Chord M Scaler Opinions
- Thread starter Netley
- Start date
camverton
pfm Member
I’m using with a TT2. I was a bit cynical but experiments with HQ Player were positive, apart from the interface; I currently use JRiver with JRemote and don’t want to lose that. I feel that the m-scaler is a step up from HQ Player and far more convenient, albeit a pricy solution.
As for what it does it does? To my ears and brain it makes the music sound more natural, dynamic and easier to listen to, something which becomes very obvious when I take it out of the system, which will doubtless have its haters foaming at the mouth as meaningless twaddle! Very much one of those things that you have to try for yourself at leisure in your own home. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it doesn’t make a worthwhile difference for many; we are all different in the way our brains perceive the sound coming out of our hifi and give us the illusion that we are listening to music being played in front of us.
For me personally, a very worthwhile addition to my particular system and, despite its price, worth the money. Sorry I can’t comment on the TT1 but I do feel that audition is mandatory to see if it works for you.
As for what it does it does? To my ears and brain it makes the music sound more natural, dynamic and easier to listen to, something which becomes very obvious when I take it out of the system, which will doubtless have its haters foaming at the mouth as meaningless twaddle! Very much one of those things that you have to try for yourself at leisure in your own home. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it doesn’t make a worthwhile difference for many; we are all different in the way our brains perceive the sound coming out of our hifi and give us the illusion that we are listening to music being played in front of us.
For me personally, a very worthwhile addition to my particular system and, despite its price, worth the money. Sorry I can’t comment on the TT1 but I do feel that audition is mandatory to see if it works for you.
Netley
pfm Member
Thanks. What is your prefered software? The thing for me is I was interested in what it could do to lift CD, which could be more complex to enhance via software without ripping?
Yes, good point
uncl_nigel
pfm Member
I found the mScaler and TT2 convincing over some very expensive headphones at Munich 2019.
That being said, personally, I would not part with that sort of money without some serious listening... But then, I expect (and got) a demonstration even for a set of cones
That being said, personally, I would not part with that sort of money without some serious listening... But then, I expect (and got) a demonstration even for a set of cones
mansr
Objectionist
Most of the popular ones do a perfectly adequate job. To me, user interface is the more important factor.
That's true. On the other hand, ripping CDs makes everything more convenient, so why not do that?
Netley
pfm Member
I have many cds. All ripped - for the last 5 years double ripped - 320k MP3 for phone/travel, FLAC for Roon. I have come to the conclusion i just like the 'thing' of browsing the shelves, getting out the case, maybe looking at notes etc. Luddite? No but I know it gives me pleasure
Suffolk Tony
Aim low, achieve your goals, avoid disappointment.
Just wondered; what DAC did you try the MScaler with as a matter of interest?
mansr
Objectionist
It doesn't matter if I've tried one at all. The device is just a digital interpolation filter in a fancy box.
Suffolk Tony
Aim low, achieve your goals, avoid disappointment.
Ah. Thought not...
camverton
pfm Member
Do you ever think it a might be an idea to test your current, and undoubtably worthwhile, knowledge with a “field” test?
Amber Audio
This is the Day
I've got a TT2 here and a Scaler I'm messing about with. Rather than add a Scaler to a TT1 I'd go for a trade in/sale and get a TT2.
Opinion seems to be the Scaler doesn't really make sense until you're using a TT2, but if you get a chance to try one be an interesting test. All my disks get ripped on arrival so I've no idea how a CD player sounds into one, sorry.
mansr
Objectionist
It's just a really long FIR filter. Lots of software can do that. In a sense, the M-scaler _is_ software.
Suffolk Tony
Aim low, achieve your goals, avoid disappointment.
Correct Andrew, no software that I've yet heard does the same job. I use an MScaler with a DAVE & it does work exceedingly well. The advice for anyone who is contemplating buying one of these is, of course, give it a really long listen in your own system before making your mind up & disregard the opinions of anonymous people on internet forums.
camverton
pfm Member
Interesting, I wasn’t aware that Chord’s “software” was in the public domain. Surely you would have needed to have studied and understood the code to make such a statement? Of course if you are expressing an opinion based on an assumption then that is fair enough...
For those of us without access to the code, or indeed the skills to understand it, we shall just have to make do with trying it!
John Phillips
pfm Member
If anyone is interested in how the M Scaler works (many won't be, of course) then Keith Howard wrote an excellent article for HiFi Critic. For those with some understanding of the fairly esoteric art of digital signal processing it's very informative indeed.
Amber Audio
This is the Day
On a similar note James Cook at dCS is posting a series of articles on how their Ring DAC works
https://dcs.community/t/dcs-ring-dac-a-technical-explanation/2724
I went Hugo, TT, DAVE, DAVE+MScaler. Tremendous. The MScaler does something quite extraordinary; it seems to make the music more tangible, solid and convincing, it’s kind of “un-hifi”. Would definitely recommend you try one out, just stick it in your system and live with it for a bit. Not sure though if it is the best way to improve on a TT1. I’d ask a good dealer - @FanthorpesHifi perhaps - if they could arrange a home trial of a TT2 and an MScaler.
Actually, for someone knowing DSP, there is little if any information in that article that isn't absolutely well understood, and standard practice. windowed sinc interpolators are the standard way of performing reconstruction filters, and sample rate converters. The number of crossing points is a trade off of computation cost vs quality, with around 30 crossings being the normal which is basically what you get in a bog standard off the shelf converter. Which window function you use, well, again, the maths is well understood and so the tradeoffs between pass band/stop band, attenuation, ripple etc are totally understood, with a raised cosine function being the standard window.
As for convolution being O(N^2), yes, in the time domain, but it's O(N) in the frequency domain, so for long FIR filters, you normally transform to the frequency domain and apply the convolution there before converting back. I wrong a commercially available implementation of this around 2000, and it is now standard tech included in DAWs (e.g the convolution reverb included in Logic Audio - https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/logicpro/lgce357aa791/mac)
I'm going to not comment on whether it makes a difference, is snake oil etc, but i'd suggest that there is nothing that hasn't been done before, and can't be done on a raspberry pi. It's totally mainstream tech.
Oh, and if you want to implement shorter FIR filters on an FPGA, there's a core for Xilinx that you just configure and it will spit out an FPGA design for polyphase interpolators, decimators, you name it. As I said, this is mainstream bog standard well understood engineering. It's is clever, but it's well understood clever, and is drag and drop (this is from 2011 for example):
https://www.xilinx.com/support/docu...tion/fir_compiler/v6_3/ds795_fir_compiler.pdf