Tír Na HiFi

sbgk wrote: ...
have split out the sample rates into their own exe files, use the control in the zip file. Don't rename the play files .....

Gordon

I can see the advantages of doing this, but realise that there are many more combinations to support in that case:

very common hig res combinations in web-shops (at least as common as 96/24 & 192/24) are also:
44/24
88/24
176/24

less common but still around:
48/16
48/24

relatively new but certainly on the rise and a few labels / webshops actively promoting:
352/24
384/24


Do all these combination require their own mqnplay.exe version?

Cheers

Aleg

Aleg wrote:

sbgk wrote: ...
have split out the sample rates into their own exe files, use the control in the zip file. Don't rename the play files .....

Gordon

I can see the advantages of doing this, but realise that there are many more combinations to support in that case:

very common hig res combinations in web-shops (at least as common as 96/24 & 192/24) are also:
44/24
88/24
176/24

less common but still around:
48/16
48/24

relatively new but certainly on the rise and a few labels / webshops actively promoting:
352/24
384/24


Do all these combination require their own mqnplay.exe version?

Cheers

Aleg

there's a lot of code associated with handling different rates in the one program, so left it out, think it makes a difference. Makes it more important to get it right before spawning all the other rates.

won't be going above 24/192 for now. You can hear with MQn how good even 16/44 can sound, so find it strange that the industry is promoting higher rates without having players that can the best out of them.

Don't understand why there's so many
Just over complicates things
What's recorded at 384
Can't be many

There's so many players that can't play 16 44 properly
Makes little sense to me

Hi Gordon,

first of all, I'm very impressed of your player, which sounds far better than any other player I've heard. Great work!

I am one of those, who are listening to several sampling rates:

16/44.1
24/48.0
24/88.2
24/96.0
24/192.0

I agree with you, that SQ is first priority, and most of other players aren't able to play as good as it would be possible.

So my idea is, that every sample rate has its own mqnplay.exe and MqnLoad could handle the routing to the respecting player in dependence of sample rate of the music file - given that Christoph (taggart) would implement this function in his MQnLoader.

Kind regards
Fujak

Fujak wrote:Hi Gordon,

first of all, I'm very impressed of your player, which sounds far better than any other player I've heard. Great work!

I am one of those, who are listening to several sampling rates:

16/44.1
24/48.0
24/88.2
24/96.0
24/192.0

I agree with you, that SQ is first priority, and most of other players aren't able to play as good as it would be possible.

So my idea is, that every sample rate has its own mqnplay.exe and MqnLoad could handle the routing to the respecting player in dependence of sample rate of the music file - given that Christoph (taggart) would implement this function in his MQnLoader.

Kind regards
Fujak

mqncontrol copies mqnplay1644.exe etc to mqnplay.exe depending on the sample rate/bit depth so it's already handled by mqncontrol.

mqn was just supposed to be an experiment to see what a minimalist player would sound like in the hope of spurring other player devs in improving their players, but has taken on a momentum of it's own.

taggart sent me a link to the aktives-hoeren forum mqn thread, would be interested if you can provide any feedback on SQ, the more data points the better. Appreciate the number of versions in the last week has been insane, so am interested in 2.96 comments.

nige2000 wrote:Don't understand why there's so many
Just over complicates things
What's recorded at 384
Can't be many

There's so many players that can't play 16 44 properly
Makes little sense to me

Senseless or not, these are available high res formats out there. The 44/24 is a fairly common high res format with french classical labels like mirare, nonesuch and naive.
176/24 and 88/24 are also common with labels that record in or distribute in DSD format as this sequence is in an exact mulitple to the 2.6 and 5.2 MHz DSD sample rates.

The new DXD format (352/384) is being promoted by record labels 2L.no from Norway and HDTT tape transfers from the US and one sees it more and more often promoted in USB-DACS, as the newest/bestest/most superdooper high res format.
48/16 and 48/24 are not seen very often but some production companies stick to those as these are also used in video-production soundtracks. I only have a few of these.

But I would suggest to support at least all the common high res formats 44/88/96/176/192 in 24 bits.

BTW 2.96 is sounding very good again.
Have yet to do some comparing as I've. Just fired it up for the first track.

Cheers

Aleg

sbgk wrote:....
mqn was just supposed to be an experiment to see what a minimalist player would sound like in the hope of spurring other player devs in improving their players, but has taken on a momentum of it's own.

.....

I appreciate it may have become an overwhelming venture, but I notice developers of most software players are not interested in sound quality, or at least not at the expense of convenience and looks. Most people involved in these developments belong to the bits-are-bits camp so there is not much understanding to be found there.

