remastero -> PGGB -> FAQ

Index

• Myths and Half Truths
  • Don't test outside of spec!
  • Three wrong reasons
    1. Rings like a bell (maybe for a bat)
    2. Blurs Transients (show us your math)
    3. Oversampling filters affect outcome only above audible band (why so naive?)
  • Let us show you how oversampling filters affect outcome in the audible band too!
  • Did we pretend Gibbs phenomenon did not exist and defy physics?
• It looks like PGGB can process really fast, can it do this on streamed music?
• Are linear phase filters better for upsampling?
• Why use noise shaping? Is it same as dither?
• What is a 'HF Noise filter'?
• Does PGGB 256 use Apodizing filters?
• Will my DAC benefit from PGGB? Does it need to be PCM DAC?
• Does PGGB support DSD upsampling?
• What is 1fS, 2fS, ..., 32fS etc?
• How big are PGGB remastered tracks?
• Does PGGB support lossless compression?
• What sort of PC will I need for running PGGB?
• Can I use the Taiko Audio Extreme to run PGGB application?
• If I had both PCM and DSD versions of an Album, which do I choose to remaster?
• Does PGGB support multi-channel music?
• Do you use Matlab? No we don't

Myths and Half Truths about Upsampling

Don't test outside of spec!

Many of these myths arise because of either lack of full understanding of sampling theory or misinterpreting it. First, it is important to understand a reconstruction or upsampling algorithm cannot be analyzed by just passing an impulse (pop transient) or a step response. Impulse and step signals have their use, i.e., to understand the frequency and time domain response of a system, but they are not the best way to test a reconstruction/upsampling algorithm. In fact, they are the worst signals you could use to do such a test. It is like testing an equipment outside it's operating range and expecting good results! Sampling theory only guarantees perfect reconstruction when the signal is perfectly band-limited. We understand this is the ideal case and no signal is perfect, so what would be a better test signal? Choose your pick:

• Pure impulse or step: Impulse or step signals are not band limited and have infinite bandwidth and are the polar opposite of what is guaranteed to work.
• impulse or step that is band-limited: Impulse or step that are band-limited, need not be perfect, they should have passed through a low pass filter similar to what ADC would do. Granted, they will still have some aliasing and ringing, but at least it is a test signal that is closer to what a music signal is and also does not totally disregard the conditions for prefect reconstruction. Even if the low pass filter is not a great one, it is still infinitely better test signal.

One example of incorrect testing of resampling algorithms is creating Dirac pulses (pop transients) at high rate (say 352.8k), convert those to 44.1k using the algorithm under test, and finally convert those back to the original rate (352.8k). Dirac pulses do not exist in recorded music signals. Mic pop or clip may be, but they have to pass through the ADC first, which will band limit such pops or transients. Digital reconstruction is about reconstructing the original signal from sampled analog signals that are band-limited, a dirac pulse has no place in such a test as it is of a purely digital origin. The right test would have been to use a filter similar to the ones typically used in an ADC to convert the Dirac pulses from the high rate to 44.1kHz. Then use that signal as an input for testing the reconstruction algorithms.

Bottom line: If an upsampling algorithm is developed based on using non-band-limited signals to test its accuracy (which violates the very basic requirement for reconstruction), it would be calibrated quite differently. It is the equivalent of using English units on a system designed with metric units in mind.

Three wrong reasons

Here are some common misconceptions associated with resampling the PGGB way (i.e., Non-apodizing, using all the information, narrow transition band with high attenuation).

