Chord Hugo M Scaler - Stereophile Review (measurements also)

[cany89]

This is not correct

HQPlayer's sinc-L closed form sinc interpolator is 2M taps at PCM 705kHz (131k taps x conversion ratio) with similar stop band attenuation to M-Scaler

Non-apodizing like M-Scaler

Way cheaper than M-Scaler and double taps (if that's really important)

If you can tell me the settings on HQ Player, I can record the output with Adi-2 USB loopback and we can compare the two files.
In fact here is one with 16/44 without any sampling vs 32/705.6 upsampled (Sinc-M) in HQ Player and then both played through HQ Player and recorded on Adi-2. Let's see if anyone can hear any difference. Files here

I read also read the thread you shared. My upsampled file is 16xPCM as Miska wrote. (If I made a mistake somewhere, I can re-record it.)

 

[Music1969]

If you can tell me the settings on HQ Player, I can record the output with Adi-2 USB loopback and we can compare the two files.
In fact here is one with 16/44 without any sampling vs 32/705.6 upsampled (Sinc-M) in HQ Player and then both played through HQ Player and recorded on Adi-2. Let's see if anyone can hear any difference. Files here

I read also read the thread you shared. My upsampled file is 16xPCM as Miska wrote. (If I made a mistake somewhere, I can re-record it.)

Here you go, although I'm more interested in the objective side (like the discussion above about potential IMD in audible band).

I'm less interested in what other people are hearing (and whether a trumpet sounds like a piano to them )

 

[cany89]

I'll check those settings and look again.

Here you go, although I'm more interested in the objective side (like the discussion above about potential IMD in audible band).

I don't have enough understanding of these graphs to say if they make any audible difference or not. That's why I record it and do A/B. Maybe someone can explain?

 

[Music1969]

I'll check those settings and look again.



I don't have enough understanding of these graphs to say if they make any audible difference or not. That's why I record it and do A/B. Maybe someone can explain?

Yes that's why I asked HQP developer for his IMD measurements. Then people here can discuss what they mean

Blind A/B is of course good - but can be stressful !

 

[mansr]

This is true for many DAC chips (per their datasheets) however if you ask @Miska (developer of HQPlayer) THD+N is not everything and going to highest sample rates improves other measurements, even if one (THD+N) drops a little bit.

Presence of digital images on the DACs analogue output is one.

That depends a lot on both the digital filter in the DAC chip and subsequent analogue filtering. A few examples using white noise at 48 kHz sample rate might be illustrative.

This is the kind of horror Miska would have us believe is typical, here from a Cirrus CS4270 chip:

This is a Cirrus/Wolfson WM8523 chip followed by a stronger analogue filter:

Finally, a TI PCM1794A chip with a 4th order analogue filter:

That last one doesn't show so much as a hint of imaging. Clearly, a clean output is possible without the use of fancy software and silly sample rates (or DSD). Also, those Cirrus chips are nasty little things one wouldn't expect to find in audiophile equipment.

 

[bhobba]

So then any filter with a massive number of taps (like MScaler or HQPlayer) would end up with a correspondingly huge amount of “time smear”.

Yes - that is the silliness of it. A sinc function exactly reconstructs a bandlimited signal, and its time smear to a Dirac function is horrid. It is part of the marketing BS of MQA. It needs to be subjected to a blind test - but technically, it makes no sense. The significant advantage of MQA as far as downscaling goes is it is simple. You apply a shallow filter above 20k when sampled at 96k. That way, aliasing components are below the noise floor, so they should be inaudible. But that is not how they sell it. And since sinc reconstruction is exact, it beats me how transient response is impacted. Rob claims that filters with low out of band components, so low any sane person would say it is inaudible, is audible. Again only a blind test can decide.

Thanks
Bill

 

[Music1969]

Yep, would be great if @Miska could show 19/20k CCIF IMD measurement with RME ADI-2.

PCM44.1kHz input vs DSD256 input (HQPlaying PCM44.1k -> DSD256 conversion, DSD Direct mode, fully by-passing AKM DSP).

I found these IMD plots for iFi micro iDSD and some other ADI-2 plots:

Does DSD sound better than PCM?

Thanks. I consider myself very objective and skeptical of pretty much anything without researching. It was more a curiosity, as well as that's how these "audiophile" recordings are actually released. Like I said, I like vinyl for reasons other than the sound quality. Although, there can be crap...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Hi @Miska , could you help with this, for ADI-2?

Jitter and 19/20k CCIF IMD, comparing PCM44.1 vs DSD256 inputs?

I've seen you shared for micro iDSD at the link above but not ADI-2.