[AussieMick]

So I just acquired a used Qutest, my first Chord product. Honestly I am blown away by just how sharp and detailed it is after years of similar sounding DACs and just when I thought music couldn’t get even more detailed It surprises me.

That said even as great it is, I STILL can’t tell the difference between (true) 192khz and 44khz much less 96khz. Compared a trial run of Qobuz & Spotify on my Grado 3000x, no significant difference to my ears. Is there any benefit to getting an Mscaler? I don’t quite buy into being able to hear upscaled higher frequencies but is there any other advanced processing capabilities it adds to the QT that would be worth it? Or should I consider saving my money and maybe down the road getting a TT2 for the next hyperspace trip into razor sharp audio bliss?

Download HQ Player. You can use it in 30 minute bursts for free. If you can hear what it does, then you’ll hear what the M Scaler does.

As for different resolutions, it’s really difficult to say what you get, unless you have the same mastering of the same music in each sample rate, then you can start to compare. But, you can’t compare an old CD file of something with a remastered 24/96, because the remastering will generally make a bigger difference than the sampling rate.

I like what the M Scaler does to my mostly CD quality library, for sure. Having said that, changing headphones or amplifiers makes a bigger difference. So you could spend M Scaler money on two sets of really good headphones, or a TOTL headphone. Or you could invest in a secondary amp, maybe getting into valves if you haven’t yet, etc.

I won’t be selling my M Scaler because it adds a degree of sophistication and finesse I haven’t found elsewhere. I adore it. But I’m not suggesting it makes the level of change of the other things. Personally (I know some feel differently) it’s a finishing touch purchase once you’re happy with your headphones/speakers and amplifier.

 

[Sonic Defender]

Deleted

 

[Meridian7]

I loose my way in the too many settings of HQplayer and don't dare to set one off the mark or the result suffers. This never ending chase for better settings got me tired of it. I've tweaked HQplayer more than once to worse than the original. So it's good and bad depending on settings, therefore no representation for mscaler imho. Wish HQp had mscaler mimic settings (are there?) as to have a fair substitute mscaler tryout alternative.

 

[JTbbb]

So I just acquired a used Qutest, my first Chord product. Honestly I am blown away by just how sharp and detailed it is after years of similar sounding DACs and just when I thought music couldn’t get even more detailed It surprises me.

That said even as great it is, I STILL can’t tell the difference between (true) 192khz and 44khz much less 96khz. Compared a trial run of Qobuz & Spotify on my Grado 3000x, no significant difference to my ears. Is there any benefit to getting an Mscaler? I don’t quite buy into being able to hear upscaled higher frequencies but is there any other advanced processing capabilities it adds to the QT that would be worth it? Or should I consider saving my money and maybe down the road getting a TT2 for the next hyperspace trip into razor sharp audio bliss?

I’ve had Qutest and TT2, and I have MScaler. I would recommend saving your money and get a TT2. Of course, try and audition if possible.

 

[Progisus]

I loose my way in the too many settings of HQplayer and don't dare to set one off the mark or the result suffers. This never ending chase for better settings got me tired of it. I've tweaked HQplayer more than once to worse than the original. So it's good and bad depending on settings, therefore no representation for mscaler imho. Wish HQp had mscaler mimic settings (are there?) as to have a fair substitute mscaler tryout alternative.

Try pcm, sinc-m, lns15. That is very close to mscaler. I’ve used both for a few years.

 

[Rob Watts]

I loose my way in the too many settings of HQplayer and don't dare to set one off the mark or the result suffers. This never ending chase for better settings got me tired of it. I've tweaked HQplayer more than once to worse than the original. So it's good and bad depending on settings, therefore no representation for mscaler imho. Wish HQp had mscaler mimic settings (are there?) as to have a fair substitute mscaler tryout alternative.

That's just plain impossible. My proprietary WTA algorithm (which is impossible to reverse engineer as the FPGA has an impulse response detector and gives a false response when detecting impulses) has been very carefully tweaked using thousands of listening tests. The adjustments are on 5 variables, and each one is fine tuned to 10 parts per million to obtain the optimum sound quality. And a small change has an easily audible shift in sound quality. No-one else goes to these extremes to maximise performance; no-one else even talks about the essential requirement for interpolation filters to reconstruct the original timing of transients, nor do they recognise the physiological importance of transients for auditory perception.