1. Rings like a bell (maybe for a bat)

   It is often claimed that the steep and narrow low pass behavior of PGGB in the frequency domain will result in audible ringing in the time domain. This is simply not true, there will be no ringing if the signal is band-limited (i.e. if it only contains frequencies that are less than half the sample rate). No signal is perfect, if the music was recorded and already went through an ADC, then it is already band-limited as it cannot contain any frequencies above half the sample rate. For CDs, the only content in music that can trigger ringing is one exactly at 22.05kHz where there is very little present because the ADC already attenuated it. The exception is clipped music during post processing, but here too, any ringing one can observe will be exactly at 22.05kHz for CD rates, way beyond normal human hearing (more on audibility).
       The whole idea of ringing is way exaggerated (because PGGB's corner frequency is exactly at half the sampling rate). Any ringing one may see will be at 22.05kHz because of the residual energy at the corner frequency left by the ADC, this will not be any more (in peak level) than what you may find with relatively short filters. Any ringing that is already present because of the ADCs filter is left untouched by PGGB and this too is beyond the audible range.
       It is easy to demonstrate this with a simple example. We created a 44.1kHz impulse train with multiple, closely spaced Dirac ('pop') transients like the one below. Then to make this an acceptable test signal, we passed it through an IIR filter with a corner frequency at 21kHz to make it band-limited and create a 44.1kHz test file. This is not a perfect band-limited signal, but it is a much better test signal. You can see the band-limited impulse signal below. You will see it is not perfect, but it still retains the two transients, and as expected it shows the time domain response of the ADC filter. It is not an infinite band-width signal anymore. We then used PGGB to upsample it 16x using default settings and 128bit precision and created a 705.6kHz upsampled file. We then used a short linear phase Gaussian apodising filter to upsample to the same 705.6kHz. The Gaussian filter we used is a short Gaussian polyphase sinc filter, the Gaussian filter's time domain response is provided below. Below we show the results (you can click on the image to make it bigger). Blue (PGGB), Red (Short Gauss) and Yellow is the original. We only zoomed in on one set of transients, but the same is true with all of the transients. You will notice that:
   • You can make out the two transients clearly in all three signals
   • There is some pre-ringing in the PGGB upsampled signal, this is expected because the band-limiting filter is not perfect, but you can see very little. Which again is beyond the audible range to cause any change in perception of the transient.
   • Ironically, there is pre-ringing even in the short Gauss upsampled signal and this is more than what you see with PGGB. To be fair, you will not hear this either.
       We zoom in on the pre-ringing portion of the first transient to show the time domain response of the three signals. Here you can clearly see the pre-ringing in the short gauss signal is more than the PGGB signal
   
      Now let us repeat the above test with a real track. For this test we chose a 44.1kHz track that has a lot of clean transients and also contains clipping. The track is '08 Bright Mississippi' from the album The Roy Haynes Trio Featuring Danilo Pérez And John Patitucci and was downloaded from Qobuz. We upsampled this track to 705.6kHz using PGGB and short Gaussian polyphase sinc filter, the same as the one we used above. We set the gain to -1.5dB to prevent limiting or clipping and then scaled it back by +1.5dB so we can compare the signals. We also used Gaussian dither for both PGGB and the short Gauss filter to make the comparison fair. The time displayed on the x axis is in seconds and will match the time in the original track. We zoom in on a section where there was a rim hit and the track clipped. Below we show the results (you can click on the image to make it bigger). Blue (Original), Red (Short Gauss) and Yellow is the PGGB.You can see that:
   • PGGB does a near perfect job of reconstruction, passing through each of the original samples even when they clipped.
   • The short Gaussian filter both undershoots and overshoots compared to PGGB, this very similar to what we demonstrated previously regarding pre-ringing.
   • It is very easy to see that PGGB does better even when the signal clipped, because the signal has been band-limited already.
   
      The only time significant ringing can be shown is when it is either an artificial signal (such as an impulse, step) with no band-limiting or if post processing causes clipping. Even if clipping is present this ringing is at half the sample rate which for CD is 22.05kHz, which is beyond the human hearing range, it does not affect signals in the audible range, and is barely noticeable!
       So, if someone listens to a whole lot of artificial signals instead of music, or a lot of clipped music, and they have an extended hearing range beyond 20kHz, we can understand their concern. But for the rest of us, it is a non-issue.




