Two questions: 1) dithering, 2) conversion software

Jussi,

I thank you for recommending to shut down any signal processing i Roon and instead make all in HQP. I did wonders in one aspect, but I have some issues with harshness in high notes. High energy treble/high mid can be like prior to any computer playback be sibilant and harsh. The additional “thump” masked that when having bit depth conversion from 16 bit to 24 in Roon. Now the attack and transients are so fast and lean, and there is no forgiving bass addition, that it can be a little too much and also it is not perfectly clean, a small amount of distortion seem to exist. Don’t know if it came with the change, but my guess is it was already there, but now I hear it. It changes with the dither. The one I had before; gauss1 is not at all pleasent after change. Shaped is much better, but still some harshness remains. Tested NS4, gave some added roundness and warmth, and perhaps pushed it to far. The best filter my computer can run is poly-sinc-EXT2. Sinc-S is over the top, I’m afraid. I should build a new computer, I know… Your own expert opinion, together with poly-sinc-EXT2, upsample from CD to 24-96 (upper limit) what dither should you recommend? Which would be the most silent and yet pleasent to the original source?

Since our group of hifi nerds realize the importance of adequate mathematical handling of the bit stream, we wonder if the is any conversion software that you can recommend, that will with focus on the original source quality while converting from e.g. FLAC to Wave, or similar sometimes necessary conversions? With the same logic as your HQP, the attention to source, this conversion should benefit from a better software, shouldn’t it?

Since the output rate is not higher, TPDF or Gauss1 are the choices. Just pay attention to setting “DAC Bits” in HQPlayer correctly, depending on your DAC.

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