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In Reply to: RE: Upsampling revisted. posted by emailtim on April 07, 2025 at 23:39:12
Yeah I tried all the players mostly. Hq player seems great and pretty sure I ditched it because it was shakey and required the "computer" experience. Or if it allowed for tablet control over the network it was super buggy. Probably better now. Anyhow Neutron is a keeper because I listen to headphones entirely and it has thousands of predone eq settings for headphones. Eq makes a big diff for headphones. Auto eq using predone settings for each headphone is great but each unit and user are different. You can add on a parametric eq and tailor everything to your preferences. Its pretty amazing. They make a big deal about 64 bit architecture and I think HQ player does as well.
Tldr for headphones and tablet use Neutron is hands down the best. They also make a dac which presumably works well with their player and does all you mention.
Also if you havent try dropping the volume in software by 3db. Supposed to bypass the antialiasing filter or something depending on the dac. Easy test.
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Follow Ups:
I played with HQPlayer years ago. Fortunately it integrated nicely with Roon so I didn't have to use the 1990's ugly HQPlayer UI to manage my library.
HQPlayer can be a huge CPU hog depending on the PCM to DSD sample rate configuration. It did 'smooth out' some harsher PCM but as I mentioned before I'm not really a fan of DSD if there's a high quality PCM available.
Roon now has its own DSP engine that can be enabled for various sample rate conversions and other DSP related tasks but I usually leave most of it OFF.
Fun to play with though! Enjoy.
No doubt a hi res recording/file is best. And you are super lucky if you can buy music recorded in high res. I sadly don't have that option. Lots of 80s digital recordings sadly.
I never got on with hqplayer either. Working on getting Neutron on a 2nd device for both systems. Will see. My iPhone wont do the dsd upsampling, tapping out at 705kh. Have a surface and lappy I will try.
Also have you tried the 3db trick? My improvement may just be that.
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Roon has several 'tricks'. There's auto volume leveling, headroom management, sigma-delta modulator gain / attenuation, DSD to PCM gain, and many more 'tricks'.Here I have Roon upsampling everything to DSD512 and attenuating the input signal by -3dB going to the sigma-delta modulator.
Other settings (not shown here) are available for headroom management and volume leveling.All upsampled to DSD 512. Notice the signal path in the middle column. Notice higher CPU core activity in the graph.
No upsampling. Notice the signal path is different here. Notice lower CPU core activity.
The two sets of graphs are showing the 8 CPU cores in the Mac Mini M1 CPU. Top graph is with PCM to DSD conversion. Bottom graph is with no sample rate conversion at all.Roon calls their DSP 'MUSE'. Here are some topics worth looking into among others:
- Inter-sample overs
- Minimum phase processing
- Volume leveling
- Headroom management
- Sample rate conversionP.S. Congrats on your Network+ Cert. When I got my cloud solutions architect cert (Oracle OCI) I'd say that 50% of the exam was on networking.
Edits: 04/10/25 04/10/25 04/10/25 04/10/25
Roon uses a community maintained library of headphone EQ presets. There are literally hundreds of headphones to choose from and under each brand there are hundreds of models. Under each model there are several presets. I'm not a headphone user so I've never tried the headphone EQs.
Some Sennheiser EQ preset examples:
Cool. Can it be detuned to get rid of all the "features" that aren't needed? Does it need an internet connection?
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I don't know the answers to your questions about the ability to 'detune' the headphone presets and whether they need an internet connection. My guess is that they can be retuned because you can create your own. I would imagine that you need an internet connection to download a preset.
I'm really not sure as I don't use these features.
Does it need an internet/ network connection to run on a daily basis? Can you get rid of stuff like lyrics and "hey you might like this" features, etc.
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" Does it need an internet/ network connection to run on a daily basis? Can you get rid of stuff like lyrics and "hey you might like this" features, etc. "Not really, but.... I like all of those features. If they're not for you there are other players more suited to your needs.
- - - - Details - - - -
- Roon initially required a permanent internet connection, even for local playback.
- Roon Labs later implemented a change to allow for offline playback, but it's still necessary to connect to the internet periodically for license validation.
- Roon can function offline for up to 30 days, and then you'll need to reconnect to the internet to continue using it.
This is typical of many streaming services as well. They allow you to download music for offline local playback but it will stop working unless you 'check in' now and then. This is how they avoid having users download a boat load of music then never paying again.
Edits: 04/21/25 04/21/25
Does it need an internet/ network connection to run on a daily basis? Can you get rid of stuff like lyrics and "hey you might like this" features, etc.
