advertisement


Chord Hugo M Scaler with Qutest DAC.

i was going to buy a Qutest today, i'm glad i read this before i did. Its saved me months of angnt and good holday.
 
Bourneendboy said:
Maybe if the bass player used a genuine Fender rather than a Squire copy, the same could be achieved.
Not trying to be funny, but an interesting point:)

I assume you are talking about timing, but one of those bass's will sound better than the other.
Click to expand...

I wasn't really, it was a tongue in cheek response to a previous comment....
 
TheDecameron said:
I checked and my Hugo 2 does indeed take the dual connection, so should work fine. Melco recognises Chord DACs but since the m scaler would sit after the Melco, it raises the question about compatibility. I shall ask Rob Watts or a Chord person next week
Click to expand...
Melco works just fine with MScaler; I tried it in my system, into my Chord Dave. Very good, but then Dave's pretty spiffing on his own.
 
Suffolk Tony said:
Melco works just fine with MScaler; I tried it in my system, into my Chord Dave. Very good, but then Dave's pretty spiffing on his own.
Click to expand...
Indeed Tony. I have been enjoying Audiostore Prestige 3 out via USB to M Scaler + DAVE.
The best digital source we have ever had in the house.

Can't seem to stop playing music, regardless of genre...

Best regards, FT
 
I may be wrong, but I don't think anything as tawdry as commerce matters to him at this stage of his career. My impression from his writings is that he believes software cannot replicate what the HMS does. I don't know how a hammer works, so am hopelessly unqualified to argue the technical toss. However, I can't remember there being such a buzz around a bit of kit for a long time, so I will get one on loan.
 
JamesJamerson said:
I may be wrong, but I don't think anything as tawdry as commerce matters to him at this stage of his career. My impression from his writings is that he believes software cannot replicate what the HMS does. I don't know how a hammer works, so am hopelessly unqualified to argue the technical toss. However, I can't remember there being such a buzz around a bit of kit for a long time, so I will get one on loan.
Click to expand...

How does the M-Scaler work? Is not FPGA using on-board software?

What if software doesn't replicate it's performance but produces more accurate reproduction?
 
TheDecameron said:
… Just watched Rob Watts talking about it and for fiscal reasons I wish I hadn’t :eek:
Click to expand...
I only so far looked at the first few minutes. I will look later at the rest but for now I don't get the 4μs transients argument.

Once you have a 44.1 kHz sampled signal (CD rate, just for example), any transient information needing more than 22.05 kHz bandwidth to represent it has gone. No amount of upsampling and filtering will put it back. All you can ever hope to do is accurately (or pleasingly) reproduce what you have.

I get it that the M Scaler will produce a more theoretically accurate linear phase pass-band (up to half the sampling rate) than probably anything else out there (maybe excluding HQplayer). But if you need the transients to perceive bass or timbre as claimed, then AFAICS the only way to keep them is to sample at a high rate in the studio and keep the high rate throughout the entire chain going into the DAC.
 
Last edited:
tuga said:
How does the M-Scaler work? Is not FPGA using on-board software?

What if software doesn't replicate it's performance but produces more accurate reproduction?
Click to expand...

Perhaps it does. However, I recently listened to a Chord M Scaler + DAVE fed by an Innuos Statement server. Software was Roon.
With the M Scaler doing its stuff, the sound quality was superb. Bypassing the M Scaler but upscaling/upsampling (I can never remember the difference) using Roon software on the Innuos server resulted in a relatively flat, lifeless sound.

Best regards, FT
 
Has anyone reported similar SQ benefits from using one of the dcs upsamplers? I accept they might not be doing what the m scaler is doing,
 
Foot Tapper said:
Perhaps it does. However, I recently listened to a Chord M Scaler + DAVE fed by an Innuos Statement server. Software was Roon.
With the M Scaler doing its stuff, the sound quality was superb. Bypassing the M Scaler but upscaling/upsampling (I can never remember the difference) using Roon software on the Innuos server resulted in a relatively flat, lifeless sound.

Best regards, FT
Click to expand...

It may or may not be the case here, but sometimes these perceived qualities (exciting, lively) are the result of colourations or distortion.
Some tipes of distortion sound nice to some people.

Isn't "upscaling" a marketing term?
 
tuga said:
It may or may not be the case here, but sometimes these perceived qualities (exciting, lively) are the result of colourations or distortion.
Some types of distortion sound nice to some people.

