My pleasure entirely

🙏

The Hobby term was for those that swear we hear nothing different than a clock radio on a night stand, because what we do is no more than that!!! But someone with that view has no idea what the miss( stay thirsty for better sound my friends)

So do I

🙏

Glad to help!

I will😊

@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel I will also share I went all in with Dirac through a miniDSP Studio SHD because of your great advice and I will never look back. Thank you 😊

@@olivergnass7566 I also have an Mac Mini M2. Do you have any advice regarding equipment I need to get to get a superior sound. I only play files from my hard drive. I am a complete noob. Also do I need "bit perfect" software; how do I know if it does that job? I currently use an APP called MusicStreamer

My pleasure

Just try. It depends on the gear you use.

Don’t dispair, it took me years to understand it 😊

👍🏼

Thanks!

So nice of you

No problem!

Thank you too

That probably was due to limitations of the analog electronics, not the overshooting of the reconstruction filter.

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👍🏼

Enjoy the music 😊

A 'good enough' DAC these days continue to fall in price. Unless your audio system is very high-end, there are reasonable consumer DAC alternatives that will likely impress you, over anything you computer can produce. One such DAC is the E30 from Topping. If PC playback is your primary source, then give this DAC a try. You can't beat the price at $200USD. After upgrading your DAC, you may feel the need to re-evaluate your speakers for near field listening. :) Good luck.

@@redjr16 I'm not a 100% sure but I believe ifi is in the same category as topping regarding sq (according to measurements I've seen), it's probably the psu and other surrounding parts that will make more of a difference. Using a PC will be a bottleneck compared to something high-end, but I don't have a dedicated listening room (just different panels and changed furniture) so it might be lost anyway in reverb etc (and I still have some hardware left to try and swap). Speakers are decent, but I might upgrade their DSP later to something with I2S or other digital input.

What do you mean by 'bypassing'?

@@wasaaapdroid9477 There's a bunch of audio processes taking place in windows and they can affect the sound, so some software can route the sound outside of them. At the moment though I believe I just have every windows audio (notifications etc) shut off in windows so there isn't any, it depends on what software and hardware that's used.

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It all depends on how well the volume control is done. Current digital volume controls can be damned good.

It’s hard to say whether you will hear it. That depends on your stereo, the power supply and you ears. In général it is quite noticeable.

You should reduce the volume in the Qobuz app.

Many DACs have a reconstruction filters that overshoots. So 0 dBFS in means +0.5 dBFS in the filter....

@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel I assume the issue is when people start using positive EQ on music that's already recorded near to 0dBFS? You run out of headroom?

Sana da teşekkürler

After some investigation this is what I've found, JRiver has a excellent spectrum analyzer, I found a test tone on Qobuz and could see -3db equates to 71% and -6db to less than 50%. So anyhow I figured 50% is a good mathematical number to use and interestingly I seem to remember that's the default desktop player volume. Then watching the spectrum analyzer in JRiver and playing several tracks I could see many peaks getting not so far away to 0db / full volume, so I think I'm settled on 50% as the safe volume. Btw there's a trick I found to fixing the Qobuz volume, find a file in the Qobuz dir named 'player-0.json', right at the start you'll see '"volume":50', I then make that file read only, Qobuz then starts with the volume set to that percentage.

@wazuo8354 that does make sense. -6 dB is half the voltage.

I am quite happy this way.

Ok, in most cases 3 dB is enough. Sometimes more might be needed.

@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel Yeah, tho 3dB is a bit on the conservative side. 6dB is safer. :)

I’ve found that with a Mac it’s more like -3dB automatically. On a windows computer it always pushes it right to the edge of 0 and I don’t really prefer that. I’ve always found Mac and iPads to sound better with my dac and I wonder if that has something to do with it. I used a Motu interface to monitor the levels from each one as it has meters on it.

@@unewb That's interesting info! Thanks.

I don't have hands on experience with the Altair. Perhaps Mr. Wang, who is a very clever designer, has takes measures internally to do the same as my -3 dB trick? Anyway, if you don't hear a difference, you're fine.

Well, converting to DSD the signal has to go through reconstruction filters too plus through the noise shaping algorithm. The question is what filters sound the best: those of the DSD conversion or those in your DAC.

Correct

Correct

I no longer use upsampling in Roon. I preferred the Chord Scaler and now the fabulous Grimm upsampling.

@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel Thank You for your replay unfortunetly its out of my price range, is there any chance You could provide information or make separate video about HQ Player and filter/settings that You recommend for R2R dacs and maybe another episode for DeltaSigma Dacs ? Maybe even settings for different generes of music if we are lucky enough ? We will much appreciate Your knowledge us an audience

No, you need to reduce the level in the software you stream the audio with.

@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel Thanks Hans. I just use the Qobuz app so I assume that won't work in that case.

Well, you didn't insert noise but, true, your signal is now 3 dB closer to the noise floor of your amp. But the room noise and noise in the recording will be 15 to 25 dB higher than the noise of. your amp. And you increase the sound quality where it matters most: at high levels.

Asking the question is answering it

Watch the video again

Also, read up on what Inter Sample Peaks are. They are a natural result of sample reconstruction and can generate peaks that fall outside the dynamic range of the converter and/or the surrounding electronics. :)

Set the -3 dB option in the DSP menu in Roon. The trick doesn’t work for streamers with built in DAC.

@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel thank you

You should set the WiiM at -3 dB

@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel Thank you :) I will try to check if that is possible on the Wiin mini! I will share my findings with you. Once again, really appreciated Hans!

The only way was to set -3dB on a custom equalizer trough all the frequency range on the wiim mini. Seems to my ears at least a little less sibilant. Is that correct Hans? Thank you 🙏

@@AlexandreakaXne surely it's just turning volume down a touch? I've got the wiim pro and mini and I just lower volume a touch on the app via phone so that it is presenting a slightly lower volume to the DAC.

@AlexandreSantos you are correct

Yes

Both don't make sense. The trick only works if you can reduce the digital stream with 3 dB.

thnxs for the answer Hans.

Voor de duidelijkheid, het gaat hier niet om -3 vs -6dB. Het gaat erom dat het signaal zachter wordt gemaakt voordat het een upsampler of een DAC bereikt.

At least in theory that gives you the flattest response. But our auditory system is rather capable of compensating for other levels. I am more concerned about the stereo they use. Often systems don't perform in balance at lower levels.

I don't think this will actually work since all music is recorded at a different loudness. If your set is flat then you still would need to listen to the music at the appropriate loudness (so at the same loudness it has been recorded at) to combat ELC effects. Having loudness fixed at 75dB basically means you would have to adjust the EQ for every recording.

Not een you use the internal DAC

A little but not as much as the average reconstruction filter @44.1kHz

Yes, every filter does, regardless in which domain. Upsampling, even with small tabs, generates time smearing effect.

I use to upsample now I just play it in the original format

@@hybridegoes What do you mean by 'tabs' and what is the magnitude of this time smearing?

@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel Practically all dacs made in the past decades do internal upsampling as they are delta sigma. So the average 44.1kHz dac is upsampling. Upsampling involves a form of reconstruction.

Thank U2