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Roon Server needs an internet connection but Roon ARC does not. One of Roon's claim to fame is it's rich metadata and much of that comes from Roon over the internet. And since Roon also integrates with Qobuz, Tidal, and other streaming services an internet connection is essential.
However, mainly for portable use on a tablet or phone Roon provides a free App called Roon ARC. Roon ARC allows me to stream anything I have stored on my Roon Server at home to Roon ARC on my iPhone while mobile.... provided I have decent cellular coverage. This is kind of like having your own personal streaming service. Roon ARC can also run in "offline mode" where tunes are downloaded directly to the device. For example, I run Roon ARC in the car from my iPhone and if I'm within decent cellular range I just use it normally and stream music from home to the iPhone. If I'm in a spotty area or traveling where there is no cellular service I run Roon ARC in "offline mode". In this mode it plays music that I have pre-downloaded to my iPhone.
Roon ARC on my iPhone and Apple CarPlay on the car's infotainment screen
Whatever music I have stored at home locally on my Roon Server can be 'streamed' to my iPhone mobile device. Any Playlists
that I created on the Roon Server at home also appear in my mobile iPhone - so there's no need to manually create another set
of Playlists on the phone.
If I have no cellular coverage I can still use the Roon ARC App to play music that resides locally on the iPhone.
Ok thanks. Was hoping to not need a sub especially if not using all the features...
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Thanks! working on the security+ cert now. Networking is sooooo much stuff.
That roon looks powerful. Lots of settings. Hope it sounds good. Often players that try to do too much don't sound so good after they add everything that doesn't have to do with SQ.
Kind of a hypocrite on that though since switching to neutron. Does Roon have headphone autoeq settings? That is the main reason I am using neutron.
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Get an M4 Mac Mini, I saw them for $450 at MicroCenter the other day, and you'll never have issues with upsampling, or doing anything else for that matter. As I posted already, I upsample everything now to DSD256, and do it without glitches. I've used various other Macs the same way but only the M4 does it smoothly. When I used an M1 MBA I had to use DSD128. 256 would play but every now and then it would glitch, and it was slower to switch tracks as it has to start the sampling process when you do that. If you just let it play through it will sample the next song while the current one plays. The M1 was still pretty fast. I also tried a quad core i5 iMac, an older one at that, and it couldn't keep up all the time. It would work for a while, and then suddenly stop working.
And in writing all this I realized I haven't turned on the system in a week. My wife just retired and we've been busy.
The M4 Mac Mini is very impressive and not just for a Mac. I can't name ANY PC, compact or otherwise, that matches its performance and I/O features at anywhere near its $500-ish price - varies depending on who's putting it on sale for that week.My 2018 6-core Intel i7 Mac Mini was approaching $2K while a similarly configured Mini M4 (same RAM and SSD) today would be about $900 MSRP and will easily trounce the Intel Mac Mini by a huge margin. Granted, prices have gone down while performance has gone up across the board but we're talking huge bold steps here, not baby steps had Apple stayed on Intel.
One of the reasons Apple abandoned Intel was their slow pace of advancement in CPU technology especially in efficiency and power consumption. Apple was tired of waiting on Intel so they rolled their own CPU in the M series and now they and their customers are reaping the benefits.
I'm trying to talk myself into buying a new Mac Mini M4 since my wife just bought herself a new iMac M4 ;-)
Edits: 04/09/25
Just an M4? No! An M4 Pro!
You'll be sorry if you don't pull the trigger!
excess . ;)
I enjoy having 32 GB of memory to run Parallels for historical Quicken data along with other stuff.
M4 Pro would be nice but I'm waiting for the M4 Audiophile Edition in honor of Steve Jobs ;-)
Glad you got a great solution. What software are you using?
Doubtful the M4 will work in my situation. 1st off I have a mini and while it is not the M4 version, I hate that damn thing. Its so buggy and unintuitive. IIRC I was trying hqplayer audivanna and Amarra. I bought Amarra and it was working ok. Then there was an os update and then it all got weird. The remote app on the phone stopped working and I ditched it. Years went by and I got the remote to work but then the program started crashing. Ugh. I KNOW I KNOW mac is great but it wasn't for me.
2nd for that kind of dough I can just get a new Ipad and it solves an issue I have with the mini approach, which is control. I know that on the ipad I can get the software I want, Neutron, and DSD upsampling to work. Am already doing it. Also the ipad can run on batteries if that makes a difference.
Anyhow thanks for the idea it is better than the ipad in terms of upsampling to be sure but one device that does it all is going to be better for me overall...
Cut to razor sounding violins
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