Setting up an upsampling digital platform without roon or a NAS

[ChemMan]

Good afternoon folks,

As per my thread in 2 channel ( https://www.hifiwigwam.com/threads/...e-streamer-and-dac.116740/page-3#post-2377733). I'm going to finally go all in on digital.

The basic question is this: What's the easiest way to set this up without Roon or a NAS? This would be into an integrated amp 2 channel system only

I have a 6 year old Macbook Air available that I can use as the computer. It has these specs: 1.8GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB RAM, 512GB storage. It's clean and empty.

I've got Qobuz, NO digital files, and would buy Holo Spring KTE DAC that will do NOS, Over-sampling and Native DSD. I'd prefer to use the USB input on the DAC, but it has them all. I've no problem purchasing HQ player software for the Macbook.

I also have a Bluesound Node streamer, and as far as I understand upsampling can be done on Qobuz but not Tidal.

What else would I need? Can the Mac be plugged directly into the DAC via USB and function as a streamer with storage and upsampler. or do I need something like a streamer in between the computer and DAC.

Thanks in advance. Chem

 

[Cable Monkey]

HQPlayer is probably the way to go. I don’t know the mechanics of how you’d get Qobuz to feed it. I think the designer has included Qobuz so it should be doable.

 

[ChemMan]

HQPlayer is probably the way to go. I don’t know the mechanics of how you’d get Qobuz to feed it. I think the designer has included Qobuz so it should be doable.

My limited research confirms this as well. I've been searching all day for how to do this properly, and most people are using a Mac Mini, Nuc or Roon and a core to do it all. But from there I don't even know how they get it to the DAC.

 

[Nopiano]

My limited research confirms this as well. I've been searching all day for how to do this properly, and most people are using a Mac Mini, Nuc or Roon and a core to do it all. But from there I don't even know how they get it to the DAC.

As you know, Steve, this isn’t my bag…but, AFAIK it’s via USB. And I know that because I saw the Audioquest Dragonfly demo’d that way several years ago.

Hence USB DACs are a thing. Hope that helps a bit until an expert comes along.

 

[ChemMan]

Hence USB DACs are a thing.

You're not wrong about that NIck. Everything I'm finding says USB is the best way for the DAC to deal with timing/clocking. Something like what @newlash09 described in my other thread.

 

[MartinC]

You're not wrong about that NIck. Everything I'm finding says USB is the best way for the DAC to deal with timing/clocking. Something like what @newlash09 described in my other thread.

It's definitely USB, in major part as you'll be restricted in terms of the maximum sample rate you can use otherwise. Plus that you don't want to be reliant on the clock in your PC as you say.

 

[newlash09]

My computer chops are not existent too... But when I was checking out hq player many years back. I remember that once hq player is installed on your mac. It appears as a virtual sound card in the list of audio output devices. Folks who were running roon on the same mac, were going into roon settings, and selecting hq player as its output device. Then in hq player, they were selecting USB as their output device ( I think it was called USB asio or something).

So without roon, you would still need a app or software that can play from qobuz and has selectable outputs. Where you can feed output from qobuz to hq player.

This brings me to the 2nd question, do you want to play qobuz interfacing directly with the mac physically. Or do you want a remote app on your phone or tab to control it. Wanting a remote will complicate things further. And will need robust proven platforms like roon or audirvana. By the way audirvana supposedly sounds way better than roon, and might have inbuilt upsampling options. I would check that up before considering alternative options .

 

[ChemMan]

So without roon, you would still need a app or software that can play from QoBuz and has selectable outputs. Where you can feed output from QoBuz to hq player.

Apparently HQ player now comes standard with Qobuz inside. I'm back to the same questions. Is a Macbook Air, with above specs, powerful enough to run HQ player? How does the processed signal get to the DAC? (if it's just a USB cable great!!) and finally, how does one control all this without getting up and going to the computer?

 

[ChemMan]

By the way Audirvana supposedly sounds way better than roon, and might have inbuilt upsampling options. I would check that up before considering alternative options .

The website is surprisingly stingy with details about upsampling. They say you can use two algorithms and upsample 2x, 4x, etc. That's it.

 

[newlash09]

I really don't know how much steam is required to run hq player. Depends on what filters you choose in hq player perhaps. If it has a few days free trial version, then maybe you can give it a try. It will still output via the USB of the mac. So a USB cable is all you will still need. And if you are happy with the results. Then adding a USB decrappifier will be beneficial to clean out all the heavy processing noise from the usb out of the mac.

However if you want to use your phone or tab to control, then best to try and audition a lumin U2 mini or the pricier U1. They both have upsampling inbuilt. And folks claim great improvements when feeding their usb dac's up sampled music via the lumin. And if you like the lumin U1, then if you can wait patiently, a good deal can be had as the lumin U1 is due for a replacement.

 

[greybeard]

I use a raspberry pi 4 2gb as a streamer,and have a 2tb ssd drive attached via usb and this can be connected to the DAC via USB. I run MoOde audio software, and upsample to 32/768 pcm, not dsd.
The Pi can do this without any problems.
I also have a Digi+ hat for it so as I can output via optical/coax, but this is of course limited to 24/192. I have of late been listening via optical and although its a lower rate, I have been enjoying it more than usb. Of course next month I may swap back and enjoy the difference USB gives.

 

[Cable Monkey]

I really don't know how much steam is required to run hq player.

