Laurie Anderson was interested in Binaural Recording. She met Edgar and they worked together. Her Husband, Lou Reed then met Edgar. Lou thought Edgar was a Rabbi when they first met at a dinner. Most amusing.
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The geopolitics of that assumption could start a war in todayâs world. But the Bacch-dSP is still a religious experience.
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Great story. I wonder what came of it?
They became good friends. Laurie and Edgar had an interesting article published two months ago in the Absolute Sound. They are good pals.
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The downside of not following the audio-zines,
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After @aangen dommented on his adio coming with hqplayer installed, I decided to give it a go in my Bacch4mac setup.
I had forgotten of how precise and clean hqplayer sounds compared to roon.
Poly sinc gauss filters rocks. And at 96khz, hqplayer barely taxes the m2 processor. For those using bacch4mac, it is definitely worth a trial.
@aangen could you share the settings for âdsd sourcesâ that came with your adio?
I use HQPlayer to feed PCM 24-96 to my BACCH4Mac. I am on an old Intel i5 Mac Mini, not one of the M1s or M2s. My unit could handle downscaling from SACD DSD64 to PCM for BACCH4Mac to use while also running the BACCH4Mac software. But it started to choke on downscaling DSD128. Downscaling is more computationally intensive than upscaling. It is not just about leaving out three of every four bits. But my HQPlayer server is way more capable. It downscales DSD256 no problem. And upscales everything else to 24-96 too. So the Mac Mini always receives 24-96 and passes it on to BACCH4Mac. No thinking needed for it there. Originally, I only downscaled DSD / upscaled others to 24-192. Edgar commented about BACCH4Mac being optimized for 24-96. So I changed. Then he said, no worries with 24-192. But I am still running 24-96.
DSD is a 100% fail with my adio. DSD is currently not an option. Also, the HQPlayer settings are fixed on it. I cannot alter them. (That is with the supplied HQPlayer setup. I could install my own I guess)
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Thanks. And what is your Hqplayer config in your Mac mini to downsample DSD64 successfully?
You cannot go wrong with the gauss (I like long) or the ext (I like No.2) filter families. They will convert between 44.1K and 48K sample families no problems. But filter families like sinc-X (where X = S, M, L) have restrictions on going between sample families. If you ask them to convert DSD64 (in the 44.1K sample family as 64 * 44.1K = 2822400) to 24-96 (in the 48K sample family as 2 * 48K = 98K), playback will choke. The closed-form filters also have their restrictions. The newer sinc filters (short, medium, long) do not have these problems. But as you get to medium and long versions, they get computationally heavy-duty. So playing DSD64 with sinc-long probably also would choke a Mac Mini. Long story short⌠You cannot go wrong with the gauss (I like long) or the ext (I like No.2) filters.
Is there a filter or setting in HQP that will convert incoming DSD into PCM? The Roon endpoint controls for the HQP endpoint and Roon endpoint donât have controls to do this. I am uncertain who makes the controls you use in Roon so I just canât play any DSD files with my adio.
In the MU1 I had controls to do this. In the MU2 none. The MU2 is my streamer.
YES. If an embedded instance of HQPlayer is running on one of your machines⌠like the MU2 if that is the Roon server⌠then the HQPlayer configuration page would be under [IP_Address_Machine]:8088/config.
HQP login defaults are usually âhqplayerâ as user and âpasswordâ. The hardware company can change these though and may need to be contacted if the HQP page does indeed come up but this login does not work.
BUT HQP can be a real PITA from a usability perspective.
Alternatively, under Muse in Roon, you can set up DSD downscaling to PCM. My neighbourâs fanless Roon PC (as Roon server) can handle DSD64 downscaling no problem.
âMUSEâ? I havenât encountered that yet. I will take a look.
That is how Roon branded their sound engine last Summer it looks like: Introducing MUSE: Precision Audio Control on the go - Roon Labs
More: MUSE Precision Audio Control: Accessing the MUSE suite (roonlabs.com)
Weird. I just spent a bit searching Roon Settings and all the sound tweak settings are gone. I never used them so I never missed them.
Okay, the weird icon I never wondered about is Muse. I see how to enable DSD conversion now. Using Roon. Hmmmmmmmm. I have a doubt.
Thanks for the help!!
Testing it now.
Thanks! Itâs been some time since Iâve last messed with ext family. I was trying gauss long all the way. My mistake was to guess that converting dsd to pcm would only use the âdsd sourceâ settings, and not the pcm filters settings.
I will give it a try.
Ext2 did the trick. Poly-sinc-gauss also worked. Only the long versions stutter.
The funny thing is that HQPlayer in fact reduces the CPU usage when compared to bacch standalone. The resampling processing to 96khz in Hqplayer seems to be much more optimized.
I believe this only works if HQPlayer version is embedded. I am pretty sure @aangen has the desktop version installed.
Anyway, Hqpd control app will do the trick. Simply select PCM as the output format. Then HQPlayer will convert every format to PCM.
Glad to hear that worked out for you! Should work with Desktop too. I have both Embedded and Desktop and can do pretty much the same things with them. I am just reserved about recommending HQP to other folks. HQP sometimes requires banging the head against the keyboard until the music plays.
Nope. What Edgar would have to go through to be allowed to send out gear with Roon Bridge is too much to deal with. It is easier and not very expensive to send his gear out with HQP. So there is a locked tight version of HQP on my adio. It serves as the Roon Endpoint. It has two or three HQP settings enabled. These cannot be changed by me. Nor do I need to think about it.
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