Opinion Please - Which server for Roon with HQPlayer

We use 6 copper heat pipe cooling with large solid aluminium fins. It still gets a bit warm but it runs very well even with DSD 512 upsampling.

Upsample to DSD 512 but with what filters in HQPlayer ?

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There is no simple answer to that. it all dpends on personal taste and what your server can handle.

First thing to do is to decide if you want to use a Linear Phase filter of a Minimum Phase filter.
Easy to distinguish. A lot of people prefer Minimum phase, I prefer Linear phase on my gear.

Then, it is a little bit playing around based on the characteristics that are provided in the manual/online help.
In practice, it all depends what your server hardware can handle. Please remember that with HQPlayer, it is the max. CPU frequency of a singel processor that counts, not the number of actual CPU’s. (so a 2CPU processor of 4?2GHz is much better for HQPlayer than a 32CPU processor at 3,2Ghz).
A lot of people seem to like the Poly-sinc-ext2 filter, so that can be a good start (Personally, I do not like it because, again with my gear, it seems to lift the highrange frequencies at the cost of the midrange.

So my config is as follows:
DSD256 with Poly-Sinc-XTR-LP , with ADSM7 modulator.
In fact, I prefer DSD256 with ther full XTR filter, compared to DSD512 with Poly-sinc-xtr-lp-2s.
My AMD Ryzen 7 - 3700 processor cannot handle heavier filters anyway.

Good luck with auditioning
Dirk

But saying it upsamples to dsd 512 is misleading.If i was going to buy product under that assumption and it didn’t work with all filters I would not be happy

I am sure ther are a lot of Roon servers out there that are not capable to handle upsampling in Roon (not HQplayer) itself.
So, you will not use Roon then?
And if you buy a car with the lowest power engine, you will be dissastified it will not ride as fast as the same car with the highest power engine?

And you can test HQplayer for a month, before actually needing to buy a license (I must admit that testing HQplayer could be handled more customer friendly).
Dirk

I don’t think you get what I"m saying.This thread is about Roon with HQPlayer.The guys at Small Green Computer say there I-9900 can do dsd 512.On Roon yes.On HQPlayer yes up to 512 but will not work with all filters.When selling product they should include info about dsd rate and filters that have been tested and not just say it does dsd 512.

Not sure if this is similar but after discussion with Audiolab bloke, it looks as if they will change their manual to inform Mac users that the 8300cdq cannot play DSD256 files, as it says it can, because the PCM limit is 384 and as they use DoP, in order to produce DSD256 it must be able to handle PCM 768.

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Was this addressed to me?

Well, I do believe SGC can state that they support DSD512, as I am sure the I-9900 will support the Roon DSD512 embedded filters…
HQPlayer is not only an optional module, it is developped continously. That means that extra filters and modulators are added to the product , and SGM allows for these new filters/modulators to be used in their product. At the bawe it is mainly the HQPlayer requiring more specific CPU power for these new filters.
So nothing to complain about.
Dirk

I’ve had similar thoughts in the past but in the end I didn’t think it was reasonable for SGC to test every possible combination of filter vs modulator vs sample rate (and even vs source rate)… so many combinations.

Something a bit more reasonable is to maybe ask them to test one very specific combination.

I think an i9 would easily handle the above with capacity for more intensive settings in future.

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Yes it would. But so does my present set up.

I have got into such a tizz about all of this that I now wondering why I am even thinking of changing my set up. I think I fell into a trap unintentionally laid by those who think a laptop is not a ‘proper’ server or Roon core. And an old part of me that wants to be thought well of, fell for it.

Really the sound we enjoy is excellent. I have spent £0000’s recently on new MBPros, external Thunderbolt3 external storage. The most expensive machine is solely used for Roon/HQPlayer and for recording the cd’s and for plugging in the external storage.

IF i upgraded the MBPro to one with higher processing-more cores and i7 or i9, I really could not justify keeping two few month old laptop of 1tb ssd each. But the idea of selling them frightens me. Seriously. Not because I fear being without them. I just have no idea how to go about it. I have an Ebay account where I have sold stuff in the past, I think. I certainly have bought plenty. But Ebay is risky. I either have to do a buy it now or an auction with no reserve.

So you see, I am in quite a tizz. To the point I am thinking ‘wtf, just stay as you are’ and revisit this idea in 2/3yrs.

I can see more point right now in the new 2020 Panasonic 65" coming out next month. It IS a definite improvement.

The trouble I have noticed with hi-fi is one seems never satisfied. There is always a better this or that.

As I have said my husband was trained for a career as an Opera singer, bass. He knows music. He says our system is excellent to his ears. I trust him. I know I should trust mine but…Even to me, I can’t imagine Carly or Joni sounding better. I hear stuff on their early albums I didn’t know was there until I started with the DACs. Now with Roon/HQPlayer I am hearing even more instrumentation and voices that have eluded me this last 45 years. It has made listening to my albums first bought 1974 onwards like listening to brand new albums.

I think I need to pull back, enjoy my music and leave upgrading alone for now. I have spent so much time researching, being on here, auditioning new artists that I have had no time to do what I love and what all this is for: sitting back and enjoying the music!

Enjoy listening to the music .

One last advice (I should follow better myself :grinning:),
Stay away as much as possibel of audio websites, and start exploring music websites iinstead.
Just to new a few: Pitchfork.com, Rollingstone.com, mpr.org, Grammophone.com, …
There are dozens of others.
Reduce the audiophile temptations, and you find out new interesting stuff (too much even).

Dirk

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It’s called ‘chasing the dragon’. :slightly_smiling_face:

Yes well I found my dragon by just letting go. In three excruciating stages, but it was worth it.

This nonsense I have got caught up in is nothing like that but I do understand what you mean. At least I have recognized fairly quickly that I was becoming OCD about it. Have just spent the last half or so with my Grads on listening to music on one of the links Dirk provided. Still dislike rap, Patti Smith etc even if I identify with the lyrics. I thought I liked Apple but no, not really. The jazz bloke Marco I liked then he went weird, singing a good jazzy song, good voice then suddenly screams out he is Satan. WTF?

Now it’s back to more listening. I have to say that no swimming, my only from of exercise possible, since March 19th, and shielded this last 10 weeks is beginning to take it’s toll.

Go bigger !! 100" projector with good screen will probably be the same price.

No place for it. You can see my living room, or one end of it, in the thread on showing one’s set up.