evalon

Thanks Miska for your being so forthcoming in replying to these PC-related questions. Not being very computer savvy myself it is a great help to get feedback from you (& other people here) ... Cheers, Jesper

@toddrhodes & juanitox: Thank you both for your feedbacks. I will just consider what may be most feasible, however, over a quiet New Year I have thought about various additional options. And given that prices on cpus are continually going down I am now also considering buying a mini-itx motherboard and the I9-9900k if it can do DSD256 EC modulators without the additional graphics card (i.e. with the on-cpu UHD 630 graphics processor). Compared with an additional graphics card this will (significantly) reduce power consumption and - hopefully - give some extra speed capacity for ?? upcoming processing needs. And as I never play games I don't really need a dedicated graphics card unless needed for HQPlayer ... @Miska: To this end ... Can I ask you Miska, if you think that HQPlayer will do DSD256 EC modulators (including whatever "fringes - i.e. additional sound quality improving processing that may be needed for HQPlayer") with an (almost) dedicated quality Z390 motherboard (mini-itx), 8GB Kingston HyperX RAM 2666 MHz DDR4, fast SSD HD, an i9-9900k or 'ks processor (with built-in Intel UHD Graphics 630)? Clocking to 5 GHz will be possible, an optimized Win10 is likely to be used (Ubuntu 20.10 is less feasible I guess, as I will also be using this PC for a Kontakt Player digital piano). Happy New Year - for a hopefully better 2021 Cheers, Jesper

... Hi & thanks for your prompt reply 😉 ... which also made me realize that I had been imprecise in the wording of my question: What I meant was how your PC works with converting e.g. 192 kHz files to DSD256 ASDM7EC? Can it do this without drop-outs or the like? ... I'd like to be able to play DSD at as good/high a resolution as possible ... Cheers, Jesper

Hi all, Well, that sounds really interesting as I would also prefer to use a slightly older computer for HQPlayer. I was wondering, though, what happens with e.g 192kHz files - have you tried this? Cheers & Happy New Year, Jesper

@firedog & Ipoci: Thanks also for your feedbacks. I think it is still time to let my mind simmer on which solution is the best in my context although my guess is that I likely will end up building "sort of" a laptop myself so that it is both portable, reasonably powerful, yet still quiet. If possible I would prefer to not have a network in my home as it is less feasible from a practical point of view (and I am not into wireless networks) so preferably just one unit. Cheers & Merry Christmas (soon), Jesper

@bobflood & jcbenten: Thank you both for your feedbacks ... Well, I sort of assumed that it would be so (large, heavy, warm, active fans, etc.) if there were suitable laptops but it is fine to have it confirmed, thanks! Hmmm ... time to ponder again what would be a suitable solution - maybe some manufacturer will "soon" make processors in 1nm technology so that heat dissipation may drop significantly - would make things much easier 😌 Cheers, Jesper

Hi all ... Just did a search on "laptop" in this thread and it seems that it has not been discussed, so - as I would prefer to have one "integrated solution" - any of you have experience with using laptops for DSD upsampling to DSD256 with the EC modulators? May it work - also without costing a fortune? Hoping here - cheers, Jesper

Thanks again Miska for your feedback. A lot of processing power needed for these modulators Cheers, Jesper

@Gavin1977 & bobflood: Inspired by bobflood's comment about power dissipation I just checked the dissipation levels of an i9-10900k during full load and adding to this the power loss of the PSU, GPU etc. I reckon that such a PC may drain about 300-350 watts while loaded. That would indeed require quite some cooling if it is to be more or less passive ... I think I'll let it be for a bit of time and see if something comes up that can manage this amount of processing with less heating. Would be great if it was possible to process these DSD files overnight with just a normal PC and without needing HQPlayer Pro - or if it was possible to upload music files e.g. to Signalyst and have them processed there (and I wouldn't mind paying something for having the files processed). Thanks again to Bob & Gavin for your feedbacks :-) Jesper

@bobflood: Hi & thanks for your helpful feedback - appreciated 😉 ... One follow-up question if possible - you mention the 3000 series Nvidia CUDA capable cards, however, it seems that all of them have blowers mounted (the ones I have found). I am considering making a completely silent PC so it would be preferable to have a GPU that is without blowers. Do you - or someone else here - have experience with a card that is sufficiently powerful yet works without blowers? Cheers, Jesper

@Miska & others: This might already have been discussed here so please bear with me if I happen to repeat a question (also with reference to my previous question to Miska here: The question is if there is any consensus on which PC (processor (type & speed - Intel preferred), MB - chipset, RAM (GB & type/speed), HD - type, GPU (type/brand - is an integrated Intel OK?) is required to playback EC modulator DSD256 and "regular" modulator DSD512? From reading elsewhere in this forum it seems that PCM processing is not really an issue as even quite reasonably powered processors appear to be able to handle this (please correct me if I am mistaken here ... 😉) ... Cheers & thanks for inputs, Jesper

Thanks Jussi for this feedback ... So likely there is a bit of time before the new DSD512 modulator will find its computer mate ... Good to know. Cheers - Jesper

@Miska: Just a quick question - I noticed that earlier in this thread (I think it was) you mentioned that it likely would take some time before there would be a computer capable of running your new modulators at DSD512 speed. To this end: Do you have any estimate of the clock speed required to run these DSD512 modulators? Cheers, Jesper

Hi again ... this is an edit - just to correct an error in my previous post: From looking at the block diagram of the AK4499 it appears to be a combination of a sigma-delta modulator + switched resistor output so conceptually not an R2R DAC. And apparently the same applies to the ES9038 from Esstech. Cheers Jesper

Hi both, & thanks for your feedbacks. Things to ponder I think ... As it is I basically believe most in DSD converters because the basic electronics can be exceptionally simple and still (probably) be better than - 110 dB THD (100 dB THD confirmed for a very simple circuitry). The drawbacks are the relatively high clock rates needed (22.6 MHz for DSD512) which inevitably will mean higher phase noise on the clock (in theory 6 dB extra per octave). Also, there's quite a lot of high frequency noise inherent in the DSD conversion principle itself meaning that the filtering electronics IMHO needs be quite high quality. Still, it can be very simple (low cost, optimized electronics etc.), and due to the high sample rate I assume (my intuition here, not factual knowledge) that it may track the music signal very well. PCM on the other hand today most often is accomplished with a delta-sigma modulator which is then processed to a PCM-like-signal. The exceptions - to my knowledge - being e.g. Esstech DACs and the new AK4499 DAC which are switched resistor networks akin to an R2R DAC (+ their internal filters) - Denafrips Terminator. However, e.g. the ES9038 requires an oscillator operating (from memory) somewhere between 80-100 MHz again compromising phase noise of this DAC's timing reference. The AK4499 seems to require either a 12.2 or 24.5 MHz oscillator. However, both output huge amounts of current likely posing quite a challenge on their power supplies. Anyway, the above digression is mainly to say that if I somehow could stream audio as DSD - but with a very simple user interface so that I can basically open e.g. youtube and instantly play back from within youtube when I wish to do so - then this likely would be my preferred way of playback. But I just don't know if it is possible ... So ... time to ponder ... Have a good day both of you 😉 Cheers - Jesper