Isn't "upscaling" a marketing term?
Click to expand...
Thanks tuga. Possibly, I don't know. To be honest, I don't really mind.
I only really care about whether it makes music more enjoyable and involving to listen to. How it gets there is of less interest, so I'll settle for being contentedly ignorant about the software algorithms.

Others are genuinely interested in the technologies and conversion algorithms employed and I admire and respect that but do not share their interest.

FT
 
clivem2 said:
I'm trying HQPlayer with Qutest at 768k. The sound is much improved along the lines of what people say about M Scaler.
Click to expand...

Which filter are you using?

The -xtr filter is supposed to be an improved Chord filter.
I prefer the -ext2.

A couple of Jussi's post:


I created it (the -xtr) for people who like Chord Dave -style filters. It is about 5 times longer than poly-sinc and thus about 5x heavier.
Offered in linear- and minimum-phase variants.
Stop-band attenuation exceeds needs of 40-bit PCM, being over -240 dB.
Normal poly-sinc filters are created to reach excess of 32-bit PCM resolution (> -192 dB) stop-band attenuation.

Since high-rate modulators can reach peak SNR higher than 32-bit PCM resolution at audio band frequencies, I thought it could be useful…



poly-sinc-short is trying to be as few taps as possible while still having high attenuation (same as poly-sinc) and not too slow roll-off.
At the moment poly-sinc is between the -short and -xtr, but closer to -short.
I've thought about poly-sinc-long, which would be otherwise same, but longer/steeper than regular poly-sinc.
-xtr is not called -long because it changes some other parameters too, like stop-band attenuation.
The new poly-sinc-ext2 is closer to -xtr but a bit shorter, while having otherwise completely different design.
 
tuga said:
Which filter are you using?

The -xtr filter is supposed to be an improved Chord filter.
I prefer the -ext2.

A couple of Jussi's post:


I created it (the -xtr) for people who like Chord Dave -style filters. It is about 5 times longer than poly-sinc and thus about 5x heavier.
Offered in linear- and minimum-phase variants.
Stop-band attenuation exceeds needs of 40-bit PCM, being over -240 dB.
Normal poly-sinc filters are created to reach excess of 32-bit PCM resolution (> -192 dB) stop-band attenuation.

Since high-rate modulators can reach peak SNR higher than 32-bit PCM resolution at audio band frequencies, I thought it could be useful…



poly-sinc-short is trying to be as few taps as possible while still having high attenuation (same as poly-sinc) and not too slow roll-off.
At the moment poly-sinc is between the -short and -xtr, but closer to -short.
I've thought about poly-sinc-long, which would be otherwise same, but longer/steeper than regular poly-sinc.
-xtr is not called -long because it changes some other parameters too, like stop-band attenuation.
The new poly-sinc-ext2 is closer to -xtr but a bit shorter, while having otherwise completely different design.
Click to expand...

Tuga, Is HQ Player a complete package for playing files like JRiver, Foobar2000 etc? If it is, is it easy to use? (I can’t even use Foobar)
 
TheDecameron said:
Tuga, Is HQ Player a complete package for playing files like JRiver, Foobar2000 etc? If it is, is it easy to use? (I can’t even use Foobar)
Click to expand...

It's easy to use but the interface is quite simplistic. You use it as the file browser of the operating system.
I prefer to browse with iTunes and then drag-drop into HQ Player.

If you wish you can download the trial version and I'll give you a hand setting it up.
 
Ooh! Something else to mess about with... Tuga please do share more...

Is HQ player something you can download onto a Pi or is it mac/pc only?

Intrigued...perhaps there should be a separate thread on this?
 
Moppit said:
Ooh! Something else to mess about with... Tuga please do share more...

Is HQ player something you can download onto a Pi or is it mac/pc only?

Intrigued...perhaps there should be a separate thread on this?
Click to expand...

I think that there's a Unix version which can be controlled remotely.
I'm not sure that the R-Pi has the required processing power though...
But you can use your Pi as an endpoint/buffer by installing the NAA image and use your laptop or desktop as the processing computer, which is what I did before I got a Cubox. This actually improves performance by reducing the amount of noise sent to the DAC.
 
I've got a Minix headless pc kicking around with Windows..might be worth exploring running this as the processing pc. Any thoughts what sort of processor is needed? I seem to remember Roon dsp requirements require min i5 level..the Minix is nothing special...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top