I am not sure how many people are using HQPlayer with Devialet kit these days? Anyway, this might be of interest to some.
Over the last couple of months, there have been a few posts on Audiophile Style regarding the possible interaction between filters used in HQPlayer, and hardware filters used in the DAC.
This got me wondering, so I posed a question on the HQPlayer thread. There was a bit of back an forth between myself and HQPlayer developer Jussi Laako, but the interesting bit is as follows:
Me:
Then I have my Devialet. This is a very unusual case as the DAC is fully integrated with Devialet's ADH amplification, and no filter options are offered, you get what you are given. I do know that Devialet use PCM1792 DAC chips, and will upsample any digital inputs below 24/192, but to be honest, I have no idea what filters they might be imposing.
Jussi:
There you can just always send 192k and there won't be problem with the combination of filters. Likely the sharp filter is used there. Most source material is 44.1/48k which leaves a lot of space between the source content band and the filters operating from 192k up. There is plenty enough space also for 88.2/96k inputs.
As it happens, I experimented a bit when I first had HQPlayer, but soon settled on the approach of upsampling everything to 24/192. Based on the above, this looks like this is the correct approach technically. In other words, by upsampling to 24/192, you are basically using whatever filter you have selected in HQplayer, without any negative conflicts with the Devialet DAC hardware filters.
It occurs to me that this might also be of interest to anyone who wants to play MQA files on a Devialet. I am as sure as I can be that Devialet will never implement MQA, but you can do the first unfold in the player software (such as Roon or Tidal), and then you could then use the HQPlayer MQA filters to get somewhere close to full MQA decoding.
I am not a huge fan of MQA, but MQA is out there, so it is at least some comfort that if you absolutely had to play an MQA file with a Devialet Expert, there is a reasonably technically sound way of doing it.
EDIT: Is anyone (other than myself) using HQPlayer these days? And if so, how are you finding the latest versions? (V4.9+) I might be kidding myself, but I do think that the recent updates are better than ever for sound quality.
Over the last couple of months, there have been a few posts on Audiophile Style regarding the possible interaction between filters used in HQPlayer, and hardware filters used in the DAC.
This got me wondering, so I posed a question on the HQPlayer thread. There was a bit of back an forth between myself and HQPlayer developer Jussi Laako, but the interesting bit is as follows:
Me:
Then I have my Devialet. This is a very unusual case as the DAC is fully integrated with Devialet's ADH amplification, and no filter options are offered, you get what you are given. I do know that Devialet use PCM1792 DAC chips, and will upsample any digital inputs below 24/192, but to be honest, I have no idea what filters they might be imposing.
Jussi:
There you can just always send 192k and there won't be problem with the combination of filters. Likely the sharp filter is used there. Most source material is 44.1/48k which leaves a lot of space between the source content band and the filters operating from 192k up. There is plenty enough space also for 88.2/96k inputs.
As it happens, I experimented a bit when I first had HQPlayer, but soon settled on the approach of upsampling everything to 24/192. Based on the above, this looks like this is the correct approach technically. In other words, by upsampling to 24/192, you are basically using whatever filter you have selected in HQplayer, without any negative conflicts with the Devialet DAC hardware filters.
It occurs to me that this might also be of interest to anyone who wants to play MQA files on a Devialet. I am as sure as I can be that Devialet will never implement MQA, but you can do the first unfold in the player software (such as Roon or Tidal), and then you could then use the HQPlayer MQA filters to get somewhere close to full MQA decoding.
I am not a huge fan of MQA, but MQA is out there, so it is at least some comfort that if you absolutely had to play an MQA file with a Devialet Expert, there is a reasonably technically sound way of doing it.
EDIT: Is anyone (other than myself) using HQPlayer these days? And if so, how are you finding the latest versions? (V4.9+) I might be kidding myself, but I do think that the recent updates are better than ever for sound quality.
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