[nuclearpoweredpenguin]

I believe it’s your software setting music player. I had a similar issue with JRiver where some tracks would start milliseconds after they were supposed to. I can’t remember what the setting was at this moment but that’s what it was and it was solved easily.

Thanks, this got me started in the right direction. In JRIVER it's the "Play silence at startup for hardware synchronization" setting. Changing that from"None" to "1/2" does the trick. The problem now is, the Aurender N100H is the source I normally use, so I'll have to rely on them to hopefully implement a fix.

 

[MarkusBarkus]

...Aurender/Conductor has a similar "delay" option. Apologies, I cannot remember the precise location anymore...but it's there...

 

[nuclearpoweredpenguin]

...Aurender/Conductor has a similar "delay" option. Apologies, I cannot remember the precise location anymore...but it's there...

Yes, in the Aurender there is a DAC delay setting for changing sample rates, but that is not the issue here and unfortunately has no effect. Thanks, though, I do appreciate the suggestion.

 

[Christer]

The allure of improved sound quality is too hard to resist. After all it has been said that 'after silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music'. go figure...

Any early impressions to share?
Personally I have to say that in spite of only 4 tracks and less than 15 minutes of music, to play so far, but involving some very intensive comparisons with my Mscaler "it" is becoming so addictive that I have started looking for a second hand iMac that will do the job involved. My old macs are not sufficient.
PS. No plans to sell my Mscaler though.

Cheers CC

 

[burbster]

I too have allowed curiosity to get the better of me and am currently trialing some PGGB files. It is very early days, but firstly I think I can say, that to my ears the files sound better than anything I have heard a solo Dave produce before. (That may be an obvious statement to some) Plus I have to congratulate the people involved for not only producing a really clever piece of software, but the instructions, support and ease of use were all top drawer. Some thing much bigger companies could learn a lot from! I think if you have no intention on purchasing a Mscaler, and have a reasonable spec PC lying around, for £500 you can get your self a serious upgrade in SQ!
Compared to the Msclaer though, at least in my system, my early impressions are that I prefer the sound of the Mscaler. The best analogy I can come up with is this. I would compare the PGGB files to a television set, that is on show on the shop floor of a store. They are set up to grab your attention, with a really bright and vivid picture that initially looks highly impressive, but if you stand and watch it for a period of time you start to notice the artificial and slightly contrived nature.
Now I am overstating this to make a point, as the PGGB files are excellent sounding indeed, and they initially sound very impressive, but they just don't seem to be as natural sounding or as engaging as the HMS in a slightly longer listening session. Like I said early days and I have only remastered 44/16 files with 'front row and transparent' settings.

 

[Progisus]

I too have allowed curiosity to get the better of me and am currently trialing some PGGB files. It is very early days, but firstly I think I can say, that to my ears the files sound better than anything I have heard a solo Dave produce before. (That may be an obvious statement to some) Plus I have to congratulate the people involved for not only producing a really clever piece of software, but the instructions, support and ease of use were all top drawer. Some thing much bigger companies could learn a lot from! I think if you have no intention on purchasing a Mscaler, and have a reasonable spec PC lying around, for £500 you can get your self a serious upgrade in SQ!
Compared to the Msclaer though, at least in my system, my early impressions are that I prefer the sound of the Mscaler. The best analogy I can come up with is this. I would compare the PGGB files to a television set, that is on show on the shop floor of a store. They are set up to grab your attention, with a really bright and vivid picture that initially looks highly impressive, but if you stand and watch it for a period of time you start to notice the artificial and slightly contrived nature.
Now I am overstating this to make a point, as the PGGB files are excellent sounding indeed, and they initially sound very impressive, but they just don't seem to be as natural sounding or as engaging as the HMS in a slightly longer listening session. Like I said early days and I have only remastered 44/16 files with 'front row and transparent' settings.

I see you have an EX. Have you tried playing back any PGGB with MPD from an internal SSD. Another veil lifted imho. Be careful if you pause a track as there is a a bit of a squeal. I keep an mp3 I can quickly switch to to clear this. Antipodes is aware of this issue. The mscaler or hqplayer is still the answer for streamed files.

 

[burbster]

I see you have an EX. Have you tried playing back any PGGB with MPD from an internal SSD. Another veil lifted imho. Be careful if you pause a track as there is a a bit of a squeal. I keep an mp3 I can quickly switch to to clear this. Antipodes is aware of this issue. The mscaler or hqplayer is still the answer for streamed files.