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2. Blurs transients (show us your math)

   It is claimed that long linear filters will cause transient blurring because they are using information both from the future and the past to reconstruct transients and hence both future and past samples could potentially affect a transient that is being reconstructed presently. First, PGGB does not use such filters, so this argument is moot. But even if it did, the argument is pure conjecture without a mathematical basis. If this were true then the whole sampling theorem would fall apart because it is built on the premise of being able to use infinitely long sinc based linear filters to perfectly reconstruct band-limited sampled signals. Anyone claiming so should support their argument with a mathematical proof.
      It is fairly simple to demonstrate this with real music tracks, but we chose the more dramatic example of band-limited impulses we used previously. We then used PGGB to upsample band-limited, closely spaced Dirac pulses (pop transients) at 44.1kHz to 705.6kHz using default settings and 128bit precision. We also used a short minimum phase filter which is recommended by some as an ideal filter for music containing strong transients such as pop and rock. minimum phase version of short polyphase sinc filter, the filter's time domain response is provided below. Below we show the results (you can click on the image to make it bigger). Blue (PGGB), Red (short mp) and Yellow is the original. We only zoomed in on one set of transients, but the same is true with all of the transients. You will notice that:
   • You can make out the two transients clearly in the original signal and the one upsampled by PGGB
   • The short mp filter which is recommended for music with transients ironically is the one that blurs the transients!
   • The only saving grace for short mp filter is that there is no pre-ringing (which is beyond the audible range anyway, but it comes at the huge cost of post ringing and blurred transients!
      Now let us repeat the above test with a real track. For this test we chose a 44.1kHz track that has a lot of clean transients, the same one as before. The track is '08 Bright Mississippi' from the album The Roy Haynes Trio Featuring Danilo Pérez And John Patitucci and was downloaded from Qobuz. We upsampled this track to 705.6kHz using PGGB and minimum phase version of short polyphase sinc filter, the same as the one we used above. We also used Gaussian dither for both PGGB and the short Gauss filter to make the comparison fair. The time displayed on the x axis is in seconds and will match the time in the original track. We zoom in on a section where there was a clean transient when two drum sticks were hit together. The results are shown below (you can click on the image to make it bigger). Blue (Original), Red (Short mp) and Yellow is the PGGB. You can see that:
   • PGGB does a perfect job of reconstruction of the transient, passing through each of the original samples.
   • The short mp filter misses the start of that transient, overshoots and distorts.
   • It is very easy to see that PGGB does a perfect job of reconstructing transients, there is no blurring.
   

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3. Oversampling filters affect outcome only above audible band (why so naive?)

