Chord Electronics Owners & Discussion Thread

[davewantsmoore]

12 minutes ago, rmpfyf said:

go at it

I think there'd be no such thing.      I'd point out those things, and he would say "oh? wow, so there is!... but my comments still generally stand" ... and I'd say "yep, righto".

 

I don't disagree with anything much he says, or find it very controversial.

[Guest rmpfyf]

1 hour ago, davewantsmoore said:

I think there'd be no such thing.      I'd point out those things, and he would say "oh? wow, so there is!... but my comments still generally stand" ... and I'd say "yep, righto".

 

I don't disagree with anything much he says, or find it very controversial.

 

I'm a Blackadder fan. Much can be made of this.

Edited March 3, 2019 by rmpfyf

[powerav]

At least the ads are in the right spot.

[Guest scumbag]

2 hours ago, davewantsmoore said:

I think there'd be no such thing.      I'd point out those things, and he would say "oh? wow, so there is!... but my comments still generally stand" ... and I'd say "yep, righto".

 

I don't disagree with anything much he says, or find it very controversial.

Is this the real Dave? There was this other version on Stereonet earlier who was talkin tough. 

[Ittaku]

New family members, Stax SR-009 headphones and Mjolnir KGST headphone amplifier.

 

Bought another Topping DX7S to play with different sample rates so I can do more upsampling experiments using these headphones without any DSP requirements nor sample rate limits, but that'll take a couple of weeks to get here.

[rand129678]

6 minutes ago, Ittaku said:

Bought another Topping DX7S to play with different sample rates so I can do more upsampling experiments using these headphones without any DSP requirements nor sample rate limits, but that'll take a couple of weeks to get here.

Fantastic gear. An RME ADI-2 DAC would have been a nice addition there too! For excellent D-to-A performance. 

Edited March 3, 2019 by Music2496

[Ittaku]

Just now, Music2496 said:

Fantastic gear. An RME ADI-2 would have been a nice addition there too! For D-to-A duties. 

The DX7S is a known quantity to me since I've bought one before and was very impressed for its price. That said, I didn't try playing upsampled 768kHz 32 bit music on it that time, which is what I'm going to be playing with this time around.

[rand129678]

5 minutes ago, Ittaku said:

The DX7S is a known quantity to me since I've bought one before and was very impressed for its price. That said, I didn't try playing upsampled 768kHz 32 bit music on it that time, which is what I'm going to be playing with this time around.

Your MSB accepts PCM ~3 MHz via USB input?

Can't just run balanced cables to your head amp?

 

Edited March 3, 2019 by Music2496

[Ittaku]

Just now, Music2496 said:

Your MSB accepts PCM ~1.5 MHz via USB input?

Can't just run balanced cables to your head amp?

I can run balanced cables to my head amp and that's what I'm currently doing, though it means cables are draped across the room. But my MSB does not have the USB renderer installed, only coaxial and toslink, and they only accept up to 192kHz. The USB renderer only accepts 384. Only the network renderer accepts 764, and the custom MSB input accepts up to 3MHz. It also happens to be on the other side of the room. None of them are ideal for this experimenting I'm doing except for the network renderer, but running a full free software linux outfit means I can't really use that either. It's just going to be easier for the headphone to have its own DAC. I also wanted to see if upscaling with a cheap but clean sounding DAC can make it sound much more expensive With software upscaling I can put the DAC into NOS mode since the filtering will already have happened during the upscaling too.

[legend]

7 hours ago, Ittaku said:

New family members, Stax SR-009 headphones and Mjolnir KGST headphone amplifier.

 

Bought another Topping DX7S to play with different sample rates so I can do more upsampling experiments using these headphones without any DSP requirements nor sample rate limits, but that'll take a couple of weeks to get here.

I have continually regretted not buying Stax e/s headphones at a very good (though still expensive) price through a dealer mate in Hong Kong 20 years ago.  Hope I don't make the same mistake with the M-Scaler! Enjoy them.

[davewantsmoore]

11 hours ago, scumbag said:

Is this the real Dave? There was this other version on Stereonet earlier who was talkin tough. 

?

I can only assume you misinterpreted what I was saying, or we have a different definition of tough.

 

It would be good to quote it, so it can be clarified.    The last thing we want is people seeing disagreements where there are none (or misunderstanding precisely what is being debated).

