What do most people use HQ player for?

2 posts were split to a new topic: HQP Ethernet to USB

If my DAC sound best in PCM, and I want to down sample all DSD music to PCM in real time, is there advantage using HQ Player (is it possible to config to do down sample only) with Roon, vs the build in Roon down sample alone ?

Depends which one you consider sonically betterā€¦ :wink:

Thx, I just realized my question maybe embarrassing here ^^:

Btw, I guess down sampling algorithm maybe more straightforward, difference between different implementation could be less .

Not really embarrassing, but the answer is to take advantage of the trial version of HQP and see if you can hear a difference and which you prefer.

There are quite many ways to do it, and HQPlayer offers bunch of those. As a result there are sonic differences too. But ultimately listening tells which one sounds best to you and how big you perceive the differences.

Maybe there is still room for improvements even under these condition. The idea is to seperate the reading and playback of the file (done in a computer) from the rendering (in a NAA streaming device)ā€¦

In my case this improved the sound a lot. I use Roon and The HQPlayer on Macbook Air and the streaming device is a Raspberry Pi with Hifiberry Digi+ / NOS DAC. Connection is over Ethernet cable network.

Iā€™m still playing around with upsampling to 88 / 96 kHz PCM but it works even great without upsampling.

FWIW, I use HQP and prefer DSD 64 -> 384K PCM with my Hugo TT and DSD 64 -> 768K PCM with my chord Mojo over
DSD 64 -> DSD 256. As others have mentioned, give the trial version of HQP a shot.

1 Like

Thx a lot for your experience with Chord.

Hi KMan

Can you share your setting of HQPlayer ?
I just uncheck the directSDM and DSD is down sample to 174 to my Chord DAVE. If I change the PCM in setting page, I wonder if DSD will down sample to 174, then upsample according to settings? I just new to HQPlayer so a bit confused.

I tried changing the PCM settings but it will up sample PCM music as well, is there way I can down sample DSD only, and leave PCM music intact. Thx.

@Paul_Kwan
Here are my settings for Chord TT.

I assume you are reffering to 176.4KHz sample rate. The PCM settings are default settings used by HPQ when you set your output to PCM (the right-most dropdown in HQP). It does not matter if the source music you are playing is PCM or DSD. If your source is PCM and a lower samplerate it will be upsampled. If it is at a higher rate, it will be downsampled. DSD will also be downsampled.

Similarly The SDM settings are used when you choose SDM (DSD) as output in HQP, so both PCM and DSD source will be upsampled to DSD.

Here is the logic I used for my settings:

  • Based on my understanding on how Chord has implemented the upsampling, it upsamples all PCM material to 384KHz before further processing. So I upsample all PCM material to 384KHz using HQP (the reasoning being, HQP can use all the processing power of your PC for a much more potent upsampler) thus bypassing Chordā€™s upsampling. For Mojo I set it to 768KHz.

  • Also Chord converts all DSD material to 384KHz PCM (on Hugo TT). So I use HQP to convert all DSD source to 384KHz PCM, bypassing Chordā€™s processing and leveraging HQPs processing.

I have been happy with this and I have never noticed a degradation in quality for any source format I have thrown at it. The setup is simple and I do not have to go and fiddle with settings whenever my source format is different. To me, feeding my Chord devices with the highest PCM rate supported seems to get the best results irrespective of the input format (PCM/DSD) or the sample rate. As a added bonus, PCM even at 768KHz far less resource consuming and my PC or laptop would run quite without the fans coming on. With Dave, you may first want to try 384KHz or 784Khz PCM for all formats. Then see if you here an audible difference by switching the output rate to the source file rate.

I exclusively use headphones, so your mileage may vary if you use speakers as certain aspects such as subtle changes to imaging are harder to pick in headphones. I have a fairly resolving system with Hougo-TT, GSX-MK2 and LCD-4.

I am not aware of a way to do this automatically, unless you go and choose the sample rate dropown in HQP to match the source sample rate when playing PCM

1 Like

KMan thx a lot for the details info. The DSD to PCM conversion is really nice and I feel it better than feeding my DAVE with DSD directly.

This is exactly the right way to use HQPlayer: Figure out what your DAC converts source information to and move that workload from the DAC to HQPlayer. For the Chord DACs this seems to be exactly what you are doing (including converting DSD into PCM in HQP), for other DACs you might do the exact opposite (for example, people are getting great results converting everything to DSD256 for the T+A DAC8 DSD and for the iFi DAC series.

It would be great if someone (ideally Jussi at HQPlayer) started collecting and publishing the best sounding input variables for popular DACs (I know this is a highly personal choice and that is why HQ Player offers so much customization but for the novice it would at least give them a place to start with their DAC).

2 Likes

Is there a list anywhere of DACs and their ā€œnativeā€ internal sample rate? Would save folks a lot of hassle (not everyone wants to spend weeks twiddling knobs).

Heading over to Computer Audiophile forum and searching for ā€˜HQplayer + your DACā€™ may be a good option.

Very much agree. HQP set at DSD256 + iFi micro iDSD was my primary portable DAC till I started using Mojo.

Right, but if everything is collected in one sheet, it would save everyone having to search over and overā€¦

A post was split to a new topic: Further HQP trial?

I just installed it. Iā€™m listening on a PC right now while I rip my music into flacs and the immediately obvious thing is Iā€™ve achieved a purple path so itā€™s finally lossless as intended. Is that worth another 140 bucks ā€¦ perhaps. Iā€™m definitely hearing a difference ā€¦ and thatā€™s not a very expensive thing if you are having your output go to your master system. At the keyboard here itā€™s very nice to have but far from required.

From your screen shot it looks as though you are using HQPlayer in a very non-optimized fashion. Specifically, it shows that you are resampling a 16/44 file to 16/48 playback which really doesnā€™t make much sense. If you are going to use HQPlayer, you should use it to resample to the native rate that your DAC uses (which is why a lot of folks use it to resample to DSD256 or DSD512). Some DACs prefer PCM inputs (like the Chord DACs) and those users tend to use HQPlayer to upsample to PCM 356 or 384 or DXD. From your post I canā€™t tell what DAC you are using so its hard to make suggestions for you specifically.

But, the main reason to purchase HQPlayer is to take advantage of the combination of the upsampling AND the really great filters that Jussi has developed.