   It is sometimes argued that ringing that is outside of human audible range, can have audible effects on the in-band music. The reasoning given is that, if this were not true, all oversampling filters and all DAC's internal upsampling should sound the same, because they only affect the out-of-band signal. This is a rather naive argument that focuses only on the frequency domain! it assumes these filters do not affect the time domain transients, transient reconstruction and reconstruction of small signals. All these filters sound different not because we are super human and suddenly hear above 20kHz. While evaluating DACs or digital oversampling filters, it is important to focus on time domain cues such as depth, layering, resolution and transient quality, not tonality. Because every change we make to the reconstruction algorithms affect how the transients are reconstructed in the time domain and in turn, affects our perception of transients and the construction of the virtual soundscape.
       This too is very easy to illustrate with the very same example that we used previously. We compare the original band-limited signal (yellow) with the PGGB upsampled signal (Blue) and the short mp upsampled signal (Red).
   • You can clearly see how the transients are reconstructed differently by PGGB and short mp filter
   • The short mp filter which is recommended for music with transients blurs the transients, while PGGB preserves them just fine.
   • PGGB will sound different from short mp filter not because of any pre-ringing that is beyond the audible range, but because it is more faithful to the original transients. However short mp that blurs transients will sound flat lacking depth (which may be fine for some music like Rock). The blurring of transients that can lump the energy in to 'clumps' could give the perception of stronger transients, and it is a smoother and more forgiving sound. For that reason it could still be good for music such as rock and pop.
      Now let us repeat the above test with a real track using the same one as before. The track is '08 Bright Mississippi' from the album The Roy Haynes Trio Featuring Danilo Pérez And John Patitucci downloaded from Qobuz. We upsampled this track to 705.6kHz using PGGB and minimum phase version of short polyphase sinc filter, the same as the one we used above. We also used Gaussian dither for both PGGB and the short minimum phase filter to make the comparison fair. The time displayed on the x axis is in seconds and will match the time in the original track. We zoom in on a section where there was a clean transient when two drum sticks were hit together. The results are shown below (you can click on the image to make it bigger). Blue (Original), Red (Short mp) and Yellow is the PGGB. You can see that:
   • PGGB does a perfect job of reconstruction of the transient, passing through each of the original samples.
   • The short minimum phase filter misses the mark many times, overshoots and also distorts.
   • PGGB clearly demonstrates better reconstruction accuracy here. The obvious change in shape of the reconstructed waveforms will have an audible effect.
      As another example, we use the same track again, but we chose a relatively quiet part of the track and we upsampled this track to 705.6kHz using PGGB and short Gaussian polyphase sinc filter. We also used Gaussian dither for both PGGB and the short Gauss filter to make the comparison fair. The time displayed on the x axis is in seconds and will match the time in the original track. Below we show the results (you can click on the image to make it bigger). Blue (Original), Red (Short Gauss) and Yellow is the PGGB.You can see that:
   • The Magic of Whittaker-Shannon interpolation formula guarantees near perfect interpolation, passing through each of the original samples even for this relatively low level signal.
   • The short Gauss filter reconstructs differently in comparison which is easily observable in time domain, but the differences are small.
   • It is very easy to see that PGGB reconstructs low level signals differently, and why they could be audibly different be it transients or low level detail.
   

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Let us show you how oversampling filters affect outcome in the audible band too!

1. The first challenge is it is very hard to align the two upsampled signals perfectly at a sample level to do the comparison. Depending on the upsampling algorithm used, they could introduce a sub-sample shift that would make the differences look much larger than they truly are. The solution is not to try and align the signals by correcting for the sub-sample shift. This is because, any processing can alter the signals we are trying to compare and invalidate the comparison. Since PGGB does not introduce a sub-sample shift, the only way to do this comparison is to choose a filter that does not introduce a sub-sample shift, so we chose the sinc based halfband filter.
2. The second challenge is that though we can relatively easily plot the differences in time domain, it is harder to show the differences in the frequency spectrum using FFTs. This is because, subtle yet audible differences in the audible range get averaged out.

• You will see both PGGB and the half filter retain the original samples.
• You see some differences between PGGB and the halfband filter and the differences are subtle.
• This would need further analysis to see how they differ in the frequency content.

• A clear peak at 22.05kHz, that is beyond the audible range, the peak is expected and is a result of any aliasing present at 22.05kHz.
• A difference in the lower frequencies below 3-4kHz that is visible above the noise floor.

Did we pretend Gibbs phenomenon did not exist and defy physics?

It looks like PGGB can process really fast in 64 bit precision, can it do this on streamed music?

There is a real-time version available for Foobar2000 as a plugin. This version is limited to 64bit precision.

PGGB is available in a SDK form for OEM, for that exact purpose. SDKs are available for Windows, Mac and Arch Linux. The SDK is in the form of C++ header file and static libraries.

Developing a player from scratch that will both play local files and streaming audio is a huge undertaking, and also doing it the right way (managing buffers, load balancing and keeping any processing noise to an absolute minimum etc.) is even harder.

One option We considered is for PGGB to sit in between an existing player and an endpoint or like a plugin. The problem with this approach is the latency will be unacceptable as PGGB in the middle will only have access to the stream at the rate at which the host application sends the data. For this reason, the only way I would implement PGGB in real time is if I had direct access to the full track or multiple tracks (this is possible even for streamed data as most players will cache the tracks in advance).

The PGGB in SDK form uses a different framework for performance and is light weight and our tests indicate after just a few seconds of startup delay, gap-less playback is possible.

