Just sharing a similar recent comment from @Godot …
And another similar topic …
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I agree with you that Roon has closed the gap somewhat, but I suspect an average person wouldn’t have much trouble detecting the difference with my system when playing my most transparent recordings that have been upscaled by PGGB. I suspect it would become more difficult if I were just picking random titles streamed from Qobuz. An audiophile friend was over a month or so ago, and even then he mentioned that he didn’t think the difference was that great. Hopefully Roon keeps moving things in this direction.
Hmmm. Very interesting. I confess until your post I knew very little if anything about PGGB. It looks very cool but appears to be limited to local files, correct? Is this process done online or does one had to ship a physical drive to the remastering company to effectuate this protocol. And what becomes of future hi-res downloads and ripped CD’s not currently in the library? Do they provide a license? It sounds great and appreciate the input/feedback.
And to your point about the “average person” and his her reaction to Roon V Squeeze, I can see your point. I presume both Roon and Squeeze support these “altered” files? Thanks!
PGGB is an offline upscaling application. It ca reconstruct any music file in one’s physical library with the result being either a WAV or DSF file that is playable by Squeeze or Roon (though Roon can’t play 48k DSD files.
I initially processed just over 500 of my favorite albums in WAV format at 16FS and 32 bits. A few months ago PGGB gained the ability to output to DSF. I hear improvements by scaling to DSD512 so I have been reprocessing many of my favorites.
In my humble opinion, it is not presently possible to achieve this level of reconstruction accuracy in real time using consumer-grade computing hardware. Also, not all DACs can benefit. Mine does (Gustard x26pro).
“not presently possible to achieve this level of reconstruction accuracy in real time using consumer-grade computing hardware”
Do you know of any hardware that might be in the pipeline that can do this on-the-fly? Sounds exciting
Yes, I think at least those hard core audiophiles (us) who were concerned with the Roon ownership changes are breathing a sigh of relief, and it is nice that if the Roon management did in fact turn their efforts into the sound quality, it may be a result of me and many others stating sound quality is at the top of the wishlist in that survey they sent out.
Like you suggested I still find squeeze a little more spotlit regarding soundstaging, and providing a more airy sound, which to my ears is a natural clarity on particular instruments, which is fantastic for jazz and and well recorded acoustic music. For rock/pop Roon can be just as good as the congestion is not as apparent, and yes it seems to have more roundness and warmth, and may be a little “punchier” so I could see many preferring Roon with more popular music. Maybe in the future we will have 2 Roon options- Roon popular and Roon lite?
It is a nice time to be an streaming audiophile 
digital improvements keep getting better and better.
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Here is the website for PGGB. I intend to contact them later today to learn more.
https://www.remastero.com/pggb-plus.html#licensing
No, not at the highest quality level when using either a PC or Mac. The upcoming Quartet scaler from Chord should give PGGB a good run for the money - but it will sell for over $10K and will only perform best when pairing it with a Chord DAC. That device will be outfitted with five FPGAs, so it can do a heck of a lot of processing on the fly.
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PGGB sounds very processor-intensive, but a nice compromise for hardware might be a 5- 10 second pause while processing occurs, then play. Don’t have to do it in real-time. Sounds like fun
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Thanks. A friend of mine just told me that our DACS are not a very good fit for PGGB. We both have the same DAC - the Tambaqui - which does its own up sampling internally. He’d heard that directly from the developer.
Yes, this is exactly right.
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There is a free version of PGGB that can process in real time. It processes at lower precision so it’s not sonically equivalent. It’s meant to give a taste. Requires Foobar though so Windows only.
Thanks but not for me as I have a Tambaqui DAC and am a Mac user. Thanks!
Kenny,
Perhaps better for a new thread but I have the trial version of PGGB running and have about 20 reference tracks converted to DSD128. I also had a few of them recently upsampled to DSD128 by dBPowerAmp. Files sizes are exactly the same but the PGGB files (7th order?) sound better in critical listening.
Can you point me to a place I can learn about the differences? I am alchemist when it comes to this stuff but I see it as part of the hobby.
TIA
Craig
The trial version of PGGB I have creates new upsampled files of your music. That’s the PC intensive part. You then play/stream them as normal. They do not add to your servers processing load. That’s one of the benefits of offline conversion.
The downside is DSD128 files are 8 times bigger than 16/44.1 FLAC files so your storage requirements could become huge.
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dBPoweramp does a conversion only, I believe. If so, the file contains only the original data.
From the PGGB website:
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.
So there is actually more information in the files when PGGB is used. This is true as well if one uses HQPlayer. The developers of each have very different opinions on how best to reconstruct the data. The proof is in the pudding.
More here: PGGB - Offline remastering
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With my DAC, I found that upscaling to 16FS PCM was superior to scaling to anything below DSD512. The good news there is that PCM scaling is much faster. File sizes will still be much larger than the original.
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According to a friend who corresponded with PGGB, my DAC is not a candidate for the software since it INTERNALLY upsamples and therefore is not a good candidate for their software. See this here. “Internally the Tambaqui consists of two boards. The first upsamples incoming signals to a huge 32-bit/3.125MHz and converts them to noise-shaped PWM. On the second board each channel is converted to analogue with a 32-stage FIR (Finite Impulse Response) DAC and fourth order filtering I/V conversion, which isn’t an R2R ladder or a standard converter but proprietary technology I’ve not encountered elsewhere.”
https://the-ear.net/review-hardware/mola-mola-tambaqui-digital-analogue-converter/
Whew! What a relief! I’ve saved myself some money and this may explain why this DAC sounds so fabulous.
Given the level of attention they gave to the digital stage, it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that the analog stage and power supply are just as sophisticated.
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I have friends who say the phono stage in their Makua preamp is glorious. I got rid of my turntable in 2004 along with the 3000 records I had at the time. But I couldn’t be happier than I am with this Tambaqui and the Makua i bought afterward to replace my Krell Illusion and that is a superb piece , so that’s saying a lot. It’s “next level” gear.