NAA options capable of 1.536PCM

Looking for options for NAA that would be capable of 1.536PCM as most seem to only do 768khz

I’ve heard from a few sources that the Pi4 is capable of it with the Holo May DAC but don’t know if that’s a great option since the Pi4 doesn’t have access to anything in the way of LPSU unless you’re really good with soldering which I am not.

Looking for other suggestions.

For example UP Gateway or Fitlet2.

If yu get the latter with E3950 CPU, you can also run HQPlayer OS on it and the upsampling by HQPlayer Embedded on the device itself, without need for a NAA. Gives you also optical networking capabilities.

Replied to you just yesterday in your other thread:

Sorry, so with the fitlet option (it’s snazzy) with HQ Player embedded would it actually be doing the upsampling (that’s the way I read it) or is it just replacing a NAA by running its own HQ Player client or something to that effect? Sorry. I understand the point of a NAA but I don’t totally understand HQ player OS and embedded.

I understand like how you would load it and run it etc I just don’t know what it would have feature wise.

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It is like HQPlayer Desktop, but headless. There’s no local graphical interface at all. You can remotely configure it using a web browser. HQPlayer Client can be used with it same way as with HQPlayer Desktop. In addition, it supports UPnP Renderer functionality.

OTOH, if you already have HQPlayer Desktop license it would be additional cost, so you could run just a NAA OS. And just try what you’d like about HQPlayer OS.

You haven’t mentioned any limitations - so the E3950 CPU can do all filters of HQPlayer Embedded upsampling to PCM ~1500 kHZ, LNS15 ? 2 channel of course.

The ones I usually use. I have not run exhaustive tests if all filters work.

But it can also do DSD256 with lighter filters and modulators. There’s also equivalent newer generation chip coming into similar products, which will likely be able to do even more.

One thing to note - I added missing thermal paste between the heatsink cover and CPU heatspreader.

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Jussi what settings do you recommend trying with up gateway hqplayer and holo may dac ? Currently running poly sync gauss lns15 1.5khz pcm

Assuming you have DAC Bits already set to 20, that is pretty good option. You can try which other filters you are able to run on the UP Gateway.

Of course May works really nice running at DSD256 or DSD512 using EC modulators, but for that you need more power and then the UP Gateway would act just as a NAA.

Hey Jussi, is there any SQ difference using the up gateway as NAA rather than Rpi? If both were using the same modulator and DSD256.

I can’t get hold of a Rpi, and want to set a new NAA up for Desktop

I would say it depends on the overall system and kind of PSU used for the NAA.

Current UP Gateway generation is going away and there’s soon a new one. New one doesn’t have 5V DC PSU anymore, but instead uses 12V and thus has some differences and becomes closer to fitlet2.

I’ve just had a look at the fitlet2. Interesting alternative NAA. Have you added it to your list of recommended hardware?

Good point! I’ve forgotten to include it there. Now updated!

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