Are linear phase filters better for upsampling?

Upsampling requires a low pass filter ( to interpolate intermediate samples). The purpose of the filter is to provide good estimates of the intermediate samples so that the upsampled signal is smooth and as close to what the original music signal would have been.

There are several ways to implement the low pass filter and each method has its pros and cons. Linear phase filters maintain the phase relationship of the original signal and tend to preserve the timing of the original signal, resulting in improved imaging precision. Minimum phase filters when compared to linear-phase filters of the same length, have better frequency domain performance that results in better tonal accuracy and a denser presentation,

For the above reason, for short lengths, minimum phase have a significant advantage over linear phase filters. With longer filter lengths, the choice becomes more subjective and comes down to preference and synergy with the playback chain.

With, the ultra-long windowed Sinc based linear filters such as the one PGGB-AP uses, it is possible to get very close to the original, as if the music was recorded at a higher sample rate. As a result, the ultra-long filters pull ahead of other implementations in terms of realism and accuracy.

The ultra-long windowed Sinc based linear filters come with a significant cost in terms of latency and computational requirements, which make them hard to use for real-time playback. However, for offline upsampling and remastering, they are an excellent choice.

PGGB use a proprietary method different from the above methods. PGGB is non apodizing and it does not use windowed sinc functions, or long filters either. The best way to look at the current approach used by PGGB is that it considers the track as a whole. If no HF filters are enabled (which is the default for CD and 2fS rates), PGGB keeps all of the original samples intact, then creates intermediate samples all at once by time shifting all of the original samples. Our method approaches the theoretical limit of reconstruction accuracy possible for a track of given length and sample rate. This is more accurate than using pure Whittaker-Shannon coefficients with windowing. As the sample rate increases, and the track length increases, our method approaches the mathematical equivalence of using pure sinc based interpolation.

Why use noise shaping? Is it same as dither?

Both dither and noise shaping can be used to reduce the audible effects of quantization (i.e., digital noise). Quantization noise is introduced when the remastered track that resides in memory in 64-bit floating-point precision format, but needs to be output at 32-bit integer precision or lower. However they work in very different ways. Dither is the process of adding an intentional small random noise to randomize quantization noise. This serves to decorrelate the music signal and quantization error, resulting in a more natural sound. Dither does not reduce the quantization noise, it just helps to mask it.

Noise shaping does not simply mask the quantization noise, but it instead pushes the noise out of the audible range. Well implemented noise shapers can almost completely eliminate quantization noise from the audible range. This helps preserve and reproduce even the smallest of changes accurately, resulting in a clean and almost analog like quality. While noise shaping provides better results, unlike dithering, noise shaping can only be used if the output sample rate is 8fS (DXD) or higher.

PGGB uses specially designed higher order noise shapers that are optimized for output sample rates and bit depths and are designed to almost completely remove quantization noise from the audible range.

What is a 'HF Noise filter'?

HF noise filter refers to 'High frequency' noise filter. Most Hi-res recordings (4fS or higher) contain a significant amount of residual noise (beyond 30kHz) as a result of noise shapers used during analog to digital conversion process. There is no music information contained in this noise. So the HF noise can be safely removed, and has a positive effect on sound quality.

PGGB offer a choice of three HF noise filters. However the HF noise filters are not applied separately, instead they are integrated into the design of resampling process. Just like adding more elements to a camera lense can reduce transparency, using additional filters can reduce transparency. So PGGB uses a single optimized process that does both reconstruction and HF noise filtering for the most transparent sound.

Does PGGB use Apodizing filters?

PGGB does not use apodizing filters.

Apodization in Greek means cutting off the foot. It has different technical meanings depending on the application. In Signal processing, it just means using a windowing function to reduce ringing artifacts due to the abrupt truncation at the beginning and end of a sample window. In digital-audio, the term has been used and also misused. In digital-audio, more often than not 'apodizing' is used to mean it is a non-brick-wall filter which has reduced or no 'pre-ringing'. It is implemented as a slow-roll off filter.

