some questions:os lowpass filter, dsp effect (device), upsampling

Support questions for Neutron Player only.
Post Reply
rauschkind
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat Oct 08, 2022 5:24 pm

some questions:os lowpass filter, dsp effect (device), upsampling

Post by rauschkind » Mon Nov 21, 2022 4:06 pm

i use neutron on a dap which has a "lowpass filter mode" setting within the audio settings. this leaves me with a few questions regarding neutrons behaviour with various options:

1: do i assume correctly that the neutron setting "dsp effect (device) toggles the use of this effect?
2: does this lowpass filter do the same thing as neutrons ultrasonic filter, so i should use either one but better not both at once?
3: to my understanding oversampling is mostly useful to move artefacts introduced by dsp effects and d/a conversion outside the audible spectrum where it can more easily removed by filtering inaudible frequencies. so would this mean that the filter of my os will do oversampling anyhow or does this mean i should activate ovesampling to make it more effective? and related:
4: do i assume correctly that oversampling by neutron would be applied before the stream is passed to my os dsp?


if someone can help me with this, ill be very grateful!

blaubär
Posts: 3313
Joined: Tue Apr 02, 2019 6:48 am

Re: some questions:os lowpass filter, dsp effect (device), upsampling

Post by blaubär » Mon Nov 21, 2022 4:48 pm

rauschkind wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 4:06 pm
1: do i assume correctly that the neutron setting "dsp effect (device) toggles the use of this effect?
Probably. On my Samsung S9 it works that way - when I enable the option then Neutron transfers its output through some android standard so that Samsung's audio effects ( equalizer, dolby, etc ) work, if I disable it then Neutron uses a 32-bit-interface for output to the DAC and that disables Samsung's audio effects.
rauschkind wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 4:06 pm
2: does this lowpass filter do the same thing as neutrons ultrasonic filter, so i should use either one but better not both at once?
Probably. Try it out with a setting for the frequency where you can hear the effect ( Neutron's ultrasonic filter is customizable as to its frequency ).
rauschkind wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 4:06 pm
3: to my understanding oversampling is mostly useful to move artefacts introduced by dsp effects and d/a conversion outside the audible spectrum where it can more easily removed by filtering inaudible frequencies. so would this mean that the filter of my os will do oversampling anyhow or does this mean i should activate ovesampling to make it more effective?
"Oversampling" in this contect means upsampling to an even multiple of the original sampling rate and yes, filters then work better, and the "even multiple" is supposed to make this easier and omit addtional calculation errors compared to general upscaling. I doubt that the lowpass filter will oversample on its own, they'd probably advertise if it did. But there might be some upsampling built into the os - on my Samsung S9 there's an option "UHQ Upscaler" which probably does some upscaling.
rauschkind wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 4:06 pm
4: do i assume correctly that oversampling by neutron would be applied before the stream is passed to my os dsp?
Resampling in Neutron, be it up-, down or oversampling, is done directly after the decoding, before Neutron's DSP, so that the DSP can benefit from the increased sampling rate. Any os dsp will come after that, when Neutron has transferred the data to the os so that they eventually get to DAC.

rauschkind
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat Oct 08, 2022 5:24 pm

Re: some questions:os lowpass filter, dsp effect (device), upsampling

Post by rauschkind » Mon Nov 21, 2022 5:33 pm

blaubär wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 4:48 pm
I doubt that the lowpass filter will oversample on its own, they'd probably advertise if it did.
na, even 90´s consumer cd players used oversampling for better filtering results. its so common it wont get advertized, but these days you can find daps advertising "non oversampling" filters wich greatly enhance soundstage, trasparancy and impact by doing a piss poor job at filtering artefacts (just what i took away when i tried to better understand this topic now).

anyhow, youve been very helpful. i will keep the daps dsp effects on (there are none beside the lowpass filter), and all neutron dsp effects off for outputs i do not use EQ / oversampling 4x for outputs i do use EQ.

MotleyG
Posts: 160
Joined: Thu Sep 23, 2021 6:19 pm

Re: some questions:os lowpass filter, dsp effect (device), upsampling

Post by MotleyG » Mon Nov 21, 2022 6:27 pm

rauschkind wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 5:33 pm
na, even 90´s consumer cd players used oversampling for better filtering results. its so common it wont get advertized, but these days you can find daps advertising "non oversampling" filters wich greatly enhance soundstage, trasparancy and impact by doing a piss poor job at filtering artefacts (just what i took away when i tried to better understand this topic now).

anyhow, youve been very helpful. i will keep the daps dsp effects on (there are none beside the lowpass filter), and all neutron dsp effects off for outputs i do not use EQ / oversampling 4x for outputs i do use EQ.
Note that if you are using the device DSPs, they are often only able to work at 16bit/48kHz or similar. So no advantage to hi-res files in this case, especially if you are passing the music on to an external DAC for playback. So better to bypass the native device DSPs of this is the case since Neutron can manage all of the DSP processing at 64-bit prior to any final output. There really aren't too many functions that Neutron can't do internally anyhow.

rauschkind
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat Oct 08, 2022 5:24 pm

Re: some questions:os lowpass filter, dsp effect (device), upsampling

Post by rauschkind » Mon Nov 21, 2022 6:51 pm

please do not take this as aggressive but:
do not tempt me to have a discussion over the value of high res audio :lol: XD in any case: its a dap (digital audio player), not a cell phone. it is perfectly capable to reproduce ultrasound.

MotleyG
Posts: 160
Joined: Thu Sep 23, 2021 6:19 pm

Re: some questions:os lowpass filter, dsp effect (device), upsampling

Post by MotleyG » Mon Nov 21, 2022 9:08 pm

rauschkind wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 6:51 pm
do not tempt me to have a discussion over the value of high res audio :lol: XD in any case: its a dap (digital audio player), not a cell phone. it is perfectly capable to reproduce ultrasound.
Hi-res or highly compressed music, DAP or phone, I would always recommend that you avoid using two different DPSs if it can be avoided. Neutron can already do most or all of what any device can do, and it does it all at 64-bit processing before passing it on to the system for playback. Why bother doing this, then having the system process the signal a second time?

If it works for you, that is what matters.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 19 guests