A toast to PGGB, a heady brew of math and magic

I'm considering acquiring a new (for me, could be second hand) DAC and it could be a T+A DSD8 of which I would have no use of pre, headphones, PCM via chips capabilities or a HOLO with the idea of keeping PCM PCM through use of R2R (and use it DSD only with my DSD files). If that makes sense. But I wonder if "Pure" PCM exists any more than "pure" DSD since, at recording stage, all ADC I know of are Sigma Delta Modulation based. This PGGB thing, the very fact that I don't doubt that well respected AS contributors actually get a SQ improvement from their DAVE DAC, makes me wonder if the the dip dig in the encoded material performed by PGGB is not simply proving there's no absolutely right path for reproduction, be it PCM or SDM, for DSD (besides offers which musical content never appealed to me) is never PCM stage free nor PCM free from SDM origin.

Just an humble question by someone who wonders if it makes any sense to have PCM capability built in his next DAC (while I find myself listening more and more to vinyl and thus maybe in the mindset to think that PGGB is another proof that digital, too, has its deep inherent unsurmountable flaws). If yes I guess PGGB would be to be added to the Holo solution. The fact that the May is claimed to benefit from PGGB rules out the hypothesis that the DAVE would benefit for being a SDM DAC outputting PCM only, I guess

1 hour ago, Jean Paul D said:

I'm considering acquiring a new (for me, could be second hand) DAC and it could be a T+A DSD8 of which I would have no use of pre, headphones, PCM via chips capabilities or a HOLO with the idea of keeping PCM PCM through use of R2R (and use it DSD only with my DSD files). If that makes sense. But I wonder if "Pure" PCM exists any more than "pure" DSD since, at recording stage, all ADC I know of are Sigma Delta Modulation based. This PGGB thing, the very fact that I don't doubt that well respected AS contributors actually get a SQ improvement from their DAVE DAC, makes me wonder if the the dip dig in the encoded material performed by PGGB is not simply proving there's no absolutely right path for reproduction, be it PCM or SDM, for DSD (besides offers which musical content never appealed to me) is never PCM stage free nor PCM free from SDM origin.

 

Just an humble question by someone who wonders if it makes any sense to have PCM capability built in his next DAC (while I find myself listening more and more to vinyl and thus maybe in the mindset to think that PGGB is another proof that digital, too, has its deep inherent unsurmountable flaws). If yes I guess PGGB would be to be added to the Holo solution. The fact that the May is claimed to benefit from PGGB rules out the hypothesis that the DAVE would benefit for being a SDM DAC outputting PCM only, I guess

 

 

 

 

A DAC need not be pure PCM to take advantage of PGGB, Instead, the DAC would need to be able to accept higher rate PCM (preferably 16FS or more), which both Holo and DAVE satisfy. 

The idea here is to provide the DAC with a highest rate remastered version of the original music track that the DAC would accept (for example, this could be 705.6kHz or 1411.2kHz etc) and if these remastered track is as close to a true recording made at those rates, then the DAC will likely benefit  from these remastered tracks as a bulk of the heavy lifting has already been done.  If the DAC does not do any further processing (like Holo in NOS mode) or if the DAC is able to take advantage of the higher rate PCM input (such as Chord DACs) it is likely to benefit even further.

There are DACs that accept up to DXD rates and they may internally resample to much higher rates. These DACs would benifit only to the extent to which they can take advantage of DXD rates.

You raise a good question regarding sigma delta modulators being used in the ADC conversion process, and Ideally one would think it would be better to have the signal direct from the sigma delta modulator  and not convert to PCM. But the problem is most modern ADCs use multi-bit sigma delta converters which is not the same as single bit DSD format and cannot be directly written  in DSD format. Going from multibit to single bit DSD without high quality modulators (such as the ones used in HQP) can significantly impact  the noise floor and it is often times better/easier to just record in PCM format.  I am not suggesting one format is better than the other, it boils down to implementation and the real bottleneck/culprit is the single bit DSD format.

1 hour ago, Zaphod Beeblebrox said:

A DAC need not be pure PCM to take advantage of PGGB, Instead, the DAC would need to be able to accept higher rate PCM (preferably 16FS or more), which both Holo and DAVE satisfy. 

 

The idea here is to provide the DAC with a highest rate remastered version of the original music track that the DAC would accept (for example, this could be 705.6kHz or 1411.2kHz etc) and if these remastered track is as close to a true recording made at those rates, then the DAC will likely benefit  from these remastered tracks as a bulk of the heavy lifting has already been done.  If the DAC does not do any further processing (like Holo in NOS mode) or if the DAC is able to take advantage of the higher rate PCM input (such as Chord DACs) it is likely to benefit even further.

