How do you know those support 32-bit PCM? Neither one mention anything about it in their specifications.
HQPlayer detects maximum available resolution for a DAC and uses it by default.
You cannot force output to go beyond detected maximum resolution as it would result in truncation which in turn would generate distortion.
Hi @jussi_laako
In the new update to HQP Pro I see mention of revised ASDM5ECv2 and ASD7ECv2
Assuming these will eventually reach HQPe and Desktop - are you seeing higher CPU loads compared with v1? Or very similar CPU load?
I also listen in different rooms.
Thatās the point of using HQP NAA (similar to using Roon Bridge / Roon Ready endpoints in the Roon world).
Your server stays in a different room. With HQPlayer, your server can actually even be in a different country.
You can use your current laptop as NAA inside your listening room and that laptop then stays quiet since itās not doing any heavy lifting.
As previously mentioned, for any given new laptop budget you have, for the same money you can get a much more powerful and quieter PC.
Ideally you will want ethernet cable run to each room but NAA over WiFi has worked fine for me also.
As stated up stream this was probably just the nudge I needed to upgrade my laptop for general use anyway. And Iām not a big fan of PCās aesthetically anyway. Iām happy enough with my choice and there are no network considerations with direct USB from the Chord DAC to laptop. My network is a bit flaky sometimes (old house, thick brick walls) and Iām not in a position to permanently run cables between each room.My wife indulges my hifi hobby to a certain extent, thatās a bridge too far.
If I was going to buy new, I would get a desktop for hqplayer. Iām using a laptop as I have two, one was not being used and is now running Ubuntu server with minimal install, works much better than with Windows on it, it is actually 7 years old, Intel i5 8gb ram. Itās working harder than it ever did churning out poly-sinc-ext3. Maybe it will blow up soon so I will be forced to get a desktop (headless of course).
Fair point. For the Soncoz, the user manual indicates 32-bit / 768kHz on the second page of the user manual:
LA-QXD1-USER-MANUAL-EN (soncoz.com)
For the Revolution I could be mistaken. The Allo web page refers to 32-bit processing, and other unofficial places I see it refered to as 32-bit / 384kHz. I know the 384kHz limitation is due to the USB interface implementation, so Iām assuming the 32-bit part is as well. But that could be referring to what the ESS DAC chip is capable of, not what the interface is designed for.
For both, when I up sample with Roon it indicates 32-bit output.
So this is why Iām assuming they are both 32-bit capable. EASILY could be wrong. But itās enough to make me raise the question here.
Please check that the DAC is NOT selected as default audio output device for macOS. And that there are no other applications running that are configured to use the same DAC. Such as Roon. Make sure the DAC is not enabled as audio output in Roon at the same time.
If you can email me HQPlayer log files with both of these DACs I can check what is the reason for HQPlayerās decision.
thanks, log files sent.
Now that you mention it, my Gustard X16 says it can handle 32 bit / 768kHz on usb input. Hqplayer embedded reports 24 bit, the utraRendu that is attached to the dac and in itās own Dac diagnostics app says 32 bit for the Gustard.
Last week I switched to ext2 after a while with poly-sinc-gauss the past few weeks.
I feel warm and fuzzy about the >> 200dB stop-band attenuation before āNyquistā, with ext2. The trade-off is roll-off starts earlier to achieve this.
So Iāve left my HQP set to ext2 with DSD256-ASDM5EC for the past week and Iāve happily enjoyed music.
The past week I havenāt felt like anything is āmissingā or that feeling that I need to change back to poly-sinc gauss.
I could easily live with either! 
Why!? And it is near 20 kHz, but that also depends on how many dB you consider āstarts transitionā. Maybe poly-sinc-ext2 is more like what you are looking for?
Now I sort of regret publishing any plotsā¦ 
Each filter meets certain design specifications I had in mind for the specific filter.
If you want something steeper (and higher attenuation), you can go with gauss-xla.
Have no regrets! Iāll delete my post above 
You can delete yours too and we can agree this never happened
The plots have been very helpful and I want you to share more (in the manual for example, like ESS share !)
