PGGB Offline Remastering

[LucyWu]

I had this conversation with the developer.

To get "reasonable" processing rates at 192 bit precision he is currently using a server motherboard with a high spec Threadripper and 256gb ram. RAM and speedy SSD swapfile space are the big bottlenecks at present. There may be a upgrade version of PGGB with big improvements at this level of processing apparently.

I've been hugely impressed with a lot of music I've processed at 192bit. But in my 128gb/9700K computer some longer tracks have been taking over 40 hours to process. In my case this is because I am baking in EQ, which is the real resource hog.

 

[auricgoldfinger]

Following on what @LucyWu just said, I would avoid buying a new PGGB processing rig until the software upgrade is released. At that point, the hardware requirements will be much clearer.

 

[Triode User]

Following on what @LucyWu just said, I would avoid buying a new PGGB processing rig until the software upgrade is released. At that point, the hardware requirements will be much clearer.

I agree with this suggestion. I simply love the better sound with the higher rates of precision but I am not prepared to tolerate the extremely long processing times even on my tricked out imac Pro with 256GB of RAM. I am therefore putting all of my PGGB processing on hold for the moment but rather than chasing an upgraded processing computer I am waiting whilst the boffins do the necessary software writing. I am told this is progressing but there is a lot of coding to be done.

 

[audionewbi]

I have a very capable portable R2R dap which benefits greatly with PGGB. It only put my favourite music on that DAP as the UI is poor and lacks gapless playback.

With PGGB I'm able to resample with JSON to join the files but take too bloody long. Spending 5K on a PC just to use PGGB is something I can't quiet justify at this stage.

Hopefully PGGB teams can get it right.

 

[kennyb123]

Spending 5K on a PC just to use PGGB is something I can't quiet justify at this stage.

I have thus far processed 90 albums at P192 and over 275 albums at lower precision. I am using 2 Macs - I paid around around $1500 for each.

Faster processing will be a plus for sure. Likewise for a lower memory footprint. It’s not been much work to process my files as I utilize the feature that allows PGGB to read a list of directories from a text file. Both Macs just continually plow through their separate lists.

Hopefully PGGB teams can get it right.

I mentioned the above to argue that the PGGB developer has already gotten it very right. That I have been able to accomplish so much mostly with a 2010 Mac Pro is stunningly impressive. Even more so when you factor in how many hours of musical enjoyment I’ve had through all this.

 

[Progisus]

I was surprised how great this processed considering his “wall of sound” approach. It added transparency allowing micro details.

Using Roon>Hqplayer for playback.

 

[Peti]

I happened to find the PGGB + HQPlayer(dsd¹²⁸) combo to be the winning ticket.

 

[Progisus]

I happened to find the PGGB + HQPlayer(dsd¹²⁸) combo to be the winning ticket.

So you are converting the pggb files from pcm to dsd in hqplayer?

 

[Peti]

Yes, with great pleasure.

 

[kennyb123]

I happened to find the PGGB + HQPlayer(dsd¹²⁸) combo to be the winning ticket.

What do you gain in terms of sound quality?

 

[Peti]

I'm not too good with words. I have made blind tests of the same audio files converted directly to dsd128 and the same files converted to hirez pcm first through PGGB and then dsd128 and I always preferred the latter. I have named both files the same and only put a memo in the metadata to distinguish them. During the weeks I have revisited the same songs and, as it turned out, always preferred the PGGB+HQPlayer version. I have found it a more engaging listen and it allowed me to hear more details but, at the same time, it felt more realistic and allowed me to stop analyzing the music and just enjoy it.

P.S.: I have HQPlayer Pro so I have done the dsd conversion off-line, not real time.

 

[kennyb123]

P.S.: I have HQPlayer Pro so I have done the dsd conversion off-line, not real time

Which DAC? It very well could be that it does less processing when DSD128 is incoming.

Do you then play these tracks with HQPlayer?

As far as PGGB, what sample rate to you scale to? And which precision (64, 128 or 192)?

 

[Progisus]

I’ve gone back to 64b precision. The processing time and file size negated the sound improvement in my system. If I really, really like the album I will redo it. eg: new Porcupine Tree album.

Any word when ver 2 of Remastero is dropping?

 

[kennyb123]

Any word when ver 2 of Remastero is dropping?

I cannot say when the next version will drop. It will be worth the wait.

 

[Peti]

It is an ESS Sabre dac that was implemented in my Woo WA8. I use JRiver for the playback of the DSD128 files I have created.

First I take the Redbook audio file and apply 2.8mhz\32bit with 2m taps 64bits for the PGGB upsampling. The resulting large wave file then got converted through HQPlayer Pro into a much smaller dsd128 with the ASDM7ECv2/poly-sinc-mp 44.1x128 settings.

I don't have the newest PGGB software so I can't comment on higher bitrate (128, etc) conversion.