Hazard

Many people here use HQPlayer to up sample PCM files to DSD512 with brilliant results. Depending on CPU this process van take anywhere from 50% to 100% of CPU processing capability. On the other hand, decompressing a flac file to a wav file doesnt even register a difference if you measure CPU utilisation in Task Manager. Probably uses less than 0.1% of CPU capacity. So it's pretty hard to imagine how this might have negative impact on sound quality.

May I respectfully suggest that you organize a blind listening test. An audio friend of mine is adamant that flack files dont sound as good as wav so I created a little test of 6 musical selections with one flack version and one wav version of each. I controlled the playback of course and he could easily hear the difference in formats - except that he chose the flack file as his preferred format 5 out of 6!!!! Perhaps not so surprising, he still maintains that flac conversion harms the sound.

Good luck with EMU card. I have 1212M which sounds really nice but it stopped working with Windows 10 some time ago. Unfortunately Creative havent updated their driver since 2011, and from forums I have checked many people have the same problem. AFAIK there are no Linux drivers which is a shame as I use Ubuntu. But HQPlayer with my USB dac sounds superb. I am very happy with this set up and have now accepted that EMU card is out of support and totally obsolete.

Hi Jussi. Just want to say that I have just built up my own DAC using the DSC 2.5.2 developed by Pavel Pogodin and sold on diyAudio. It sounds fantastic with hqplayer up sampling to DSD512. I use a linux system and DIYINHK USB board so luckily I have been able to up sample l my files both 44k and 448k families and I am really enjoying the music. Thanks for your great player and your input into the design of the DSC dac. You are a legend.

My wife thinks I am OCD but all this talk about tags... I hate tags, never use them as they dont add any benefit AFAICT. All my music is in directories, I simply drag and drop the directory I want to play. Nothing could be easier.

I built a PC with I7 7700k and GTX1050. It plays DSD 512 easily, CPU utilisation runs around 25%.

I am having same problem. I upsample to DSD512. With auto rate set, 48k family files typically upsample to 24Mhz (48x512) but now they wont play at all. I have to manually set the sample rate to 44.1x512 as you describe.

Miska, I am running Ubuntu Studio 16.04 with all current updates. To install your custom kernel, do i just install files linux-headers (latest) and linux-image (latest)? Do I need the earlier files (libgmpris.*)? Thanks

Interesting post Ted. Know i know why - I can play DSD files with XTR filter but I can only play PCM files if I choose XTR-2s filter (on my i7-7700k CPU). You are not alone, if you eat humble pie make sure it's a big one because you will need to share it with many others I think So I've read your post through twice, and I've read the HQP manual this morning. And I am getting more confused. Maybe I am missing something, but I cannot clearly work out which options in 'Setting' and 'DSDIFF/DSF' boxes apply to PCM->DSD conversion, and which aply to DSD->DSD conversion. Side note - I am using a DIY DSD only DAC and only interested in converting to DSD. I have a large collection of both PCM files (CD rips and hi res downloads) and DSD files (SACD rips @ DSD64 and vinyl recordings captured on my TASCAM DA3000 @ DSD128). So I am loving HQP and upsample everything to DSD512. But I now am sure that I have not optimised the settings, particularly DSD->DSD. Based on your conversation with Jussi are you able to articulate which options apply to PCM source file vs DSD source? Or maybe Jussi ccan weigh in?

Thanks Miska. Sorry to ask dumb question, but is it possible to see load on individual cores in Ubuntu OS? Task Manager shows total CPU load, but I dont know how to display load on inividual cores.

Hi Larry, I have O7-7700K and Z270 mobo. I upsample to DSD512 to my diy DAC (based on DIYinHK usb boaed). With -xrr filter I can upsample DSD64 to DSD512 with no problem. CPU utilisation is around 25 to 30%. However I get stuttering when I play PCM with this filter. CPU utilisation is only 50% so I dont understand why it is stuttering. My video card is an ancient GT9600 so CUDA offload is probably doing nothing. PCM to DSD512 works fine with -xtr-2s filter. CPU utilisation is around 30%. I just spent $1200 to build this machine and honestly, everything sound great using -xtr or -xtr-2s filter. I am not going to spend abymore money chasing the last bit of performance. Oh and as a general comment about Daphile (not in response to your post). I tried Daphile. For about 5 min. Was clearly inferior to HQP in my opinion, in my system.

I dont get the concerns with library function. All my music is stored in folders exactly the way I want it. Then its as simple as drag and drop. Metadata is irrelevant.

Hi, can you be more more specific - what is the configuration that allows every application except HQPlayer to run. And what changes did you make to the configuration? Just telling me to learn to configure W10 is not very helpful.

Hi Miska I have assembled a new PC. CPU is I7 7700K, MB is Gigabyte H270, 32GB RAM. So this should address the issues that we discussed back in February. HQP 3.16 now works fine on Ubuntu Studio 16.04, which is OK because I mainly use this OS for music listening. However, on Windows 10 (build 15063) I can only run HQP3.13. if I install any of the later versions, I can load files but when I hit play button I get a message "HQPlayer stopper working. Application will close". And it does close. And yes, I do uninstall one version before I try another. Any ideas on how to fix Win10? Regards

Ummmm - this is a HQPlayer thread. What did you expect to find here?