Antipodes had to jump through a number of hoops to ensure Squeeze would play PCM of up to 16FS (768k) without a plugin. I had been advocating for that as I upscaled over 500 of my albums to that sample rate using PGGB. I was immensely delighted to find that AMS 5.0 would make that possible without the use of the C-3PO plugin. To my surprise, another capability came along with it: the ability to play up to DSD512. Not being a fan of DSD because of how it seemed to smooth out transients, I figured that I wouldn’t personally benefit from this though.
It wasn’t long after learning this about Squeeze on Antipodes that PGGB gained the ability to output DSD. To my surprise, the PGGB-DSD512 retained all of the goodness of PGGB-16FS while also bringing greater naturalness and, in some cases, a reduction of harshness. And Squeeze plays these files flawlessly on a K50!
The following album had been one of the rare cases where I missed being able to play my vinyl copy. The CD, played natively paled in comparison. PGGB-16FS helped to bring richer colors and the liveliness of my recollection of the vinyl, but also had a tendency to play a little hot. While PGGB-16FS removed some of that tendency, I was still choosing to back off on the volume a tad bit, which was never the case with the vinyl. (This is a fun one to play loud. First time I heard it was at an audio show in a room hosted by Manley and Coincident. It sounded so lifelike that a bunch of us could help but applaud at the end of a track). Earlier I cranked up the PGGB-DSD512 version to around 82 dB on average and there wasn’t the slightest hint of harshness. It was wonderful!
Huge thanks to Antipodes for giving me a capability that I previously never imagined I would ever need - and timing its release perfectly.