 

There are DACs that accept up to DXD rates and they may internally resample to much higher rates. These DACs would benifit only to the extent to which they can take advantage of DXD rates.

 

You raise a good question regarding sigma delta modulators being used in the ADC conversion process, and Ideally one would think it would be better to have the signal direct from the sigma delta modulator  and not convert to PCM. But the problem is most modern ADCs use multi-bit sigma delta converters which is not the same as single bit DSD format and cannot be directly written  in DSD format. Going from multibit to single bit DSD without high quality modulators (such as the ones used in HQP) can significantly impact  the noise floor and it is often times better/easier to just record in PCM format.  I am not suggesting one format is better than the other, it boils down to implementation and the real bottleneck/culprit is the single bit DSD format.

are there DACs mirroring the ADCs by being multibits delta sigma ?

5 hours ago, Jean Paul D said:

are there DACs mirroring the ADCs by being multibits delta sigma ?

There are many muti-bit  sigma-delta ADCs and there are many multi-bit delta-sigma DACs (for example Chord DAVE uses 5 bit delta-sigma), but there is no standardized way of using this intermediate format and bypassing a lot of processing, as the implementations differ  (unless you convert to DSD or PCM) . 

13 minutes ago, Zaphod Beeblebrox said:

There are many muti-bit  sigma-delta ADCs and there are many multi-bit delta-sigma DACs (for example Chord DAVE uses 5 bit delta-sigma), but there is no standardized way of using this intermediate format and bypassing a lot of processing, as the implementations differ  (unless you convert to DSD or PCM) . 

"standardized way of using this intermediate format and bypassing a lot of processing" : what we need ? can we imagine a brand successful in the pro recording market promoting a distribution format (the one concept I liked in MQA was the idea of correcting the specific-ADC-used-for-production's footprint) of that intermediate and selling DACs capable of reading it?

9 hours ago, Jean Paul D said:

Just an humble question by someone who wonders if it makes any sense to have PCM capability built in his next DAC (while I find myself listening more and more to vinyl and thus maybe in the mindset to think that PGGB is another proof that digital, too, has its deep inherent unsurmountable flaws). If yes I guess PGGB would be to be added to the Holo solution. The fact that the May is claimed to benefit from PGGB rules out the hypothesis that the DAVE would benefit for being a SDM DAC outputting PCM only, I guess

I am very agnostic about the whole DSD vs PCM debate, having heard examples of superb music reproduction from both. In my opinion, the most important factor is the provenance of the recording.

That said, I can very confidently state that despite its origins among DAVE owners, PGGB can and does make a very noticeable improvement in the sound quality of many of my digital recordings, whether PCM or DSD, with my dCS equipment.

Steve Z

26 minutes ago, zettelsm said:

I am very agnostic about the whole DSD vs PCM debate, having heard examples of superb music reproduction from both. In my opinion, the most important factor is the provenance of the recording.

Plus one to that!

Going through the PGGB website, I don’t find any information on the expected file size. Can anyone provide an estimated range?

I definitely will check it out when I build my new computer but need to factor in how much drive space to get.

2 minutes ago, magnium said:

Going through the PGGB website, I don’t find any information on the expected file size. Can anyone provide an estimated range?

 

I definitely will check it out when I build my new computer but need to factor in how much drive space to get.

If a Redbook file is 1fs (sample frequency) and its file size is S then running PGGB on that file to 8fs (24/352.8) its file size becomes roughly 8S.

Roughly because I am neglecting the difference between 16 bit and 24 bit word size. But close enough for horseshoes or hand grenades.

Steve Z

I don't have enough RAM to generate PGGB files, I have a SD DAC I feed SDM via HQP per @Miska 's recommendation and logic behind HQP and thus PCM is not at its best with my DAC, PCM 8 fs capable though,  but I'll be happy to test if a proponent is willing to send/process me a file

1 hour ago, Jean Paul D said:

I don't have enough RAM to generate PGGB files, I have a SD DAC I feed SDM via HQP per @Miska 's recommendation and logic behind HQP and thus PCM is not at its best with my DAC, PCM 8 fs capable though,  but I'll be happy to test if a proponent is willing to send/process me a file

Pardon my ignorance... what is an "SD DAC?"

If you're finding it works best with DSD from HQPlayer, and that it tops out at 8FS, I'm not sure how much it would benefit from PGGB.

2 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

Pardon my ignorance... what is an "SD DAC?"

 

If you're finding it works best with DSD from HQPlayer, and that it tops out at 8FS, I'm not sure how much it would benefit from PGGB.

Sigma Delta. I'm not sure either it would benefit but some of the DACs listed as benefiting shouldn't either then

Can you clarify specific brand and model?