I apologise if this post comes across as angry - but indeed I am angry, as I have spent my whole adult life on this problem, with tens of thousands of hours on this issue, so that now I completely understand what is required to accurately convert a sampled signal into a continuous signal without audible degradation. And it's actually much more complex than I talk about.

 

[AussieMick]

That's just plain impossible. My proprietary WTA algorithm (which is impossible to reverse engineer as the FPGA has an impulse response detector and gives a false response when detecting impulses) has been very carefully tweaked using thousands of listening tests. The adjustments are on 5 variables, and each one is fine tuned to 10 parts per million to obtain the optimum sound quality. And a small change has an easily audible shift in sound quality. No-one else goes to these extremes to maximise performance; no-one else even talks about the essential requirement for interpolation filters to reconstruct the original timing of transients, nor do they recognise the physiological importance of transients for auditory perception.

I apologise if this post comes across as angry - but indeed I am angry, as I have spent my whole adult life on this problem, with tens of thousands of hours on this issue, so that now I completely understand what is required to accurately convert a sampled signal into a continuous signal without audible degradation. And it's actually much more complex than I talk about.

I think your anger is well-founded. HQP dies lots of cool things, but it absolutely is not an M Scaler. It fails to produce the same sophisticated naturalness that is, if it’s okay to say, “anti hifi” as the HMS manages to convey. HQP sounds synthetic by comparison and can come across as a rather blunt tool. I suspect that’s why so many people are instantly impressed by it; the transformation it brings is arresting in the sane way adding upper frequency distortion gives the immediate yet false impression of more detail. It seems to always add greater stage width but almost never depth, the stage becomes more open but the images within grow in an almost grotesque fashion with blurred outlines.
HQP is certainly a complex piece of programming, but to compare it to HMS is a bit apples to oranges. I do think that if you can hear what HQP does you’ll be able to hear what HMS does and in that way it’s a free way of checking out if you’ll be able to appreciate HMS.
Other than that it’s butter knife vs scalpel.

 

[Meridian7]

@Progisus : I'll give that setting a shot, thanks.

That's just plain impossible. My proprietary WTA algorithm (which is impossible to reverse engineer as the FPGA has an impulse response detector and gives a false response when detecting impulses) has been very carefully tweaked using thousands of listening tests. The adjustments are on 5 variables, and each one is fine tuned to 10 parts per million to obtain the optimum sound quality. And a small change has an easily audible shift in sound quality. No-one else goes to these extremes to maximise performance; no-one else even talks about the essential requirement for interpolation filters to reconstruct the original timing of transients, nor do they recognise the physiological importance of transients for auditory perception.

I apologise if this post comes across as angry - but indeed I am angry, as I have spent my whole adult life on this problem, with tens of thousands of hours on this issue, so that now I completely understand what is required to accurately convert a sampled signal into a continuous signal without audible degradation. And it's actually much more complex than I talk about.

Ah sorry I hit a nerve there. I acknowledge your efforts totally by using mscaler as my go to solution.

I've seen it often, as must you, people (I bet non MS owners) posting saying 'no need for MS as HQp does same and better' , well that didn't work out for me as such. I think it's an interesting project though but it lost me in the woods.

Despite the important intel difference you spoke of and despite the HQp settings malaise, I dunno why Roon often loses track of HQp either (like once a few days), then have to re-initialize HQp IP address in Roon settings.

Or sometimes have to restart HQp and Roon to get it going co-axed again.

Or sometimes the song starts chopped up totally by HQp. Have to restart the song and then OK. Weird.

I wanted to use HQp on the location I have no Mscaler at hand, ended not using HQp anymore. Well maybe I'm not clever enough to make it sail smoother but I reached my patience with HQp.

 

[vcastceo]

Hi, I buy new network player, and it connected to my m-scaler by USB.
I have annoying problem now, it only happens when every device is turned on very first time except network player.
My network player is Melco N1A/2EX and it runs Minimserver so any DLNA/uPNP apps can send stream points to it and it can play those songs, through USB, to MScaler. It is always on because it has internal NAS storage.
Problem is, Mscaler is off and Melco is on, when I start system, Mscaler turned on at very last phase - I use logitech Harmony to program for device on and off sequence - and when I play very first song, no matter it's sample rate, DX OP glows yellow and all I can hear is noise. So then I stop the song, and play again, then DX OP glows indicate correct sample rate and song can play as normal.