Hi, I have copied the PGGB files to the SSD in my CX, ethernet from CX to the EX, then USB from EX to Dave. CX runs HQServer, EX runs player in NAA mode. Is this the right way?

 

[Progisus]

Hi, I have copied the PGGB files to the SSD in my CX, ethernet from CX to the EX, then USB from EX to Dave. CX runs HQServer, EX runs player in NAA mode. Is this the right way

I’ll pm you so not to hijack thread.

 

[burbster]

I

after posting my initial thoughts on PGGB files, I had an email conversation with the developer, he suggested that for my system and taste, I may not have been using the optimal settings during the conversion/remastering. So I am going to try his suggested settings and see what I think.

 

[burbster]

Any early impressions to share?
Personally I have to say that in spite of only 4 tracks and less than 15 minutes of music, to play so far, but involving some very intensive comparisons with my Mscaler "it" is becoming so addictive that I have started looking for a second hand iMac that will do the job involved. My old macs are not sufficient.
PS. No plans to sell my Mscaler though.

Cheers CC

this May well be a silly suggestion, but just wondering whether anyone has actually tried combining PGGB files and an mscaler? Maybe remastering with PGGB to 384 then letting mscaler double to 768. I am just fantasising that I could get to save storage, bypass the Dave’s usb input and ease the load on the mscaler all in one hit!

 

[kennyb123]

this May well be a silly suggestion, but just wondering whether anyone has actually tried combining PGGB files and an mscaler? Maybe remastering with PGGB to 384 then letting mscaler double to 768. I am just fantasising that I could get to save storage, bypass the Dave’s usb input and ease the load on the mscaler all in one hit!

I tried it. Letting PGGB take it to all way to 16fs was far better to my ears. i wanted to be able to be content with PGGB scaling to 8fs as my previous server (Innuos Zenith) could only output up to 384 using the Squeezelite playback engine. But no go, hence the move to a different server that would allow me to play 16fs files with something other than Roon/RAAT.

 

[GreenBow]

Hi,

I‘m having an issue that I was wondering if anyone maybe able to help me with. I just got an M Scaler to go with my DAVE and the first 1-2 seconds of every track are skipped, though if I restart the track it will then play correctly (with the exception of the Aurender which still results in skipping of the first 2 seconds). This doesn’t occur with the DAVE alone. All of the sources I have are USB so that’s the only connection I’ve been able to test. I’ve used an Aurender N100H, a Macbook Pro, and a Windows 10 PC. I’m using high quality USB and BNC cables, so I don’t think they are the problem. I’ve tried dual BNC with both inputs 1&2 and 3&4.

Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

It seems like you need to set a second's silence at start-up, in your music player-app. It's to allow for hardware sync.

(Chord Mojo needed that, but it was fixed with Hugo 2 and TT2.)


Just another thought. As far as I know, optical doesn't need some silence setting up. I think optical and maybe coaxial play normally, so I think it's just a USB thing.

Sorry if I am wrong, and no help. Just mentioned what I came across. I don't know the DAVE or M-Scaler.

 

[dac64]

Just another thought. As far as I know, optical doesn't need some silence setting up. I think optical and maybe coaxial play normally, so I think it's just a USB thing.

My HD player (no toslink output) via USB experiencing first few seconds skip but the cd player (no USB output) vis toslink was fine.

 

[Christer]

this May well be a silly suggestion, but just wondering whether anyone has actually tried combining PGGB files and an mscaler? Maybe remastering with PGGB to 384 then letting mscaler double to 768. I am just fantasising that I could get to save storage, bypass the Dave’s usb input and ease the load on the mscaler all in one hit!

Well I can easily play my testfiles via Mscaler in passthrough.
But as I see it and for my personal needs the whole point of PGGB for me is to NOT need to use my Mscaler, but instead playing directly from my mbp via usb and Qutest via Audirvana or Pure Music.

I am happy that my old laptop works with both Mscaler and PGGB but I see no point in combining them.

For future travels unless I run into unexpected problems once I get a mac capable of processing PGGB my Mscaler will stay back home.
But from what little I have heard so far from PGGB it seems good enough and clearly better than Qutest playing non upscaled files.