Will my DAC benefit from PGGB?

• High rate PCM and DSD: DACs that support PCM rates of 705.6/768kHz or higher and DACs that support DSD rates DSD256 or higher will benefit most from PGGB remastered tracks.
• PCM NOS: DACs that do little to no processing (such as R2R DACs that can be run in NOS mode) and DACs whose oversampling filter can be turned off will benefit significantly from PGGB PCM remastered tracks.
• Pure DSD: DSD DACs that have a pure DSD mode that can be enabled will benefit significantly from PGGB PCM remastered tracks.
• On DACs that support up to DXD rates and DSD128, remastering CD quality tracks using PGGB to DXD rate (352.8kHz) and DSD128 is likely to be beneficial too.
• If you have a DAC that supports PCM only, then you can use PGGB to remaster DSD to the highest rate supported by your DAC with excellent results.
• If you have a DAC that supports only 96kHz or 192kHz, you can use PGGB to remaster DSD or DXD files to rates that are supported by your DAC.

Does PGGB support DSD upsampling?

Yes, PGGB currently supports upsampling to DSD or PCM rates.

What is 1fS, 2fS, ..., 32fS etc?

One useful concept to learn is the terminology of FS. This refers to 'Fundamental Sample rate'. 1fS refers to 44.1 or 48 kHz. Thus:

How big are PGGB remastered tracks?

As a rule of thumb, every 11 minute 25 seconds of a stereo track at 16fS and 32 bits or DSD512 takes up about 4GB of space. So, on an average typical CDs that are 40 - 45 minutes long will take about 16GB of space at 16fS 32 bits/DSD512 file. At 8fS 32 bits that is 8GB and at 8fS 24 bits it will be 6GB.

Remastered .wav tracks that are bigger than 4GB will be split, but the metadata is preserved and track numbering is changed so that they will play sequentially and in a gap-less fashion.

Does PGGB support lossless compression?

PGGB supports FLAC for bit depths less than or equal to 24 bits and sample rates less than 8fS.

PGGB also supports WavPack compression format for higher than 8fS rates or bit depth higher than 24 bits. WavPack compression is also lossless like FLAC.

PGGB will transfer all tags and artwork to both FLAC and WavPack output files.

What sort of PC will I need for running PGGB?

PGGB is a resource intensive application. It will benefit from as many CPU cores, as much physical RAM, and fast NVMe drives you can give it. That said, the application has been tuned extensively to scale to the available resources, so while a machine with lesser RAM or fewer cores may take longer to process a file, it will not fail, nor will the processing time grow exponentially.
Recommended system specification:

• At least 4 cores, 8 cores preferred
• 16GB RAM if processing Cds with tracks less than 12 minutes for PCM. For more flexibility, at least 32 GB is recommended, and 64GB or 128GB will reward you even more if your library and DAC call for it and if you wish to upsample to DSD. For detailed memory requirements, see here
• A fast NVMe SSD for input and output files, and paging file
• Recommend at least 128GB paging file for PCM and 512GB for DSD (see guide for details PC, Mac)

