louisxiawei

Why so cyncial and assume things are conspiratorial? Upsampling and DSP are based on a terrible precondition that music industry does not intend to release everything at mastertape quality to the public. In stead, 44.1/16, MQA these lossy files are still the majority for the audiences. Compared to the audio circle, visual technology on the other hand is far more progressive. For example, are you satisified with 720p resolution when there is a 1080p or 4k resoulation? Let's just follow your logic and assume people like Miska has their hidden agenda and want to promote his upsampling software/DACs as much as possible to make a fortune and make other people against upsampling look stupid. Then where is the logic people here repeatedly emphaize that DSP and upsampling would be totally unnecessary if the files are hi-res enough at the first place. Common sense were established years ago here and audiophiles are just trying what they can at the current status quo, which is the whole audio industry is not progressive at all. People believe what they believe in most cases and do pick a side to suit their needs. It's all about preconscious and subconscious. Your attached file is quite a good sign of you are not reading a lot.

There should be a category in this forum pinned at front page with a catchy notice like "something you must know before ramblings" and what miska said about upsampling/oversampling must be put there. Lol.

"Most old and rich would trade it for young and poor fairly damn quickly" "That's why people really get angry when they see young and rich people" "Yea, that's just too much to bear" - Jordan Peterson

I would say a few preconditions for experiecing the quality of the DSD1024 playback. This is my observation based on some indifferent feedback of some users playing back DSD1024 with their gears. That is: a high bandwidth amplifier and tweeter that are able to reproduce to 40-70 kHz. If some don't have such preconditions, they are unlikely to appreciate the DSD1024. Therefore, I'm in favour with the high-bandwidth, super "fast" gears like Spectral and Soulution as opposed to the other extreme example such as the "slow" Naim or some euphonic tube gears but with questionable measurements. To each his own.

We audiophiles sometimes need to find the silver line between fussy OCD and perfection. Many of us can't help and consider the OCD as a perfection instead of a waste. I had my lesson and got my diminishing return. Why would you think the enterprise grade switch is inferior to the "audiophile" switch? Just because audiophile company offers a holy contract that the final goal is a cost-no-object project to reduce noise? Even the goal is not for audio playback, the quality of its function is there. EEE for lower transmit power for shorter cables, flow control for smooth data transimission....I don't think these features were invented by an audiophile mindset yet it brings benefit to the audio playback. Why not the other way around? if there is an audio playback goal set for those big enterprise like NETGEAR and HP, they are more capable to launch a product at the absolute minimum cost than companies soley with audiophile mindset that are struggling surviving on this niche market. Anyway, ted has mentioned we are off the topic. So I will stop this disucssion.

2 channel 2048 will be at speed of around 180 Mbps. USB 2.0 is around 480 Mbps in theory. So should be ok. But I would worry other things like whether the clock in the dac can handle DSD 2048 properly.

I'm a plain computer audiophile and I have a dream: For example, if there is a unversial ethernet protocal available on the market for DACs, I want my dac to connect to a well-desgiend switch by a solid enterprise like Hewlett-Packard or NETGEAR not a self-called "audiophile" small company that DIY/mod swtiches and call it "audiophile" switches. Because I consider an "audiophile" mark on any IT product really mess things up (things like switch, router, ethernet cables, PCs) and I know people would argue. I do not think audiophile companies have more experience and talents in designing switch, routers than dedicated IT service cooperates. That's why I think the ethernet can potentially be a good opportunity to standardisze IT gadget for the audio playback purpose and leave little-to-no chance for those opportunists eyeing on the audiophile market. We can have a powerful PC with full of high frequency noise, polluted PSU, doing the HQplayer upsampling without worrying "should I mod my PC and my USB port for audiophile purpose?" I know DACs manufactures are more capable of handling USB now than 5 years ago as I used to have to use products like Uptone regen, Intona, microrendu and "audiophile" USB cable to have a proper SQ from PCs to DAC. Even though, no matter how well the DAC is designed in USB, it will still sound better at different degrees by connecting the dac to another audiophile grade PC, renderer or a USB-regen dongle. That's why I consider USB is flawed. I do appreciate these USB pheripherials and they do bring the sonic benefit but for me it is just painful and not a minimalistic solution. If things can be minimal, why bothering the daisy chain? I know I'm being ideal now but some products are necessailry to be audiophile, some don't if they are so well-designed at the first place. The marketing game don't look that way, but the industry standard set by the talents with know-how can make things a little better.

The reason I feel disappointed is that I consider ethernet has the potential to be a good candidate to replace the audio USB as it is galvanic isolated in nature while having proper bandwidth yet very few elaborates. I assume things may not be that easy to implement in practice. Audio USB port is not audiophile at all yet universal. What I meant to say is that we audiophiles need a unverisal port at the back of any DACs that designed for the purpose of high fidelity playback at sufficent bandwidth while fitting for all sorts of custom networking protocols. USB port is definitely not the best choice, it's for mice, keyboard and printers (even my BROTHER printer transmit data via ethernet cable).