Something āfeelsā different between ext2 and poly-sinc-gauss
ext2 is probably the technically better in a few ways but my ear/brain system feels more relaxed with poly-sinc-gaussā¦ I donāt have any explanation. Maybe itās the better time domain performance !
So Iām back to gauss permanently now I think. No more changes !
The best value upgrade I have made to my system in a while was moving HQP from my mid-2012 MacBook Pro laptop (2.6GHz i7) to a dedicated Mac Mini M1 (I was able to get a refurb from Apple for a decent price). Totally reliable and worry-free. No more futzing around with TGpro fan settings (and putting up with fan noise) or figuring out which filters would run without drop-outs. I no longer need to make a choice of listening to great-sounding music or doing something (less 
) productive like running MS-Office apps or LightRoom, because now I can do both - on separate computers. (I used to have to settle for Roonās upsampling (or MQA) while doing something else on the laptop.)
I also have the luxury now of almost any filter with DSD256/EC. (I was limited to non-EC on the laptop.) Even with so many choices, Iāve settled on DSD256/ASDM5EC with poly-sinc-gauss-xla for 1x and poly-sinc-gauss-long for Nx, ever since those came out. I tried ext3 for a short time before that, but like others, I found it too bold, although ext2 was my prior favourite from as soon as that one came out. (My DAC has an ESS9038Pro chip, and I have an ultraRendu between the M1 and DAC.) It is set-and-forget. Listening to the best sound I have ever heard regardless of what else I am doing. M1 runs cool and silent, even though I am pushing it to almost 90% on all 4 performance cores and 65% on the efficiency cores for 1x (and much less with nX; xla gets some dropouts with nX). Because almost everything else (e.g. Apple apps) turned off, the CPU load doesnāt fluctuate at all, so I can run it near the limit without drop-outs.
ā¦although some part of me still misses all the tinkering 
I agree. I love both, but differently. They have different synergies with various DAC and headphone/speakers.
In general ext2 feels a little flatter and more right in front of my face, detail and dynamics are more obvious. gauss feels deeper and more spread out, detail and dynamics are there but more subtle. This is listening at PCM 16x with LNS15. These difference are harder for me to pick out with SDM, but thatās probably due to the DAC not having a good dsd bypass.
The āsurpriseā to me this week was hearing a difference in dynamics due to steamer. I went between RopieeeXL and HQPlayer NAA on a RPi4. And the HQPlayer image had noticably more details in vocal and instrument dynamics. For example I could hear more clearly piano key press and sustain pedal releases. Not sure if itās due to better NAA implementation or lower noise due to less activity on the RPi4.
Good advice, I used to prefer DSD with one of the EC modulators, but now I run gauss-xla with adaptive rate (16 times oversampling), works good and donāt take to much CPU and in my system and with my ears sounds at least as good as any DSD.
Hello, to all! Impressive thread with 1700+ messages and growing, impossible to grasp all at once.
I have a question to experts and may be Jussi himself, that may already have been discussed here. What would be the best HQP setting for solo piano reconstruction ?
I can already see that some combinations in DSD128 domain are bringing for me results very close to natural sound. As I understand HQP philosophy, there are several tools intended for specific purposes, if this understanding is correct, what are they per design for shiny grand pianos?
PS: My sources are variety of PCM CD 14/44, some HiRes, and DSD 64 / 128 files. Example is Keith Jarretās solo concerts to start withā¦
PPS: My R2R DAC accepts both PCM and DSD at NOS mode. As for PC Iām currently limited to i7 laptop with CUDA with Win10, this is to say that DSD512 did not workout on my Win set up, probably due to DoP limitations.
Solo piano requires good transient response. Historically people have suggested a short minimum phase filter for that purpose.
However, I would also suggest trying a 7EC or 5EC modulator with ext2. That is my āset and forgetā combo. The EC modulators are very natural sounding. Ext2 is a longer linear phase filter, but punches above its weight with transient response.
poly-sinc-gauss is also good option for suchā¦
