Gordon , yes, the player still affects the sound, just tried the same 16/44.1 track on JRiver, JPlay and MQN(24bit 2.95 I think) and the SQ was better in MQN although the first two were KS. JRiver a little woolly, Jplay better.
Switching formats however shows a major SQ leap when using DSD material and native DSD through JRiver or Jplay are superb.
Ken Moreland wrote:Gordon , yes, the player still affects the sound, just tried the same 16/44.1 track on JRiver, JPlay and MQN(24bit 2.95 I think) and the SQ was better in MQN although the first two were KS. JRiver a little woolly, Jplay better.
Switching formats however shows a major SQ leap when using DSD material and native DSD through JRiver or Jplay are superb.
KM
Ken,
is jplay dsd different/better than jriver dsd playback or is dsd more immune to different players ?
That's tough one but I think JRiver is better, there's not a lot of difference but I had some dropouts with Jplay and Jriver is easy to run, it will also convert PCM hirez to DSD on the fly and that's interesting too. Overall I think MQN wins for PCM at all sample rates and JRiver for DSD.
John , Just compared a 24/96 track using MQN and JRiver converted to DSD on the fly and in my opinion MQN was cleaner, crisper although JRiver was good too but not enough.
I do have a copy of the famous Oscar Peterson - We Get Requests in DSD format and played through JRiver (or Jplay) that is streets ahead of the 16/44.1 version played through MQN.
I'm not too keen on the conversion on the fly or separately to DSD.
I switched off DSD on fly last night, and it did sound cleaner with more dynamics, so I switched to MQn 3.72 after awhile. MQn still wins, it is crispier with better micro details.
I picked up on Kernel in JR at the beginning, but I found on Naim forum that people prefer Wasapi. I went back to Wasapi last night, and it sounded as good as Kernel, if not better. It is hard to notice any difference.
My general conclusion is similar like Ken's, Hugo is in love with DSD format. The other thing that I notice is, the gap between different players and different drivers is smaller, I think Hugo is more immune on those changes than Naim V1. It is an exceptional little machine, and it'll be very interesting to see what the future will bring. We may talk something like "DAC's before Hugo, and DAC's after Hugo". Chord will come up with some reference DAC based on that technology for sure, but the rest of the world will follow as well, I guess.
i3 Haswell, PPAStudio USB3 card and USB Micro cable/Chord Hugo/Nad-275BEE/Harbeth-30.1