2 hours ago, magnium said:

Going through the PGGB website, I don’t find any information on the expected file size. Can anyone provide an estimated range?

 

I definitely will check it out when I build my new computer but need to factor in how much drive space to get.

Good question, I will add that information under FAQ, it is good information to have.

As a rule of thumb, every 11 minute 25 seconds of stereo at 16FS and 32 bits takes up about 4GB of space (which is the maximum size for 32 bit wav files)  so on an average typical CDs that are 40 - 45 minutes long will take about 16GB of space at 16FS 32 bits. At 8FS 32 bits that is 8GB and at 8FS 24 bits it will be 6GB. 

27 minutes ago, Zaphod Beeblebrox said:

 

As a rule of thumb, every 11 minute 25 seconds of stereo at 16FS and 32 bits takes up about 4GB of space (which is the maximum size for 32 bit wav files) 

 

So what is done on tracks that are longer than 12 min at 16fs (let alone 32fs)?

Zaphod Beeblebrox, my hat is off to you and also to the folks who helped bring this PGGB software to fruition! And as a bonus for me, I love all things Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (my favorite Tshirt below).

My question is: can I run your PGGB SW on an underpowered machine if I don't care how long it takes to complete the conversions?  I don't (yet) have a powerful enough computer to run your SW. I have a MacBook Pro M1 loaded version (16GB RAM, 2TB SSD, with external SSDs many TBs), but even with virtual machine, that's way under the specs to do the conversions according to your website. So can your SW run over a period of say a month or more even to convert a library (~2000 titles) or will it just not run if I don't have the full spec machine?

I also have a SonicTransporter i9 with opticalRendus running Roon (will look to move to something like a Taiko server soon) that drives my Chord DAVE DAC (with Sean Jacobs DC4 LPS - thanks Nenon!) so I think I'll benefit a lot from the PGGB SW. I have an MScaler that I'd still need to use for streaming content unless I shift over to HQPlayer in the future. 

Thanks for your thoughts!

26 minutes ago, ted_b said:

So what is done on tracks that are longer than 12 min at 16fs (let alone 32fs)?

The track gets split at about 3.9GB, but the metadata is preserved and tracks are numbered such that during playback, the order is retained and playback is gapless (tested on HQP and Roon). I had considered 64bit wav format, but Roon had trouble playing it.

19 minutes ago, happybob said:

Zaphod Beeblebrox, my hat is off to you and also to the folks who helped bring this PGGB software to fruition! And as a bonus for me, I love all things Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (my favorite Tshirt below).

 

My question is: can I run your PGGB SW on an underpowered machine if I don't care how long it takes to complete the conversions?  I don't (yet) have a powerful enough computer to run your SW. I have a MacBook Pro M1 loaded version (16GB RAM, 2TB SSD, with external SSDs many TBs), but even with virtual machine, that's way under the specs to do the conversions according to your website. So can your SW run over a period of say a month or more even to convert a library (~2000 titles) or will it just not run if I don't have the full spec machine?

 

I also have a SonicTransporter i9 with opticalRendus running Roon (will look to move to something like a Taiko server soon) that drives my Chord DAVE DAC (with Sean Jacobs DC4 LPS - thanks Nenon!) so I think I'll benefit a lot from the PGGB SW. I have an MScaler that I'd still need to use for streaming content unless I shift over to HQPlayer in the future. 

 

Thanks for your thoughts!

Thank you, I need to get me one of those t-shirts.

I too have a M1 Mac Book Air with similar  specs,  and only recently did Parallels announce support for running  Windows Arm x64, I plan to try and run PGGB on it at some point. It is not yet clear if there is support for x64 applications.

If you are going to try CDs and not DXD or DSD rates, you may be able ok with 16GB RAM, just limit to 512M Taps (which would be still plenty for 90% of Redbook).  If you provide plenty of virtual memory (128G), it will churn through. You will get a pretty good idea if  you just download the trial version.

3 minutes ago, Zaphod Beeblebrox said:

I too have a M1 Mac Book Air with similar  specs,  and only recently did Parallels announce support for running  Windows Arm x64, I plan to try and run PGGB on it at some point. It is not yet clear if there is support for x64 applications.

 

If you are going to try CDs and not DXD or DSD rates, you may be able ok with 16GB RAM, just limit to 512M Taps (which would be still plenty for 90% of Redbook).  If you provide plenty of virtual memory (128G), it will churn through. You will get a pretty good idea if  you just download the trial version.

That's a great idea - to just use less taps and to have large virtual memory (in an SSD). Most of what I convert would be from CD rips. Now if I am doing this slow conversion on a Mac virtual machine (I have VMWare Fusion), then could I pause the large conversion project and then start it up again without having to completely start over? 