Yes, I got it wrong. Merging is using AES67. I remember there is a Network-capable DACs thread and the disucssion just ended there at AES67. Miska has comment several times that AES67 is far from satisfication for a real network practice and I understand his concern. Just check his comment in 2017, AES67 is more of a "go with flow", a real network is "push and pull". I strongly echo that. If Ethernet protocol is designed to behave like point to point, then it is still an USB-ish protocol disguised by the ethernet port. Anyway, AES67's bandwidth cannot meet the GHz data transimission, lol.

I feel disappointed about this. There is still no standard set for the ethernet audio class yet in this industry. Only a few have their own non-standard protocols (merging and playback) but these protocols do not fit the network definition but point to point. If no mistaken, T+A flagship SDV3100 has an ethernet port for NAA, but it's also a kinda USB-ish connection on their circuit board. HIFI audio remains at a small scale and people who in this small circle want higher bandwidth for upsampling purpose are the minority of the minority. Asking for over 1GHz or several hundred Mbps bandwidth just for audio data transmission seems to be ridiculous for the majority. Hopeless.

Thanks. I will check my network.

I have little experience in TUBE gear and only a few limited experience in some mediocre tubes. The place I live in now has very limited resources to fetch any good old tubes. That's why I said I don't like the cliche euphonic tube sounding. I'm sure yours must be good. @barrowsThis is intersting. I do like dialectic thinking and having a corrective approach to guide our listeners. Like Quadman said, we shall wait for the measurement as I did not find any DSD256/512/1024 measurment of MAY. In the meanwhile, I will go to T+A thread, trying to get what Lothar thinks about DSD 1024 as T+A also encourages such DSD 1024 sampling rate. I can understand people might think the scale of Holo audio company is not that big and imperfection exists. On the other hand, I believe T+A has more solid R&D capabilities and more preliminary tests and measurments before launching a product. As I said before, my friend used T+A DAC 200 at DSD1024 through HQplayer, he is feeling the same "magic airy vibe". I don't consider these identical findings from two different DACs as concidence. These can be explained and measured for sure. Either HOLO and T+A are having the same issues at such high rate and we audiences need to be properly guided instead of being dazzled by the magic or such high rate does offer some advantages.

Same here. I used to stick to the DSD256 with EC modulator as my CPU is not heavily overclocked. I do appreciate more refining sounding from the EC modulator, but I'm not in a hurry to get a new CPU just for the EC DSD1024. I used to be in the competition to get the fastest PC hardware for the HQplayer upsampling. Eventually, I got my diminishing return. CPU evolves through time, so does HQplayer's optimisation. After another round of search, I've also found that people are quite skeptical about such DSD1024 magic as the measurement differs (HOLO audio dac at DSD256 seems to be the best in measurement). Then talking about your TUBE distortion sound preference, ultrasonic noise handling at the amp. Luckily, I do not like tube sounding and my amps are Spectral that can handle ultrasonice noise well. I will have a deep search to see whether there is a higher levels of distortion with DSD rates above 256 in holo audio DAC presented in this forum. If so, I might bring the measurment and ask Jeff for his opinion. I prefer to be scientific yet combined with collective subjective opinions.

BTW, one of my friends uses T+A DAC 200, he also upsamples everything to DSD1024. Since then, he told me he cannot go back to DSD512 anymore. Same as me, he is also hyped about the "air" vibe. 5 years ago, he bought the DAC8 DSD and loathed the upsampling until I told him there is a thing called HQplayer. 😏 So, HOLOY MAY dac is not the only case here. 😁

I searched the key word "1024" in this topic after my last post to see whoever talked about dsd1024. Seems to be you are the only few. 😂 I tried to avoid using subjective or fancy wordings these days in any audiophile forums as we aduiophiles do make a fussy impression from time to time, the more frenquent audiophiles exaggerate the SQ, the less credbility a product will have accordingly. We are still the minorities to spot the DSD1024. DSD 1024 is not that just simple as "bigger" stage, or more transpranecy or more delight overtone. I would say that I sense a strong "air" across the whole frequency when the sampling rate is higher. At DSD256, I sense no "air" at all. If we are talking about soundstage, then a multi-instrument scene or orchestral pieces will be a good example to discuss. But it not just about sound stage. For example, I played a few tracks of solo singer with just piano accompaniment or no instrument at all, a solo singer with or without a piano cannot demonstrate a complex soundstage and allow us to disucss the stage is bigger or wide. But still in DSD1024, the difference is clear, I can sense the air around every syllable, that vibe is real. Same speaker, same setup, just sampling rate change. I think it's pretty amazing but shamed that not many tried yet. The link below is from soulution audio, which also mentioned about "the air". I think the great minds think alike and maybe some great mind have not realised them yet. https://soulution-audio.com/series7/soulution-760-dac/