This must have been asked before so can you guide me to the correct post ?
I just need a basic idea on which filters to use !
I have a hugo tt2 and I want detail detail detail - no "warmth please !
Currently on sinc L poly long lp and ln15 dither as I’m trying to mimic an mscaler
Many many thx
Oh and PCM only as I understand hugo tt2 will just covert any dsd so loses any advantage of dsd
Do a search and I think you will find several threads that might be of interest.
I have and people argue over nuances I dont quite get - I want sound that springs forth and grabs you and just want a point in the right direction !
Digital filters are compromises between orthogonal properties, but detail and warmth aren’t those properties. You will more directly influence detail/warmth of a system by design choices in DACs or amplifiers.
The starting point is to remember why we have a digital filter at all. It is not primarily about altering the sound of the music. It is necessary to have a low pass reconstruction filter that cuts in before half the sampling rate in order to avoid distortion from digital artefacts that can appear as reflections of the signal above the half sampling rate.
Having said that, you would expect that the most detailed low pass digital filter would be:
Short in the time domain with resultant excellent impulse response (this affects microdynamics);
Steep in the frequency domain with excellent bandwidth rejection (this affects soundstage and separation of instruments);
Minimal “ringing” after an initial impulse and no unnatural “pre-ringing” (this can be done with minimal phase or mp filters);
No phase shifting of different frequencies (linear phase or lp).
The bad news is that the first two properties are alternatives, you can’t have both at the same time. The more you pull in one direction, the less you get of the other. Similarly the second two are also mutually exclusive alternatives.
So armed with the above nomenclature, you should look through the descriptions of the filters given by Jussi in the HQPlayer manual (latest version is always in the HQPlayer folder).
At the moment my favourite compromise is ext2, a relatively long linear phase filter with surprisingly good transient response.