• Ideal build (for PCM and DSD)
• Custom Quiet PC (for PCM and some DSD)
• Taiko Audio Extreme (for PCM)
• Quiet PC Serenity 8 Office (quietpc.com, for PCM and some DSD): Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 Anthracite Rev.B Ultimate Low Noise PC ATX Case. ASUS PRIME Z370-A II LGA1151 ATX Motherboard. Intel 9th Gen Core i7 9700K 3.6GHz 8C/8T 95W 12MB Coffee Lake Refresh CPU. Corsair DDR4 Vengeance LPX 64GB (4x16GB) Memory Kit. Scythe Ninja 5 Dual Fan High Performance Quiet CPU Cooler. Gelid GC-3 3.5g Extreme Performance Thermal Compound. Palit GeForce RTX 2070 8GB DUAL Turing Graphics Card. FSP Hyper M 700W Modular Quiet Power Supply. Quiet PC IEC C13 UK Mains Power Cord, 1.8m (Type G). 2 x Samsung 970 EVO 2TB Phoenix M.2 NVMe SSD (3500/2500)
• 2010 Mac Pro running Parallels (PCM): It was able to run PGGB with 6 cores and 32 GB of RAM but currently running 12 cores and 128 GB. Parallels was given at least 4 cores and at least 28 GB.
• For PCM and some DSD: Streacom FC10 Alpha fanless chassis, Asus Prime Z490-A mainboard, Intel i7-10700 LGA1200 2.9 GHz CPU, CORSAIR Vengeance 128GB (4 x 32GB) DDR4 SDRAM 2666, OPTANE H10 256GB SSD M.2 for Windows 10 Pro OS, SAMSUNG 970 EVO Plus SSD 2TB M.2 NVMe with V-NAND Technology, HDPLEX 400W HiFi DC-ATX power supply.
• For PCM: iMac Pro (2017) — 3.2 GHz 8-Core, 32 GB, 1TB, Apple Bootcamp, Windows 10
• For PCM: iMac, 48GB RAM, 3.3 GHz four core i5. Running Windows 10 Pro under Bootcamp with a shared drive set up

• The sample rate of the source track: The higher the rate, the more virtual memory is needed
• The length of the track: The longer the track, the more virtual memory is needed

Can you suggest a sample PC build for PGGB that is also quiet?

Sure we can:

• Be quiet! Pure Base 500, No PSU, ATX, White, Mid Tower Case . Caveat - It’s a nice quiet case, but nothing great to look at.
• Prime B460-Plus, Intel® B460 Chipset, LGA 1200, HDMI, ATX Motherboard
• Core™ i7-10700 8-Core 2.9 - 4.8GHz Turbo, LGA 1200, 65W TDP, Retail Processor
• 128GB Kit (4 x 32GB) HyperX FURY DDR4 2666MHz, CL16, Black, DIMM Memory. Caveat - can easily start with 64GB
• 750 GA, 80 PLUS Gold 750W, ECO Mode, Fully Modular, ATX Power Supply
• Be quiet! Dark Rock 4, 160mm Height, 200W TDP, Copper/Aluminum CPU Cooler
• 2TB 970 EVO Plus 2280, 3500 / 3300 MB/s, V-NAND 3-bit MLC, NVMe, M.2 SSD

Can I use the Taiko Audio Extreme to run PGGB application?

As extreme as the Taiko Extreme is, it is not quite extreme enough out of the box to run PGGB. The Extreme has a stripped down installation and memory configuration that is optimized for SQ during playback. PGGB consumes all available system resources (and then some). The good news is that you can install PGGB on the Taiko Extreme and run it when you are not listening to music and not impact SQ.

To get PGGB to run on the Extreme, you must configure a paging file when upsampling. By default, the Extreme has the paging file disabled to maximize sound quality. To run PGGB, you will be turning on a paging file, running PGGB, then disabling the paging file and rebooting, then listening to music on your Extreme as you normally do (for convenience, you can listen to music with the paging file on, but there may be some SQ impact).

To turn on the paging file on your Extreme, from the Start menu, follow the following path: Start -> Windows System -> Control Panel -> System -> Advanced System Settings -> Advanced -> Performance Settings -> Advanced -> Virtual Memory Change

Select the drive on which you want to put the paging file (C: drive usually), and select “custom size.” Set to 135000 for both min and max. Click OK and you’re paging file is ready to go. When you turn on or increase the size of the paging file, you do not need to reboot. If you shrink it or disable it, you will need to reboot for the change to take effect. Note that the default configuration of the Extreme has the paging file disabled, because it could impact SQ. For best sound quality, turn on your paging file, run PGGB, then turn it off and reboot before listening to music.

