only use the "light" version and the ASDM7EC v3 does not work at all.

The lagging problem becomes much worse for certain songs, especially those in 16/44.1 kHz. It becomes impossible for me to listen to them. However, songs with 96kHz have minimal lagging issues and are much more manageable.

Currently, it seems that using the ASDM7ECv2 with "poly-" filters results in almost no lagging issues in my M1 mac mini for most of my songs, including those with a 16/44.1 kHz.

M1 my mistake. 16gb?
Maybe if you could share some screen shots of your settings we could see if everything is optimized?

As far as not having a monitor, I understand that.
I put a $100 portable monitor in a picture frame connected to my mini with a photo slide show screen saver playing. The keyboard and mouse are Bluetooth
and disappear when i don’t need them.
It’s a clean solution.

 

[bogi]

I am using the holo audio cyan 2.

It belong to DACs which don't oversample so it is suitable for use with HQPlayer. With DSD input it provides direct DSD path.

I also love using a few ASDM7EC modulators at DSD256. However, with my Mac, I am unable to utilize all of the modulators and filters. Only certain modulators and filters are capable of playing music smoothly without any lag. Furthermore, I am interested in purchasing a more powerful PC because, in addition to DSD512, I would like to be able to use various modulators and filters.

This thread is also about transient smear caused by long filters but not recognized and understood by many people. There is no such equation, particularly generally for all audio content, that hardest to run filters provide the best sound. For classical music or acoustic jazz it can be the case. For electronic pop with fast transients it's hardly the case. But sound you get in headphones or loudspeakers is affected by the whole audio chain used. That then affects preferences one has with his chain. So one can provide a general hint for you, but it's you who decides how much such a hint works for you with your chain.

For me personally it does not bring sense to invest to be able to run sinc-L or sinc-long at DSD512. There are other owners of Cyan 2 who can contribute with their experience. For example I know @dericchan1 prefers DSD256 with Cyan 2.

 

[bogi]

I recall mention of this upthread.. how is this sweet spot determined? And/or where would one go to find this info for a given DAC?

As always ... by listening (subjectively) or by measurement (objectively, if somebody is able to provide an objective interpretation of measurement results).
Measurements need to be of wide band type to see differences in ultrasonic noise too to see its level and possible spurious tones, which could intermodulate into audio band.
With a concrete DAC model in mind you can ask Jussi for his opinion. The DAC models he keeps on his 'Remommended hardware' list (see Signalyst web) he has measured.

 

[bogi]

ESS chip dacs you cant bypass the internal modulator so those are out of the picture period.

I agree with your post and I want to comment only this ESS related part.

Implementations around ESS chips vary, so two DACs built around ESS chip may sound very differently. ESS chips require a reconstruction filter to be implemented behind the DAC chip and it's behavior for different signal rates at DAC input may vary.

Generally, with ESS based DACs one can skip complete oversampling although not the delta sigma modulator. But the fact that DAC opversampling can be completely skipped can be alone enough to bring better sound with DSD input than with PCM input. For example related to the above discussed transient smear. My previous Topping E50 was able to be pretty clean in this regard (but I needed to treat its USB input with galvanic isolation). With E50 I preferred DSD512 over DSD256. But with other DAC built around ESS chip DSD256 may sound better because of different reconstruction filter used. And others may prefer PCM input with an ESS based DAC.

 

[Jake2]

As always ... by listening (subjectively) or by measurement (objectively, if somebody is able to provide an objective interpretation of measurement results).
Measurements need to be of wide band type to see differences in ultrasonic noise too to see its level and possible spurious tones, which could intermodulate into audio band.
With a concrete DAC model in mind you can ask Jussi for his opinion. The DAC models he keeps on his 'Remommended hardware' list (see Signalyst web) he has measured.

Cheers, was just checking whether it was a particular measurement or noise characteristic to keep a look out for. In the absence of such I’ll continue to trust my ears as per usual.

 

[bogi]

Cheers, was just checking whether it was a particular measurement or noise characteristic to keep a look out for. In the absence of such I’ll continue to trust my ears as per usual.

Part of what to look for is encoded in this sentence: "Measurements need to be of wide band type to see differences in ultrasonic noise too to see its level and possible spurious tones, which could intermodulate into audio band.". So it is about noise floor level and spurious tones it contains both in band (audio band) and out of band (ultrasconic area). What is dangerous is any ultrasonic content which changes together with in band audio signal (so called correlated noise), since that creates potential source of distortion in audio band called as intermodulation distortion.
Of course, experts like Jussi can see more thing in more types of measurements. Maybe @jlaako will add a comment.

I’ll continue to trust my ears as per usual.

That's the best one can do ... measurements are helpful, but they are usually done under isolated conditions, which don't reflect a complete device chain one uses. I like to search for a relation between measured and heard, but what I hear is for me the most important.