When I turn off my network player and turn on it after everything include MScaler is already turned on, then first song from player is all ok, correct sample rate indicates by DX OP.

I still could not figure out whether this problem is caused by Melco or MScaler.
When I use Coaxial input instead of USB, there is no such problem. First song sample rate correctly recognized by Mscaler and played normal.
I did many things - change DX OP or change input back and force before play, no luck. Whatever I do, very first play through USB always fail to recognize correct sample rate. I did not check with my laptop yet - with USB connection. If it works, Melco USB should have some problem for first USB handshake with fresh started devices...

Anybody experience this? If so, any suggestion or solution I can try?

 

[JTbbb]

I believe it’s something to do with the ’Handshake’ best thing to do is leave MScaler in Stdby, which leaves the OP SR light on. Hopefully that will cure the anomaly.

 

[GuiltyRocker]

Download HQ Player. You can use it in 30 minute bursts for free. If you can hear what it does, then you’ll hear what the M Scaler does.

As for different resolutions, it’s really difficult to say what you get, unless you have the same mastering of the same music in each sample rate, then you can start to compare. But, you can’t compare an old CD file of something with a remastered 24/96, because the remastering will generally make a bigger difference than the sampling rate.

I like what the M Scaler does to my mostly CD quality library, for sure. Having said that, changing headphones or amplifiers makes a bigger difference. So you could spend M Scaler money on two sets of really good headphones, or a TOTL headphone. Or you could invest in a secondary amp, maybe getting into valves if you haven’t yet, etc.

I won’t be selling my M Scaler because it adds a degree of sophistication and finesse I haven’t found elsewhere. I adore it. But I’m not suggesting it makes the level of change of the other things. Personally (I know some feel differently) it’s a finishing touch purchase once you’re happy with your headphones/speakers and amplifier.

I feel the same as you, the M Scaler is mandatory in my system.

 

[Reactcore]

free way of checking out if you’ll be able to appreciate HMS.

I still dont understand why Chord never just took a sample track.. captured the output of it from a HMS in 768k and posted it aside the original file online just for curious people to try out.

Or am i talking nonsense

 

[GuiltyRocker]

This is an interesting idea.

 

[David Habermehl]

Is this a viable strategy:​

Currently I feed my NAS's flac files to my laptop/JRiver media center, to my Hugo M-scaler, to my Hugo TT2. It sounds great but I also want to play music from streaming services like Qobuz, Tidal, etc on my music system and Media Center doesn't (and won't) support those streaming services.

Can I accomplish my goal by using an Auralic Aries G1.1 instead of my laptop/JRiver? I'm thinking I can feed my NAS's flac files and also the streaming services to the Auralic, to my M-scaler, to my TT2.

Is that a viable strategy? Are there better ways to accomplish my goal? What if I also want to be able to feed CD's, Blu-ray audio, and DVD audio to my M-scaler?

Thanks very much for your expertise.

Regards,

David Habermehl

 

[ecwl]

Currently I feed my NAS's flac files to my laptop/JRiver media center, to my Hugo M-scaler, to my Hugo TT2. It sounds great but I also want to play music from streaming services like Qobuz, Tidal, etc on my music system and Media Center doesn't (and won't) support those streaming services.

Can I accomplish my goal by using an Auralic Aries G1.1 instead of my laptop/JRiver? I'm thinking I can feed my NAS's flac files and also the streaming services to the Auralic, to my M-scaler, to my TT2.

Is that a viable strategy? Are there better ways to accomplish my goal? What if I also want to be able to feed CD's, Blu-ray audio, and DVD audio to my M-scaler?

If you already have your laptop connected to the M-Scaler and you just want Qobuz/Tidal, you could just run the Qobuz/Tidal app, instead of JRiver to play music into the M-Scaler. I’m guessing you didn’t want to walk up to the laptop to change the music? Because you currently select the music using JRemote to control JRiver? Or are you using some sort of DSP?

Yeah, Auralic Aries G1.1 works but that’s a more expensive solution.

And if you want to feed CD/Blu-Ray audio or DVD audio to M-Scaler, you can just take the CD/DVD/Blu-ray player’s Toslink/coax output and feed it into M-Scaler. You just have to make sure that the DVD/Blu-ray is outputting stereo sound and not 5.1/surround sound. And you would just choose a different input on the M-Scaler. You’ll also want to change M-Scaler to video mode to reduce the audio delay and get the audio to sync with the video.