Can you tell me how HQP works?

[LarryMagoo (Snickers)]

@miklats,
Can you tell me how HQP works?
My Yggy is driven by my Mac mini. I have not got any USB converter boxes going yet until I am way familiar with the Yggy’s sound. According to Jason Stoddard, you’d have to spend a lot of money to get better data feeds than the Yggy already has stock…

[orgel (David Orgel)]

Here’s a good, succinct explanation of what HQP does (IMO):

Sound quality - not as good as other programs?

This is sound and well reasoned advice. You speak to the virtues of A+ for those using Mac-based systems. For those with Windows-based systems, HQPlayer is the counterpart (although HQP also plays on Macs). I know that Esoteric has done a huge amount of work on its own internal upsampling process and that may be a significant part of your great sound. But for many, if not most, other DACs the ability to upsample to high rate PCM (for Chord DACs and some others) to DSD 256 or 512 (for most ot…

I’ve not had a chance to fool around with the Yggdrasil, but I suspect that because of its design, it might not be the DAC that benefits most from upsampling/filtering in software upstream from the DAC.

(Sorry for not being @miklats)

[miklats]

I have 5 “endpoints” in my house.
One of them is the Yggy endpoint. My “sacred room”.
HQP has no other function than to translate (if needed) DSD to PCM… No filters are used nada. Plain transfer.
HQP does that perfectly. No up or downsampling like Roon at this moment.
Other sources in that room are only analog.Mostly Analog Master tapes on Studer Analog Tape Machines, like A 812,807 etc

[miklats]

An other endpoint uses HQP’s upsamplimg to DSD 512.
Another, beautiful experience.
Would not like to miss that one.

[DrTone (Jeff)]

I was under the impression you want to leave things alone when feeding the Yggy. I might be wrong though.

[Rugby (aka Daniel or Big Dan)]

I think the multibits sound the best when just fed a straight signal.

[jhwalker (John Walker)]

I hear the same re: the multibit DACs - they have pretty extensive internal processing already, so just leave the input alone.

Most other DACs that will take DSD128, 256, or 512, though, may very well benefit from HQPlayers DSD processing - it sounds pretty wonderful to me, especially with the latest “extreme” filters.

[jussi_laako (Jussi Laako (Signalyst))]

@jhwalker

I hear the same re: the multibit DACs - they have pretty extensive internal processing already, so just leave the input alone.

Depends on the case, not that there would be many R2R DACs on the market in any case. NOS ones certainly benefit big time, like for example Metrum DACs (running at 384 kHz). Only if DAC for some reason performs worse at higher input sampling rates, due to for example functionality of their DSP software, then it may not be as good. But then hires sources wouldn’t perform any better, since DAC cannot know if the data it gets is upsampled or hires content, both get the same treatment.

@jhwalker

Most other DACs that will take DSD128, 256, or 512, though, may very well benefit from HQPlayers DSD processing - it sounds pretty wonderful to me, especially with the latest “extreme” filters.

Those are available for PCM too, so in case a DAC supports just PCM inputs, there is still benefit in many cases. For example Meridian Explorer 2 performs better running at 192/24 upsampled input. Same goes for example for HifiBerry DAC cards.

But for SDM DACs, bigger benefits are gained with bypass of the on-chip modulator too and going straight with DSD.

So it is not black and white, but different shades of gray depending on case.

For example with Yggdrasil, if one likes sound of their filter, then that’s one thing. If one doesn’t like, the hardware doesn’t offer alternatives, but one can use external alternatives to some benefit. And still, in any case, it doesn’t offer for example capability of running digital room correction filters that certainly can make a huge difference.

[jhwalker (John Walker)]

Good point on using the “extreme” filters for PCM DACs, as well - I’m currently resampling everything to 24/176 or /192 (poly-sinc-xtr, NS9) for input into my Pioneer receiver (doesn’t take DSD input), and your results are miles better than Pioneer’s

Will have to try with my Meridian Explorer 2, as well.

[lorin]

Just chiming in that extreme filter with an iFi DAC at high PCM rates is a beautiful thing! If I happen to be doing cpu intensive tasks on my music machine, which happens, that’s what I’m using. Previously I would do 384k closed form, but this is better. I listen to a lot of poorly mastered music so I don’t find closed form all that practical, even though it can sound incredible with the right material.