Thanks for posting the reply. This is about what I expected. Those of us who use HQP are still a silent minority from the OEM side of things.
Jussi, Thanks for your reply as well.
The goal of having a DAC with direct in Ethernet that supports HQP via RJ45 or SFP is still a long way off. I saw that T+A just came out with one but is an ultra expensive flagship model.
The problem is that in order to accomplish it they would have to incorporate some kind of computer into the DAC with all the problems that entails. The Converse card is such a thing but its capabilities are limited and it appears to be the only pre-packaged solution for DAC OEMs right now.
I think there are at least two, the other one is StreamUnlimited. All these are essentially small computers. The bigger StreamUnlimited uses NXP i.MX7, while I used earlier i.MX6 (CuBox-i, microRendu), and now i.MX8M. But there are many other hardware options as well.
I din’t find quickly info on what SoC the ConversDigital one uses.
I’m pretty sure there are some companies in Japan doing similar things too. And many of the devices especially with disc players (Oppo etc) use Mediatek.
Thanks Jussi, I didn’t realize there were other choices for the OEMs. Hopefully this market will expand and the choices will improve. What did T+A use in their new product?
We’ve contacted Convers Digital about HQPlayer support. They answer was: We will review the HQ Player.
Literally that’s all. So for now there is no specific answer but I hope their “review” will be positive:)
I will keep you guys posted here if anything new about this topic come out.
@Wojtek_Glowienka Thank you so much for even looking into it. This would be icing on the cake in my opinion. I will keep my fingers crossed that it works out
If I understand the issue correctly, a DAC with a direct ethernet connection will not automatically handle an HQ Player stream without the DAC’s network card being specifically enabled to handle such a stream? I’m considering buying a Sonictransporter with Roon DSP and HQP to upsample everything to DSD (either 512, 256, and 128, depending on the DAC). Is it prudent to ask each DAC manufacturer if its network card can handle HQ Player?
Yes. Ask if it can function as a NAA endpoint. The same as you would ask each manufacturer if it could be a Roon Endpoint.
Before you spend money, you should clearly define your target upsampling goals. The best DSD 512 filters take an enormous amount of horsepower and require additonal processing from a discrete Nvidia Cuda Graphics Card.
There are threads on here discussing just such processing needs. I would review these threads:
Thank you for the response. I understood that DSD 512 requires more processor power than “lesser” sampling rates. I was unaware until this thread that a DAC requires either a built-in HQP-compatible NAA or an external HQP-compatible NAA to handle HQP-processed signals directly through Ethernet input. I have reached out to Cary and Cocktail Audio (DACs that I am considering) to get their thoughts with regards to their products, but I don’t expect either to tell me that their DACs are HQP-compatible through ethernet input.
It looking most likely that I won’t get HQP. I am only considering DACs with direct ethernet inputs because I don’t want USB anywhere in my system. I have gone down that road before with a Mac Mini-based setup. No thank you.
Will do. Having USB inside seems no different to just having a microRendu (or similar) running NAA inside the DAC case. I guess it’s a little more convenient - one less external PSU in the chain I guess?
It is quite common, because there are not many SoC’s that could do DSD output from their audio interface. I know only two options, of which the other is very recent. On-board USB is also quite common for many other things, like Raspberry Pi has it’s Ethernet interface on USB (argh), and laptops typically have for example touchpad on USB. And for example audio interface of Intel’s SoCs is useless for HiFi applications because it always derives it’s clock from the CPU clock and cannot have externally provided audio clock.
Yes, the difference is that inside the same box it is easier to make sure there are no ground currents or such with PSU design, and in some cases it allows avoiding cables too. And also things are much more convenient and reliable because both are powered up/down at the same time, and the DAC cannot suddenly disappear from the NAA.
You mean the EVGA? (not related to Nvidia though) Yes, that is one example. Although they could have implemented PCIe and DSD audio interfaces in FPGA for example. But the way they did it is cheaper and faster.
Thanks, yes, EVGA. Lack of Coffee earlier. It does sound very good and love having native DSD. Coming from an old Asus Xonar Essence STX, which was a very good audio card.
Having interesting issues with Roon and the Nu’s ASIO driver, but, I don’t want to derail this thread anymore.