 

I was having a go at people here.  No at RW (or at least not very much).    I was saying people here misunderstood/misinterpreted what he was saying (or why) .... as opposed to calling him on any grave error of fact/logic.

Edited March 3, 2019 by davewantsmoore

[Guest scumbag]

1 minute ago, davewantsmoore said:

?

I can only assume you misinterpreted what I was saying, or we have a different definition of tough.

 

It would be good to quote it, so it can be clarified.    The last thing we want is people seeing disagreements where there are none (or misunderstanding precisely what is being debated).

Mate, it was meant in jest. I was referring to the "turd" comment.

 

[Ittaku]

To test the cut off theory, I did some experimenting with highres samples of 96kHz and then applied a megatap sinc filter at 22.05kHz but kept the sample rate at 96kHz. There was notably less body and air, and the sound was a little on the thin side by comparison, losing a hint of warmth. Of course this isn't the same as a studio sampling and filtering down to 44kHz at the time of mastering, but the extra step was detrimental. Again this is a very subtle effect, not a night and day difference.

[davewantsmoore]

7 hours ago, scumbag said:

Mate, it was meant in jest. I was referring to the "turd" comment.

Ahhh.   Right.

 

I'm quite happy to slam something, as long as we're remaining objective.    "Turd" obviously isn't the most precise description ..... but I felt there was enough "data" to justify it.

[sir sanders zingmore]

2 hours ago, Ittaku said:

To test the cut off theory, I did some experimenting with highres samples of 96kHz and then applied a megatap sinc filter at 22.05kHz but kept the sample rate at 96kHz. There was notably less body and air, and the sound was a little on the thin side by comparison, losing a hint of warmth. Of course this isn't the same as a studio sampling and filtering down to 44kHz at the time of mastering, but the extra step was detrimental. Again this is a very subtle effect, not a night and day difference.

Why would that happen I wonder?

if I understand correctly, you are applying a very steep filter which is above the audioband. So how could that impact the sound ?

[Ittaku]

Just now, Sir Sanders Zingmore said:

Why would that happen I wonder?

if I understand correctly, you are applying a very steep filter which is above the audioband. So how could that impact the sound ?

/me shrugs

[Stereophilus]

I read this entire thread from start to finish last night.  I started at around 8.30... finished after midnight.

 

The general discussion around upsampling/upscaling/oversampling is of interest to me and I do have some questions relating to this topic.  However, they do not relate specifically to the Chord M Scaler.

 

Out of respect to the OP, I’m wondering if we could continue the discussion of upsampling/upscaling/oversampling in a new thread?

 

PS - Duran Duran - “Rio” got a gig on my system last night 

[Ittaku]

6 minutes ago, Stereophilus said:

The general discussion around upsampling/upscaling/oversampling is of interest to me and I do have some questions relating to this topic.  However, they do not relate specifically to the Chord M Scaler.

 

Out of respect to the OP, I’m wondering if we could continue the discussion of upsampling/upscaling/oversampling in a new thread?

You probably want this thread then

[Stereophilus]

[legend]

On ‎3‎/‎03‎/‎2019 at 6:06 PM, Music2496 said:

Great stuff. Should have been easy to spot 'Auto' and click on it. Glad you found it!

 

Bummer. Settings look good. Definitely a Chord driver issue here... I've had my share of issues with the Chord Windows driver in the past too.

 

Those HQP settings are what I've used with multiple Chord DACs (when mucking around - normally let the WTA filters do their thing with Rob's DACs) and what I use right now with my Pro-Ject S2 DAC... So I speak from personal experience...

 

CPU loading is not an issue with those PCM up-sampling settings. My Intel Atom CPU can up-sample using those same settings... HQPlayer's SDM (DSD) up-sampling is a different ball game in terms of CPU loading but as I mentioned earlier, best to focus on getting PCM up-sampling working first.

 

Best of luck with it.

 

Wasted another couple of hours last night when I had some quiet time going back to the beginning - redownloading and installing Chord drivers etcfor use with my Qutest.  HQplayer works fine with other filter settings (poly-sinc etc) but still stutters with sinc-M no matter what the track and what other settings I try, including upsampling rate etc.  If I was a conspiracy theorist I would say that Chord have built something into the driver to stop competition to the M-Scaler!