Apart from MQn I only know of JPlay and XX Highend as top quality players.
JPlay has come to a halt a bit, but maybe the success and quality of MQn might be an impetus for them again.
XX Highend is focussing on a completely different strategy.

For me MQn is a minimalist player that perfectly suits my needs and wishes.

If you would like others to carry the stick as well, it may require sharing or licensing your knowledge to others the allow them to reach the same level quality as you have.

Cheers

Aleg

Aleg wrote:

nige2000 wrote:Don't understand why there's so many
Just over complicates things
What's recorded at 384
Can't be many

There's so many players that can't play 16 44 properly
Makes little sense to me

Senseless or not, these are available high res formats out there. The 44/24 is a fairly common high res format with french classical labels like mirare, nonesuch and naive.
176/24 and 88/24 are also common with labels that record in or distribute in DSD format as this sequence is in an exact mulitple to the 2.6 and 5.2 MHz DSD sample rates.

The new DXD format (352/384) is being promoted by record labels 2L.no from Norway and HDTT tape transfers from the US and one sees it more and more often promoted in USB-DACS, as the newest/bestest/most superdooper high res format.
48/16 and 48/24 are not seen very often but some production companies stick to those as these are also used in video-production soundtracks. I only have a few of these.

But I would suggest to support at least all the common high res formats 44/88/96/176/192 in 24 bits.

BTW 2.96 is sounding very good again.
Have yet to do some comparing as I've. Just fired it up for the first track.

Cheers

Aleg

that's good news about 2.96

I found this article interesting http://www.audiostream.com/content/qa-t ... pcm-vs-dsd

seems to say pcm is superior in amplitude resolution and inferior in timing

Aleg wrote:

sbgk wrote:....
mqn was just supposed to be an experiment to see what a minimalist player would sound like in the hope of spurring other player devs in improving their players, but has taken on a momentum of it's own.

.....

I appreciate it may have become an overwhelming venture, but I notice developers of most software players are not interested in sound quality, or at least not at the expense of convenience and looks. Most people involved in these developments belong to the bits-are-bits camp so there is not much understanding to be found there.

Apart from MQn I only know of JPlay and XX Highend as top quality players.
JPlay has come to a halt a bit, but maybe the success and quality of MQn might be an impetus for them again.
XX Highend is focussing on a completely different strategy.

For me MQn is a minimalist player that perfectly suits my needs and wishes.

If you would like others to carry the stick as well, it may require sharing or licensing your knowledge to others the allow them to reach the same level quality as you have.

Cheers

Aleg

I now realise that commercial players would never do what I've done with MQn, so the SQ would always be compromised, assuming what I've done makes a difference to the SQ.

sbgk wrote:

Aleg wrote:

nige2000 wrote:Don't understand why there's so many
Just over complicates things
What's recorded at 384
Can't be many

There's so many players that can't play 16 44 properly
Makes little sense to me

Senseless or not, these are available high res formats out there. The 44/24 is a fairly common high res format with french classical labels like mirare, nonesuch and naive.
176/24 and 88/24 are also common with labels that record in or distribute in DSD format as this sequence is in an exact mulitple to the 2.6 and 5.2 MHz DSD sample rates.

The new DXD format (352/384) is being promoted by record labels 2L.no from Norway and HDTT tape transfers from the US and one sees it more and more often promoted in USB-DACS, as the newest/bestest/most superdooper high res format.
48/16 and 48/24 are not seen very often but some production companies stick to those as these are also used in video-production soundtracks. I only have a few of these.

But I would suggest to support at least all the common high res formats 44/88/96/176/192 in 24 bits.

BTW 2.96 is sounding very good again.
Have yet to do some comparing as I've. Just fired it up for the first track.

Cheers

Aleg

that's good news about 2.96

I found this article interesting http://www.audiostream.com/content/qa-t ... pcm-vs-dsd

seems to say pcm is superior in amplitude resolution and inferior in timing

I definitely like 2.96 better than 2.95.
Vocals are less shouty in 2.96 thereby letting the other acoustic instruments come through / alongside in a more balanced way with the vocals.

One of the drawbacks of DSD is that is has a lot of higher frequency noise that needs to be filtered out with a low pass filter. With regular 2.6 MHz DSD this requires a low pass with more or less strong roll off leaving only about a max 23 kHz signals. Thereby 2.6 MHz DSD has no more frequency range than a Redbook CD.
The DSD solution is to increase the sample rate to 5.2 MHz (and even higher in the mean time) to push up the frequency band where this noise is appearing, thereby allowing the use of a higher frequency for the low pass filter and thus extending the available frequency range into the true high res like the PCM.

I give your article a read and see what they say about it.

But most important, I like your 2.96 ;-)

Cheers

Aleg