PGGB Offline Remastering

[LucyWu]

I've been using a combined PGGB/HQPlayer approach for a long while. I use PGGB to upsample everything to 705/768ks at 64bit (maintains the best accuracy and minimises noise shaping). HQPlayer then converts to DSD using Poly-sinc-Gauss-xl and a 7EC modulator variant. Volume control is disabled (my dac has analogue attenuation which is optimal). I can apply EQ in HQPlayer with this approach. It's about the best sound I can wring out of the set up. Using purely PGGB would be optimal, but my T+A Dac200 yields better sound via the DSD decoder, so this is the approach I use for local music files.

I just use HQPlayer for Qobuz streaming, which I tend to use for background play and shopping for new music.

 

[Rayon]

I actually was fiddling yesterday with Mojo 2 + Poly and checked what was the maximum I could stream through Roon. 192/32 worked in optimal setting, but it didn't take much for it to stop playing. Then I tried 192/24. I was a bit sceptical about the SQ, but actually result was quite amazing (better than 96/32 which I A/B'd with 192/24). I oversampled a lot of redbook into 176.4k/24 over-night and today I tried these with May directly through Roon and actually I like it a lot. The original recording is still very recognizable, but there is a touch (or actually more th an a touch) of betterness in the mix

 

[kennyb123]

I actually was fiddling yesterday with Mojo 2 + Poly and checked what was the maximum I could stream through Roon. 192/32 worked in optimal setting, but it didn't take much for it to stop playing. Then I tried 192/24.

You should be able to stream up to 8FS from Roon to Poly. The best sound quality comes from playing 16FS/32 PGGB’d tracks from an SD card.

 

[Rayon]

You should be able to stream up to 8FS from Roon to Poly. The best sound quality comes from playing 16FS/32 PGGB’d tracks from an SD card.

8fs 24bit? That works if I have really good wifi connection, but if there is a closed door in between, not to mention person standing in the path, I get dropouts.

EDIT: Now that you mentioned, I moved my wifi-router to another place which is closer to where I listen Mojo 90% of the time. Will try 8fs again later. I know that SD card likely gives me best results, but I really like the convenience of Roon and I'm ready to compromise some SQ for that. Much better UX, no playing with memory cards, all the music at my fingertips. I used to own NW-WM1Z and that taught me that off-the-grid systems really are not for me. It simply started collecting dust because it was such pain to keep its contents up-to-date and I lost all the nice algorithms that keep me listening (like Roon radio).

 

[Failed Engineer]

I built a windows PC for work (with their money!) so now got a chance to test out PGGB. The new version definitely is faster than 1x conversion for my settings (Ludicrous, NS: Fixed/HF: Minimal, 4x, 24 bit, FLAC) writing to budget priced Samsung M2 SSD. I don't know about resource consumption but I'm easily working (I just do Excel and some Word all day pretty much but can have 20+ spreadsheets open concurrently) with no apparent hit to productivity.

First impression, more air and generally much better than the original Redbook, as that's easier to listen back to back from Roon (and expected since I'm a long time HQP user). Comparing it to HQP sinc-long is harder since I have to go into HQP settings change them and then play in Roon, but I'll try to do that in the next few days.

I use NAA OS at all my listening spots, so is the recommended usage in HQP to just have everything off and bits set to 24 if I'm processing PGGB files at 24?

If PGGB ends up being good for me, I'm just going to setup another Roon server on this machine just for local files and process my favorite albums on a 2TB M2 SSD. 2TBs is quite a bit of albums even with the larger PGGB files at just 4x.

I processed files at 768 just to test my machine and that went well too. About 1x processing and files about 4x large as 192. Can't play them though.

 

[Rayon]

The best sound quality comes from playing 16FS/32 PGGB’d tracks from an SD card.

Btw just of interest, I assume that you are using PGGB with Mojo. Do you use noise shaping in PGGB for those 16fs files? Asking as I've understood that even though 16fs content skip the WTA filter, Mojo does even further upsampling with something simpler (like linear interpolation). Just wondering if it would be optimal to always use just dither for something that is played back with Mojo in theory.

I'll likely still try out the SD card route to see the limits. Will do my own testing between NS and just dither, but still, interested in theoretically optimal way.

 

[Progisus]

Btw just of interest, I assume that you are using PGGB with Mojo. Do you use noise shaping in PGGB for those 16fs files? Asking as I've understood that even though 16fs content skip the WTA filter, Mojo does even further upsampling with something simpler (like linear interpolation). Just wondering if it would be optimal to always use just dither for something that is played back with Mojo in theory.

I'll likely still try out the SD card route to see the limits. Will do my own testing between NS and just dither, but still, interested in theoretically optimal way.

