LowOrbit

Thanks @austinpop (and of course ZB!). As a current T+A Dac200 owner and a longtime proponent of PGGB I can only comment on PGGB DSD in the context of that dac. I concur completely with your observations. - DSD512 (upsampled in one stage) provides tangible improvements in all the aspects or reproduction that you listed. I have tried a couple of tracks at DSD1024 (though not yet in a one step conversion, not had time yet) and did not experience any issues over USB (like you, I play them out from HQPlayer via an NAA). I have used DSD1024 with HQplayer quite successfully over a long while, so it wasn't surprising it worked (obviously I did not know you had had issues). More listening time today...

I think there are some good user enhancement ideas there. But can we stop it with the good suggestions for now and just get PGGBDSD out the door??? 🤣

MLL I liked your post (be rude not to) but you're only fueling my impatience to get my hands on the finished release of PGGBDSD. I heard a few test tracks but without the EQ which would have made evaluation quite a bit more useful to Zaphod and to me. (Good to know there's more than one PGGB fan in the UK too!)

I have not updated the firmware on my (now eight month old) Dac200. Never felt the need. I do run HQP on Windows and I use HQP often to convert my PGGB files (in various states of upsampling stored as 64bit doubles) to DSD at 512 or 1024. This is not optimal but sounds excellent. Now waiting eagerly to be able to take the processing offline and let my HQP computer relax a little.

My T+A Dac200 does DSD1024 without issue, but I don't hear significant benefit from stretching my computing resources that far. It sounds great using HQPlayer and the highest quality DSD modulators at DSD128 or DSD256, so I would not hung up on the numbers.

I have only one question, ZB, following my positive but limited exposure: Do we get EQ for DSD processing?

You start by discussing the raison d'être of hires files, then move to upsampling. These are two very different things to my mind. Hi Res (that is, files recorded natively at greater than red book rate) is really about - as @One and a Half states early in his post) resolving issues with the basic behaviour of filters around the corner frequency and the strongest images that affect replay of red book recordings. Upsampling, whether in a dac chip, or in software is an essential step in any attempt to accurately recover the original analogue signal. I don't want to disparage NOS approaches (I have heard some excellent docs built on this approach), but they fundamentally (conveniently...) ignore sampling theory and many rely on the reconstruction filter of last resort (your ears). I use HQPlayer (and PGGB) but I don't consider it complicated or daunting - I settled on a filter/modulator combination and never think about changing it. I have never heard significant differences, certainly not compared to upsampling/not upsampling.

I use either Poly-sinc-gauss-xl or Closed Form Fast with PGGB files at 16 or 32fs/64bit. Volume control in HQPlayer is deactivated. Typically I use DSD512 to feed my DAC200, but with 16fs input files I can get reliable replay at DSD1024 also. Not sure it really makes any in-band difference. I no longer fuss about these settings too much. I get little enough time for music listening, as long as I don't get interrupted playback I am satisfied.

I use 64bit because I am running the file through HQPlayer and the modulator does the final noise shaping - better than having the process completed to 32 bits in PGGB then reshaped again to get the 1 bit stream for the dac. Be sure to disable sw volume control also - not good. My feeling is this approach brings a little more micro dynamics and harmonic complexity out but we all hear things our own way and Miska and Zapped have given us many options from which to pick our particular poison.

Pretty much my current methodology (except I declined to follow up a Roon trial with hard cash). 64bit doubles, mostly at 16fs, but some acoustic recordings "seem" to become a little more vivid if I go to 32 or 64fs, but even my 30+tb of storage isn't adequate to house too much of that sort of nonsense 😁. All files converted to DSD512 or 1024 in HQP at replay time. I am quite impressed with the quality of unconverted streaming from Qobuz.

I've been using PGGB/HQPlayer this way for the last six months. Using either 16fs or 32fs upsampling @64bits and closed form/ADSM7EC or one of the newer modulators in the latest version of HQP5. 32fs I reserve for favourite albums with good acoustic recordings because of the extra time and hard disk space, but there are subtle gains, hard to delineate but my ears like it. DAC is the T+A Dac200, into AHB2 and Raal SR1a's using th older interface. It's absolutely fabulous. (I am currently trying out 64fs/64bit PGGB upsampling, with linearisation and EQ, oh, and some patience, jury is still out but not sure yet it's worth the effort - so far only a couple of acoustic tracks and not really any discernible improvement over 32fs).

Tested now and my issue has been resolved. Great support as always ZB - thank you.

I'll download and check out the update later this evening, ZB. Many thanks

Hi ZB I am pretty fastidious about reloading the impulse file when I make any changes. I am on Windows 11. I'll send you the screenshot by email asap. Mark

Hi ZB In my case - yes I re-imported my eq file prior to checking the Linearisation box. But it fails with the Linearisation box unchecked also (and the file re-imported for that too). Mark