If you’re doing a lot of PGGB work, give a listen to playback with and without the paging file to decide if the inconvenience of rebooting your system prior to music playback is worthwhile for you. At 48GB, the Taiko Extreme is at the minimum amount of memory that you need to run PGGB. Typically it does OK, but upsampling DXD files or processing DSD files pushing the system to its limits. If you’re processing overnight, you won’t notice, but enjoy a cup a coffee if you’re sitting there waiting for these more intensive processing jobs to run.

If I had both PCM and DSD versions of an Album, which do I choose to remaster?

Regarding DSD… there are so many factors that come into play: original recording format, original editing and mixing format, your DAC, etc., etc. Ultimately, it all boils down to a couple of key considerations:

• Is the DSD album the best-sounding version in your library? If so, just upsample with PGGB - it will uplift SQ.
• If you also own PCM versions of the album, or are aware of other PCM versions, by all means explore upsampling your best-sounding PCM version with PGGB, and then choose the best-sounding upsampled versions.

Mahler 2nd, Gilbert Kaplan, Vienna Philharmonic, DG hybrid SACD. I don’t know the details of the recording, editing, and mastering format. Played natively to my DAVE in DSD+ mode, the DSD layer sounds best, with the CD layer played in PCM+ mode second best. I upsampled both versions to 32/705.6 with PGGB, played back natively on DAVE in PCM+ mode (of course), and found the following to hold:

a) the upsampled DSD version still sounds better than the upsample CD version
b) the gap between the 2 versions shrunk. In other words, PGGB did more good to the PCM version, but the improvement to the DSD version was still extraordinary.

Das Lied von der Erde, MTT, SF Symphony, recorded in DSD64, but unclear what format it was edited and mixed in. I suspect it was PCM, but not sure. I own 3 versions: DSD and CD from the hybrid SACD, and 24/96 hi-res version purchased from Qobuz. Played natively on my DAVE, I find the 24/96 (2fS) version to sound best, with the DSD version 2nd best. After upsampling with PGGB:

a) The upsampled 24/96 version reigns supreme.
b) The gap between the upsampled 24/96 and upsampled DSD is greater than the native gap. This again suggests PGGB’s ability to impart magic is most with PCM, but DSD is also uplifted.

Does PGGB support multi-channel music?

PGGB currently does not support multi-channel PCM or DSD, but it is relatively easy to extend it to support multi-channel. If there is modest demand for it, or a requirement for a commercial application,we are open to offering multi-channel support. Just drop us an email.

Do you use Matlab?

PGGB no longer uses Matlab as of version v7. PGGB uses QT for cross platform GUI. The core of PGGB processing for 64 bit, 128 bit, and 256 bit is written fully in C/C++ and that is why there is already a real-time option that is free and is available as a Foobar2000 plugin that runs at 64bit precision and does not use Matlab runtime. The PGGB C++ core is cross platform compatible and works on Windows, Mac and Linux.

We do not intentionally design software that will require a lot of resources (RAM and time), in fact performance optimization is one of our areas of research. The reason PGGB takes so much resources is because 256bit computations of this nature take a lot of time. We are confident in saying that we have the fastest and most memory efficient implementation on the planet (if one considers the equivalence of using a filter that is about the same length as the number of samples in the track, computed at the output rate, with 256 bit precision). There is no free lunch, if one wants the ultimate quality in reconstruction, there are no shortcuts. We can of course design shorter filters that are faster and need less memory, but then it will not be PGGB any more, there are alternate options that do that.

It is very easy to compare speeds by setting 64bit, 128bit and 256bit precision in PGGB and see the difference in speed. Please be warned, if you are running a trial version processing will stop after 2 tracks at 128bit or higher precision. So if you run PGGB in trial mode overnight, do not be surprised if you only see 2 processed tracks in 7 hours! It did not take 7 hours to process, it just stops after three tracks. For example, on a Windows PC with a 8-core, 3.6GHz i9 CPU and 64GB RAM, an average CD (44.1kHz) track converted to 16fS rate will be processed at about 1x - 0.8x speed at 256bit precision. There are both text and csv logs in the output folder that show the actual time taken.