HQ Player vs (modded) CD player - savvypaul's digital bake-off

[CycleCoach]

A couple of things arriving (hopefully, by the end of this week).

First, my music server is getting an upgrade so that I can try out upsampling via HQ Player (and Roon). I'll be using HQP to upsample to DSD 256 to my RME DAC (which has a DSD Direct mode) via my Sonore MicroRendu, removing the need for the DAC to do any upsampling / filtering.

Second, a modified Marantz CD50 - TDA1541A DAC running in NOS mode, triode valve output stage, split power supplies, custom made decoupling generator, new caps etc.

When I get both set up, if anyone is interested in popping over for a listen, you'll be very welcome.

The 'guts' of the modded Marantz...

[Grumpytim]

I'll be interested to 'hear' what you make of the two. Out of interest what machine is the server. We've not had an actual CD player in the house for 10 years, at a we 'can' play them through the DVD player, but it really is a once in a blue moon thing.

My guess is that it will be very chalk & cheese, a bit like CD vs Vinyl.

Valve outputs on digital devices has always struck me as a bit odd, but when you take a step back, no odder than using a valve amp, something I don't consider at all odd.

Have fun.

[savvypaul]

I'll be interested to 'hear' what you make of the two. Out of interest what machine is the server. We've not had an actual CD player in the house for 10 years, at a we 'can' play them through the DVD player, but it really is a once in a blue moon thing.

My guess is that it will be very chalk & cheese, a bit like CD vs Vinyl.

Valve outputs on digital devices has always struck me as a bit odd, but when you take a step back, no odder than using a valve amp, something I don't consider at all odd.

Have fun.

The server is a Vortexbox Player that I bought from Martin Smith at Audiostore about 8 years ago. It's going back to him for a new CPU, SSD, extra RAM, heatpipes etc.

I know what you mean about valves in a CD player. Tomasz reckons this one might sound pretty spectacular for not a lot of money, though - a guy in Poland called Lampizator has apparently got himself a bit of a name for modding early CDPs and this Marantz follows that playbook.

I'm not expecting too much from either tbh, but the Marantz appeals to my alternative nature and I know a few people who rave about HQP / M Scaler, so you never know.

[CycleCoach]

The server is back and set up with my MicroRendu endpoint and RME DAC.

I got LMS up and running with Qobuz in a couple of minutes.

Signed up for the Roon trial - got it up and running within 5 minutes (the instructions from Martin at Audiostore, who uprated the server, are excellent).

Now upsampling CD quality from Qobuz to DSD256 using Roon's DSP engine, and feeding that to the DSD native mode on the RME (so the DAC does not have to do any oversampling / filtering)...

[CN211276]

Seems a complex procedure. Interested in how it sounds.

[Lindsayt]

DSD is one of those things that I wasn't aware even existed. Until Saturday. At Owston where a DIY DSD DAC was played with - according to my understanding - some native DSD recordings.

My highly provisional impressions - because it wasn't a comparative demo - was that DSD showed a lot of promise for sounding like there was nothing between the recording and the pre-amp. With a natural, high quality, analogue, transparent feel to the sound.

When I googled DSD I got some links to Disorders of Sex Development. And a link to a What Hi-fi article that included these drawbacks of DSD:
" It’s not very practical to manipulate a DSD recording.
All the things that are required post-recording such as equalisation, editing, dynamic range control and adding reverb usually involve the DSD stream being converted to PCM to do the processing and then switched back."

Sounds good to me. I'd be quite happy if music biz technicians were cajooled into not mucking up recordings by dynamically compressing them and adding Chiselhurst Caves amounts of reverb.

[CycleCoach]

Seems a complex procedure. Interested in how it sounds.

Upsampling within Roon is very simple, and very easy to a/b compare.

Between LMS, Roon, HQ Player, DSD, PCM... there are quite a few possible configurations, though. I'm probably going to play for 3 or 4 days before writing up.

[CN211276]

It seems that HQ Player upsamples to a far higher rate than the Mscaler and the Bit rate is also substantially increased. A big difference, I don't know if it is linked, is that the upsampling takes place far sooner in the chain. With the Mscaler the upsampling is between the streamer and the DAC.

[Fretless]

Channel Classics has a dedicated site for downloading direct-to-DSD recordings:

https://www.nativedsd.com/

I have regularly sat with Jared Sachs in his mastering studio here at the other end of the village and he records, edits and mixes using DSD. What you hear are the not-messed-about-with studio masters as he has made them.

Last time I was there he was working on a full-orchestral performance of a Mahler symphony which was incredible.

[savvypaul]

The Marantz arrived, but the display doesn't power up. Parcelforce strikes again, lol?