Jussi has laid a solid foundation for a database that can be analyzed through the user manual. Combined with your preferences - which you can enter interactively - a list of recommendations is generated. It’s free, and you don’t even have to register. Just go to the HQPlayer Setting Configurator and have fun. Please keep in mind that this is still in beta. And it’s not an exact science. Ultimately, your ears will decide.
On this form, you’ll specify your preferred music genre based on your listening habits. Confirm a few technical specifications and click “Calculate”:
“Hopefully,” you’ll find a suitable selection with descriptions from the manual:
Congratulations for this great project! Totally trust from a long time user and also dedicated to sharing HQplayer knowledge and experience for digital audio processing
Thank you very much for all the compliments. Following a suggestion from the community, there is a new version. Anyone who likes to try out new filters is familiar with the problem of music stopping when the conversion ratio is incorrect.
To prevent this, extensive research was necessary to rule out filters that didn’t work from the outset.
Based on the ratio of input to output, my program determines whether it’s downsampling or upsampling, and whether it’s integer-based or not. The preselection ratio is therefore no longer necessary.
In addition, you can specify whether you have enabled “Auto Rate Family” in HQPlayer. Only the compatible output rates will be displayed.
The filter recommendations are designed to take all of this into account. It wasn’t easy, and there may still be some errors. Please feel free to report any errors to me.
The help text has turned out to be quite long. You have to scroll to read the entire text.
This is an excellent piece of work. HQPlayer has needed something like this for a long time as it’s a complex product and I’m sure many of us need help with getting the right setup as well as getting the thing running in our systems in the first place.
I’ve already used the tool with some interesting results.
I was caught out by the rate limit setting being incorrect for my input and filter. As long as it’s high enough it seems to work for both 44.1 and 96khz sources at least for the recommended filters.
Couple of questions.
How have you arrived at your scores within the rankings?
When would you not apply the best quality settings when selecting a filter?
And I assume the results apply equally to v5.
And thank you also for the other documentation that’s on your website explaining some of the other configuration. Most useful.
That’s the secret sauce, so to speak. All joking aside, I’ve tried to translate some assumptions into algorithms. For example, that people place a lot of importance on music genre. But this is a subjective determination on my part, and it works pretty well for me. That doesn’t mean I won’t adjust the weightings and calculations as new insights emerge. It’s important to note that this isn’t an exact science. That’s why I recommend trying out several filters and trusting your own ears.
For me, the musical specifications are more important than theoretically perfect filter quality. But everyone can decide that for themselves.
For now, yes, but at some point there will be new filters in v6.
I’m really happy if my blog is useful to some of you.
So Is there a filter / setting I could use with no matter what source im playing? Redbook, hires, dsd, multichannel files .. all upsampled to DSD256 ? I wouldn’t want to have filters for every albums.
It’s a brilliant tool, and well done for all the work you’ve put into developing it – thank you!
I have a question regarding the “HQPlayer-setting-configurator (HQPlayer modulator dither settings)” – for the “Ferrum Wandla” device, fitted with the ESS Sabre ES9038PRO chip (for “DSD Output mode”), it recommends using the “ASDM**7**EC” modulator first and foremost.
In the “HQPlayer Desktop” thread, @jussi_laako pointed out that:
"ASDM7EC may be able to drive the DAC to produce a little more micro-detail.
But some DACs may perform better with the more relaxed ASDM5EC setting, such as some ESS Sabre-based models (SMSL, for example).
ESS has a very light DSD filter, so it places some extra demands on the analogue post-filter."
Could you please explain – on what actual technical basis did the algorithm ‘suggest’ the ASDM7EC modulator (rather than the ASDM5EC) as the first choice for the ‘Ferrum Wandla’, which is equipped with a SABRE DAC?
Thank you in advance. And yes, I can explain that: because the database doesn’t provide that information.
I know that fifth-order modulators are generally recommended for ESS Sabre-based DACs. But does that apply to all ESS chips? Are there any special considerations for other DAC chips or R2R or true-1-Bit converters? If I had a solid data set, I could implement it.
You have to scroll to read the entire text.