 

HQplayer does continue to work well with Project S2 DAC even with sinc-M but this was not its purpose for me which was to try to avoid the expense of the M-Scaler but still get the magic of its 1M tap upsampling with the Qutest.  However having failed with my SoX upsampling and the HQplayer I guess someone upstairs is telling me to go for the M-Scaler!

Edited March 4, 2019 by legend

[Guest]

43 minutes ago, legend said:

 I guess someone upstairs is telling me to go for the M-Scaler!

 

Ive been sitting here patiently waiting for most people to finally come to that conclusion. 

[rand129678]

2 hours ago, legend said:

However having failed with my SoX upsampling and the HQplayer I guess someone upstairs is telling me to go for the M-Scaler!

You only live once...

 

If you really miss what it did with your music (and miss the ease of use - compared with funking with some software solutions), then you need to lock in that M-Scaler purchase ASAP.

 

I demo'ed it extensively and decided it wasn't for me. But I'm very much aware a lot of Chord owners are very happy with adding M-Scaler to their Hugo2/Qutest/TT2/Dave.

 

It's all about enjoying the music at the end of the day and if it helps you enjoy the music a bit more, do it.

 

For me, HQPlayer Embedded version (not desktop version like you're using) is running on a headless Linux server. No Windows and Windows related driver issues to deal with, no keyboard/monitor/mouse for daily use.

 

And HQP gets updated continuously. New filters get added and algorithms get improved.

 

I configure HQP via web browser. Here is my config screen on an iPad:

 

Edited March 4, 2019 by Music2496

[Ittaku]

25 minutes ago, Music2496 said:

You only live once...

 

If you really miss what it did with your music (and miss the ease of use - compared with funking with some software solutions), then you need to lock in that M-Scaler purchase ASAP.

 

I demo'ed it extensively and decided it wasn't for me. But I'm very much aware a lot of Chord owners are very happy with adding M-Scaler to their Hugo2/Qutest/TT2/Dave.

 

It's all about enjoying the music at the end of the day and if it helps you enjoy the music a bit more, do it.

 

For me, HQPlayer Embedded version (not desktop version like you're using) is running on a headless Linux server. No Windows and Windows related driver issues to deal with, no keyboard/monitor/mouse for daily use.

 

And HQP gets updated continuously. New filters get added and algorithms get improved.

 

I configure HQP via web browser. Here is my config screen on an iPad:

What front end do you use for hqplayer, and how do you store your music?

[rand129678]

15 minutes ago, Ittaku said:

What front end do you use for hqplayer, and how do you store your music?

At the moment HQP Embedded is running on an Intel NUC7i7DNHE inside Akasa fanless case, for silent operation. NUC runs Debian Stretch (server).

 

I use Roon Server, also installed on the same NUC for headless operation, but HQPE also serves as a UPnP renderer (only a feature of the Embedded version, not yet available on the Desktop version). So any of the UPnP players can play direct to the HQP server (JRiver, Audirvana, mConnect Player, Bubble UPnP etc).

 

My music is just on a Western Digital Passport USB 3.0 drive plugged into the NUC. 

 

Of course with Roon, JRiver, Audirvana (or whatever) you can point those apps to music stored anywhere on the network (a NAS or smb).

 

Another really cool feature of HQP Embedded (not available with Desktop) is with the addition of this below miniDSP USBStreamer (featuring TOSLink input, USB output), you can feed the HQPE machine ANY TOSlink source (up to 24 bit 192kHz) for HQP DSP on the fly... so just directly connect your CD player, Chromecast Audio, Bluesound Node, whatever TOSLink source.

 

https://www.minidsp.com/products/usb-audio-interface/usbstreamer-box

 

Great if you have your own discs and didn't want to deal with software and also great if you have your own streamer/app of choice, if it features TOSlink output.

 

This "input" feature of HQPE was a recent addition and I use it a lot at the moment. I have a Chromecast Audio feeding my NUC. I'm using Spotify for music discovery, playing to Chromecast Audio, feeding HQPE for DSP on the fly. For critical listening I can use Tidal or my hard drive.

 

 

Edited March 4, 2019 by Music2496

[rand129678]

By the way, this is really easy to use on the daily - all using my iPad and nothing else.

 

But I will admit it is not straight forward to initially setup...

 

I can understand why an M-Scaler is appealing, not only for sound quality reasons...

Edited March 4, 2019 by Music2496