I am also happy that I never jumped on the super-expensive ROON "Streamer Boat" so many audiophiles have jumped on at high costs , now reading both here and over at AS that people are now having to upgrade or change the Innous or whatever platform they used because of their models not being able to process 16FS files. Even the super expensive Innous and others have less processing power than my old mbp it seems. Optimised for music they boast ,but not even an i7 processor onboard some of those.
Luckily for me both Qutest and my mbp do so with ease. And very good results to my ears.

I am actually still very happy with my Mscaler and have no plans to sell it even if I fully go ahead with PGGB.
And I can actually with the three test-tracks I have, quickly shift between mscaler via optical and CD player to mbp via usb Qutest PGGB simply by pressing the left button on my Qutest without having to pull cables or turn off anything.

Mscaler has transformed my take on cd.
A well recorded cd sounds very good indeed via Mscaler.
Better than ever before,imho.

The one notable difference between cd and hi res is still the slightly more audible noise floor from cd, via headphones especially.
Via my big speakers it is no issue, I don´t really hear any noise from my listening position about 5 metres from the speakers during most tracks unless I play very very loud.
My take on PGGB from my hi res test-tracks is that noise is almost completely absent even via headphones.

I have been suspecting that the noise I always heard ,faintly hissing in the treble was either my noisy laptop and/or usb connection.

I now suspect I may actually have been hearing quantization noise all the time until this.

I am still waiting to do one final comparison between Mscaler and PGGB with a track I know very well directly from recording sessions to finally confirm what I suspect is going on here.

There is a mention about quantization noise being lowered with noise shaping with PGGB over at AS. And although not big, maybe even inaudible with a lot of recordings, and the type of always loud music, some listen to.

But it is NOT inaudible via non-compressed high dynamic range 24/96 symphonic music. The slightly lower noise ,I can now hear between my test-tracks Mscaled and PGGB ´d via HEKV2 headphones is significant enough to have become a bit addictive.

"Burbster" mentioned exaggerated colours on TVs for sale to impress customers. And I agree as a pro photographer.

But in audio terms that is NOT what I hear with PGGB.
Very clean and possibly even a small step closer to mic-feed than Mscaler is my current take on PGGB.


PS Sorry if I am repeating myself here.
I can´t remember if I already posted this observation here or only over at AS?
Cheers CC

 

[nuclearpoweredpenguin]

It seems like you need to set a second's silence at start-up, in your music player-app. It's to allow for hardware sync.

(Chord Mojo needed that, but it was fixed with Hugo 2 and TT2.)


Just another thought. As far as I know, optical doesn't need some silence setting up. I think optical and maybe coaxial play normally, so I think it's just a USB thing.

Sorry if I am wrong, and no help. Just mentioned what I came across. I don't know the DAVE or M-Scaler.

Yes, I had the same issue with the Mojo and had fixed it the same way you suggested. Chord has let me know that this is the expected behavior due to the very long filter of the MScaler and that I need to find software that works with it. Jriver has the “Play Silence At Startup For Hardware Sync” option which works, and Foorbar2000 with the Pregap plugin with the “replace silence with noise“ option selected works as well.

Unfortunately, though, the Aurender doesn’t have that option, though those guys are always great and their software team have been remotely patching my unit in an attempt to find a fix. Also, while there is no optical out on the Aurender, even if there was, it wouldn’t be an ideal solution as the MScaler can’t upscale to its maximum rate unless using either USB or Dual BNC inputs.

Again though, thanks for the advice. I think this is going to come down to either Aurender is able to fix it, or I switch to something like a Mac Mini running JRiver and using their remote app as this is neither a headphone nor a desktop setup, which would require the purchase of a Mac Mini or a nuc and unfortunately would limit me to local files only as JRiver doesn’t have streaming support for Qobuz. I could use something like Audirvana for that, but they don’t have a silence option (at least not in the new Audirvana Studio, and I’m unfamiliar with the older versions), so the skipping would remain. Or I could just returning everything and take a hit on a huge restocking fee which is not my desired outcome.

It does sound great, though I’m surprised so few people seem to have experienced this issue given the fact that Chord says this is the expected behavior, which makes me wonder what software or hardware other folks are using, or if they either don’t notice or don’t care, both of which seem unlikely given how most of us in this hobby have a low tolerance for such annoyances.

Edit: I did a terrible job of reading the chart in the manual, the info I gave about how the MScaler inputs work in regards to the upsampling was totally wrong and I should learn to read better before posting, let alone using my gear.