HQPlayer is pretty much updated to keep up with whatever the most powerful processor is widely available at a given time. But that only really applies to resampling to high rate DSD. In a lot of cases this is DAC dependent. Modern Sigma Delta DACs do their thing with DSD (theoretically). Any PCM is converted to DSD and the assertion is a powerful PC can do a better job than a chip or FPGA. But the Spring 3 is two DACs in one and you might get better mileage feeding upsampled PCM. The PC doesn’t need to be any where near as powerful and the embedded version of HQPlayer is happy on modest Celeron processors for this sort of job. So the Mac is more than enough for that.

 

[ChemMan]

Then adding a USB decrappifier will be beneficial to clean out all the heavy processing noise from the usb out of the mac

Too funny. I had a good giggle. But this is important, so quite a few people are using the Ifi Zen stream in between the HQ player and the Spring 3. Some seem to be using Sonore Rendu stuff, but again, I'm not clear how these are used. Do you thin it's just a "bridge" between" the computer and DAC? I feel like I'm missing an important piece of information somewhere.

The picture I have in my head is I open HQ player on the Macbook I connect the Macbook via USB to an IFI Zen Stream, or another streamer I suppose, and then connect the streamer, ideally by USB, to the DAC. Does this sound right?

 

[Rayymondo]

Then adding a USB decrappifier will be beneficial to clean out all the heavy processing noise from the usb out of the mac.

I would have thought a decent DAC would do this?

 

[newlash09]

Too funny. I had a good giggle. But this is important, so quite a few people are using the Ifi Zen stream in between the HQ player and the Spring 3. Some seem to be using Sonore Rendu stuff, but again, I'm not clear how these are used. Do you thin it's just a "bridge" between" the computer and DAC? I feel like I'm missing an important piece of information somewhere.

The picture I have in my head is I open HQ player on the Macbook I connect the Macbook via USB to an IFI Zen Stream, or another streamer I suppose, and then connect the streamer, ideally by USB, to the DAC. Does this sound right?

I think folks are using the zen stream via NAA. Which is as a network audio adapter. So you run hq player on a mac mini. Then you connect the zen stream via ether net to the same network switch where your mac mini is plugged in. So the hq player upsampled feed will travel to the zen stream via ether net. And the zen stream plugs into the dac via USB.

This is how NAA protocol works in general. Very similar to how roon sends audio to its end point. Though NAA is a open protocol, and RAAT is roon's own protocol.

 

[newlash09]

I would have thought a decent DAC would do this?

Depending on whom you ask, the answer will vary . I haven't tried any proper streaming. So I really don't know. But there are folks out there spending money on 150k wadax servers with similar money dac's. I previously assumed these people had more money than sense. But after reading their posts recently, I realised these guys had very in depth knowledge and decades of listening experience. So they couldn't entirely be wrong, and definitely not all of them. But then the question remains, as to how resolving a system has to be to show those differences.

On my system, probably with a holo dac with its titanic USB card, the source will not matter. But then that will not make it a fact or a generalisation based solely on my findings on my system.

 

[newlash09]

Too funny. I had a good giggle. But this is important, so quite a few people are using the Ifi Zen stream in between the HQ player and the Spring 3. Some seem to be using Sonore Rendu stuff, but again, I'm not clear how these are used. Do you thin it's just a "bridge" between" the computer and DAC? I feel like I'm missing an important piece of information somewhere.

The picture I have in my head is I open HQ player on the Macbook I connect the Macbook via USB to an IFI Zen Stream, or another streamer I suppose, and then connect the streamer, ideally by USB, to the DAC. Does this sound right?

And folks using sonore rendu's must be using the optical rendu. Which is actually more complex, and honestly not worth considering at this experimentation stage. You first need a network switch with fiber port. Then use a fiber cable to feed the optical rendu. Which then connects to the DAC via USB. As soon as you've done this, there will come along a guy who will suggest that a lpsu on the network switch and the optical rendu make a big difference and these tweaks will be never ending

 

[Rayymondo]

Depending on whom you ask, the answer will vary . I haven't tried any proper streaming. So I really don't know. But there are folks out there spending money on 150k wadax servers with similar money dac's. I previously assumed these people had more money than sense. But after reading their posts recently, I realised these guys had very in depth knowledge and decades of listening experience. So they couldn't entirely be wrong, and definitely not all of them. But then the question remains, as to how resolving a system has to be to show those differences.

On my system, probably with a holo dac with its titanic USB card, the source will not matter. But then that will not make it a fact or a generalisation based solely on my findings on my system.

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The result of a VERY quick search on asynchronous Dacs...

A digital-to-analog converter (DAC) used for music playback that connects to the computer via USB. The asynchronous USB DAC (async USB DAC) uses its own clock to regulate the data rate from the computer, which allows for jitter-free data transfer. See USB DAC.

 

[Rayymondo]

I just plug my USB cable (a Chord Co one) straight in to the DAC, have been considering a Server recently, but mainly so I can store my music on the rack and not have the USB cable trailing across the floor, although as I live on my own this isn't a massive problem and I haven't tripped over it yet!

 

[newlash09]

---

The result of a VERY quick search on asynchronous Dacs...

A digital-to-analog converter (DAC) used for music playback that connects to the computer via USB. The asynchronous USB DAC (async USB DAC) uses its own clock to regulate the data rate from the computer, which allows for jitter-free data transfer. See USB DAC.

I guess I know that part sir . And I can also add that apart from asynchronous usb they also have galvanic isolation via optical diodes from the usb card to the converter for further isolation. But there are still folks out there claiming benefits with optimised streamers. So iam not taking a position on the subject of usb dac's being immune to source in either camps. Iam using Bluetooth, so I don't have a horse in this race