I use 16fs 24b pggb files with my poly/mojo2. I process them at 256 bit with auto settings. I use 24b as I often play them back through an src-dx which is 24b limited. The results through the poly/mojo2 are incredible. I think it must be the result of the short signal path. I am not sure that there is further processing by the mojo 2.

 

[kennyb123]

Btw just of interest, I assume that you are using PGGB with Mojo. Do you use noise shaping in PGGB for those 16fs files?

Yes I do as the files were processed mainly for my main system and the optimal settings sounded best there. Nice side benefit is that these same files sound incredible on Poly/Mojo 2.

Our ears are a much better guide than the theory as the theory needs to be informed about what our ears are actually able to perceive. Rob Watts is the only filter designer who has publicly mentioned that his understanding of hearing perception has guided his pursuits, and yet he has been repeatedly surprised by what his listening tests have revealed to him about our ability to perceive differences. If he, with all his vast knowledge of the theory is still occasionally surprised, then there’s little chance that laypeople can know enough to allow it be a useful guide.

 

[Rayon]

Ok, now I'm sold. I've been upsampling redbook material to 16fs 32bit with optimal settings and streaming those to Mojo through my laptop (Roon bridge) with custom usb cable (which doesn't cause blasts etc). Listening to Monarch MK3. With proper material, it's glorious. And to be able to listen to this in bedroom while laying in bed is amazing. I also noticed that those files work very nicely with HQP (much better than with just dither) to be used with May/Bliss/Sus (add crossfeed + NS5 + optional further upsampling for non-acoustic music).

It seems that PGGB is more brutal for poorly mastered material than many HQP filters, but with well mastered records, it's crazy good. Figuring out setup around this was well worth it.

 

[taipan254]

Ok, now I'm sold. I've been upsampling redbook material to 16fs 32bit with optimal settings and streaming those to Mojo through my laptop (Roon bridge) with custom usb cable (which doesn't cause blasts etc). Listening to Monarch MK3. With proper material, it's glorious. And to be able to listen to this in bedroom while laying in bed is amazing. I also noticed that those files work very nicely with HQP (much better than with just dither) to be used with May/Bliss/Sus (add crossfeed + NS5 + optional further upsampling for non-acoustic music).

It seems that PGGB is more brutal for poorly mastered material than many HQP filters, but with well mastered records, it's crazy good. Figuring out setup around this was well worth it.

Can you tell us more about your USB set up? I'm really interested to hear how you've optimized it!

 

[kennyb123]

It seems that PGGB is more brutal for poorly mastered material than many HQP filters, but with well mastered records, it's crazy good.

There are a few additional noise shaping options in PGGB. Some prefer the Extended option with lesser recordings. You may want to check it out.

I listen to a lot of recordings that I used to not be able to listen to as they sounded “brutal”. I enjoy them now more than ever and PGGB gets a lot of credit for that. Credit also to improvements in cabling and especially the server.

 

[Progisus]

For those who use HQPLAYER to play back their pggb files…. Jussi has confirmed to me that when set to none,none,none Hqplayer happens to be bitperfect. When asked if he could add a switch to go bit perfect…. never going to happen.

 

[taipan254]

For those who use HQPLAYER to play back their pggb files…. Jussi has confirmed to me that when set to none,none,none Hqplayer happens to be bitperfect. When asked if he could add a switch to go bit perfect…. never going to happen.

not surprising. I use HQP as my player as well. I just switch filters and dither (from none to whatever flavor I feel like) on the fly in the Client when I go from PGGB files to streaming.

 

[Rayon]

Can you tell us more about your USB set up? I'm really interested to hear how you've optimized it!

It's really nothing special. Just a nice hand made micro-usb cable that the seller of Mojo 2 gave me. Laptop is an old Lenovo X1 Carbon and linux running on it. Roon bridge installed there which feeds it to Mojo. I also now have the wifi router in the same room so wifi network quality is superb for laptop. Laptop also doesn't have but integrated GPU which is nice from noise point of view.

 

[Rayon]

Can you tell us more about your USB set up? I'm really interested to hear how you've optimized it!

Btw I now did some A-B between that cable and regular USB-C cable that came with my phone. I've always been super sceptical about USB cables, but the difference is massive. That USB-C cable sounds distorted and irritate my ears. This custom micro-usb cable sounds open and dynamic (yesterday I thought that it sounded even better than from Poly/microsd, but I thought I was crazy). The microusb cable is not only much thicker and have better looking connectors, but it has ferrite core slapped on it.

I'll try to isolate the source of difference. I ordered these and will try out if it makes a difference: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005378481842.html . Based on what I read, they should filter out some noise from computer. I'll also try different usb-c and microusb cables to see Mojo's usb ports behave differently.

Anyway, just responded to you. Maybe better to continue this in Mojo thread as it's getting off-topic