Again, if I do move to a separate server that does run Windows (like a Taiko from what I understand) then I could perhaps just run the conversion directly on that server - unless there's something I don't understand about the process...

Lastly, since I'm using a DAVE DAC, I assume I'd want to convert everything to 16fs or maybe even all 768K (vs 705K)?

One other factor for me, I also have another audio system with a Devialet 120 (native 192K internally) and Roon can automatically downconvert (the previously DXD upsampled versions from PGGB) to 192K (shame to throw away the upsampling but the Devialet has to accept the data). I could of course do 2 separate versions of upconverting but then that gets to be a logistics issue to manage, store and source the correct version... So I'm wondering: would a full DXD upconversion via PGGB then downconverted by Roon automatically (based on Roon endpoint to 192K) sound much different than a separate PGGB upconversion to 192K (and no downconversion by Roon)??  Of course for DAVE, I'd want the full DXD version... 

26 minutes ago, happybob said:

That's a great idea - to just use less taps and to have large virtual memory (in an SSD). Most of what I convert would be from CD rips. Now if I am doing this slow conversion on a Mac virtual machine (I have VMWare Fusion), then could I pause the large conversion project and then start it up again without having to completely start over? 

PGGB is designed to batch process, and the best way to do that is batch process a dozen album (or more depending on how fast they go) each night and they will be ready for listening the next day. You need not point at your whole library. That said, PGGB is 'idempotent', you can close PGGB and it will start from where it left if you choose the 'skip' option. You may also pause it.

Edit: My preferred way is to move a bunch of my albums in my library to a 'work' folder folder and point PGGB to the folder. Once they are done, I move a fresh set of albums in to the work folder for remastering. You can also point PGGB to multiple different folders.

26 minutes ago, happybob said:

Again, if I do move to a separate server that does run Windows (like a Taiko from what I understand) then I could perhaps just run the conversion directly on that server - unless there's something I don't understand about the process...

Yes you can: PGGB - FAQ (remastero.com), you will need to transfer the license to the new server when that happens.

26 minutes ago, happybob said:

Lastly, since I'm using a DAVE DAC, I assume I'd want to convert everything to 16fs or maybe even all 768K (vs 705K)?

PGGB remasters to the same sample rate family. So if you set it at 16FS (which is ideal for DAVE), any tracks that are 44.1kHz or a multiple of 44.1kHz such as 88.2kHz will be remastered to 16 x 44.1kHz =  705.6kHz and any track that is a multiple of 48kHz (96kHz, 192kHz etc) will be remastered to 48kHz x 16 =768kHz. You will also have to set the bit depth at 32 bits.

26 minutes ago, happybob said:

One other factor for me, I also have another audio system with a Devialet 120 (native 192K internally) and Roon can automatically downconvert (the previously DXD upsampled versions from PGGB) to 192K (shame to throw away the upsampling but the Devialet has to accept the data). I could of course do 2 separate versions of upconverting but then that gets to be a logistics issue to manage, store and source the correct version... So I'm wondering: would a full DXD upconversion via PGGB then downconverted by Roon automatically (based on Roon endpoint to 192K) sound much different than a separate PGGB upconversion to 192K (and no downconversion by Roon)??  Of course for DAVE, I'd want the full DXD version... 

Ideally if you have two versions both remastered by PGGB, that will be great but I understand that is a logistic issue. It is hard for me to predict and it is best to try both native and down sampled version to see what is better.

5 minutes ago, Zaphod Beeblebrox said:

PGGB is designed to batch process, and the best way to do that is batch process a dozen album (or more depending on how fast they go) each night and they will be ready for listening the next day. You need not point at your whole library. That said, PGGB is 'idempotent', you can close PGGB and it will start from where it left if you choose the 'skip' option. You may also pause it.

 

Edit: My preferred way is to move a bunch of my albums in my library to a 'work' folder folder and point PGGB to the folder. Once they are done, I move a fresh set of albums in to the work folder for remastering. You can also point PGGB to multiple different folders.

Thanks for clarifying! I'm more of a big batch kind of guy and am thinking I may just buy a separate PC (have a need for that anyway) and run it continuously to convert my entire library - and I don't really care how long it takes unless it was many months or more... 

So back to my earlier question: could I have just a modest PC (but with tons of SSD storage) and let it run (albeit slowly) for a long time or is there a true limit below which things just don't work anymore - regardless of speed??

And related, how long does a given 44K track take to convert on a very high performance machine (like a Taiko Extreme)?

Thanks!

Does PGGB work on multichannel PCM as well?