HQPlayer's Network Audio Adapter

[asdf1000]

57 minutes ago, luisma said:

 

Seems people with roughly the same config but Win instead of Linux are not affected with their Allo USB Bridge and the Roon control message errors

 

Windows on the USBridge?

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, luisma said:

@Miska Jussi the way Roon - HQP operates in case of HQPWin and HQPE is it roughly the same in terms of buffers, controls etc.? or there are many differences?

 

Seems people with roughly the same config but Win instead of Linux are not affected with their Allo USB Bridge and the Roon control message errors

 

Maybe is not the networkaudiod at all but something else but just asking

 

Roon always controls HQPlayer in same way, and doesn't know if there's a NAA behind it or not.

 

And HQPlayer doesn't make a difference what kind of NAA there is, so NAA is always used the same way.

 

HQPlayer Desktop and Embedded are quite different in many ways, but from control interface point of view, they behave very much the same.

 

If you have two NAAs behaving differently, then it is likely the NAA behaving differently for some reason. Having a log from both HQPlayer and NAA sides would help seeing what is going on.

 

[luisma]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

Roon always controls HQPlayer in same way, and doesn't know if there's a NAA behind it or not.

 

And HQPlayer doesn't make a difference what kind of NAA there is, so NAA is always used the same way.

 

HQPlayer Desktop and Embedded are quite different in many ways, but from control interface point of view, they behave very much the same.

 

If you have two NAAs behaving differently, then it is likely the NAA behaving differently for some reason. Having a log from both HQPlayer and NAA sides would help seeing what is going on.

 

Thanks, will collect log to see what's happening 

[luisma]

This is hqplayers side

 

There is this

% 2019/01/24 19:39:38 Requested format not available!

 

Like HQP is not seeing the DAC or NAA but above it (and I believe this is the initialization / exchange) it sees the NAA

+ 2019/01/24 19:39:38 Connect to [fe80::20e:c6ff:fe8e:44e7%eno1]:43210

 

And then below there is a successful playing after

 

I don't have access to the Bridge, need to change the IP and see what's going on

 

On the Allo Bridge NAA do you know where can I get the logs? which directory?

 

============================= FAILED SEGMENT ====================================

+ 2019/01/24 19:39:37 Control connection from [::ffff:127.0.0.1]:43056
+ 2019/01/24 19:39:37 Control started from [::ffff:127.0.0.1]:43056
& 2019/01/24 19:39:37 Stop...
& 2019/01/24 19:39:38 Playlist clear
& 2019/01/24 19:39:38 Playlist add URI: http://127.0.0.1:9102/9e5f105fb16649e2898ccfeb91a980fd/stream.raw
& 2019/01/24 19:39:38 Play
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Offload: resampler=disabled convolution=disabled
+ 2019/01/24 19:39:38 Playback engine running
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Rate or blocksize change triggered
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Rate: 44100, block size: 4704, frame size: 588
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Block size: 4704 (sample: 4)
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Oversampling: poly (light)
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Modulator: adaptive seventh order 1-bit
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Integrator: IIR
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Playback engine ratio: 256
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Set volume: -18
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Offload: resampler=disabled convolution=disabled
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Initialization complete, starting audio engine
+ 2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network engine starting...
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network SDM streaming
# 2019/01/24 19:39:38 clHQPlayerEngine::SyncTrackFormat(): clNetMiniEngine::Start(): clNetMiniEngine::SendRequest(): clSocket::Send(): send(): Broken pipe
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Starting backend failed, attempt to reinitialize...
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Input attempting to uninitialize...
- 2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network engine stopping...
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Input attempting to initialize...
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Output set channels: 2 (2)
+ 2019/01/24 19:39:38 Connect to [fe80::20e:c6ff:fe8e:44e7%eno1]:43210
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network format: 32000/32/2 [pcm] 
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network format: 44100/32/2 [pcm] 
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network format: 48000/32/2 [pcm] 
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network format: 88200/32/2 [pcm] 
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network format: 96000/32/2 [pcm] 
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network format: 176400/32/2 [pcm] 
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network format: 192000/32/2 [pcm] 
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network format: 352800/32/2 [pcm] 
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network format: 384000/32/2 [pcm] 
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network format: 705600/32/2 [pcm] 
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network format: 768000/32/2 [pcm] 
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network format: 2822400/1/2 [dsd] 
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network format: 3072000/1/2 [dsd] 
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network format: 5644800/1/2 [dsd] 
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network format: 6144000/1/2 [dsd] 
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network format: 11289600/1/2 [dsd] 
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network format: 12288000/1/2 [dsd] 
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network format: 22579200/1/2 [dsd] 
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network format: 24576000/1/2 [dsd] 
+ 2019/01/24 19:39:38 Network engine starting...
% 2019/01/24 19:39:38 Requested format not available!
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Parallel threads: 4
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Nested parallelism: 0
  2019/01/24 19:39:38 Parallel pipelines: 2
! 2019/01/24 19:39:48 clNetMiniEngine::PushSDM(): engine not ready
! 2019/01/24 19:39:48 clHQPlayerEngine::Execute(): push to FIFO failed
  2019/01/24 19:39:48 Stop request (reset)
& 2019/01/24 19:39:48 Stop...
- 2019/01/24 19:39:48 Network engine stopping...
- 2019/01/24 19:39:48 Playback engine stopped
& 2019/01/24 19:39:48 ...stopped
  2019/01/24 19:39:48 Set volume: -18

 

============================= SUCCESSFUL SEGMENT ====================================

+ 2019/01/24 19:42:36 Control connection from [::ffff:127.0.0.1]:43098
+ 2019/01/24 19:42:36 Control started from [::ffff:127.0.0.1]:43098
& 2019/01/24 19:42:36 Stop...
& 2019/01/24 19:42:37 Playlist clear
& 2019/01/24 19:42:37 Playlist add URI: http://127.0.0.1:9102/02da7da009604534833667d7d58da741/stream.raw
& 2019/01/24 19:42:37 Play
  2019/01/24 19:42:37 Offload: resampler=disabled convolution=disabled
+ 2019/01/24 19:42:37 Playback engine running
- 2019/01/24 19:42:37 Network engine stopping...
  2019/01/24 19:42:37 Output set sampling rate: 11289600 (11289600)
  2019/01/24 19:42:37 Automatic output rate: 11289600
  2019/01/24 19:42:37 Rate or blocksize change triggered
  2019/01/24 19:42:37 Rate: 44100, block size: 4704, frame size: 588
  2019/01/24 19:42:37 Block size: 4704 (sample: 4)
  2019/01/24 19:42:37 Oversampling: poly (light)
  2019/01/24 19:42:37 Modulator: adaptive seventh order 1-bit
  2019/01/24 19:42:37 Integrator: IIR
  2019/01/24 19:42:37 Playback engine ratio: 256
  2019/01/24 19:42:37 Set volume: -18
  2019/01/24 19:42:37 Offload: resampler=disabled convolution=disabled
  2019/01/24 19:42:37 Initialization complete, starting audio engine
+ 2019/01/24 19:42:37 Network engine starting...
  2019/01/24 19:42:37 Network SDM streaming
+ 2019/01/24 19:42:37 Network engine started at: 11289600
  2019/01/24 19:42:37 Parallel threads: 4
  2019/01/24 19:42:37 Nested parallelism: 0
  2019/01/24 19:42:37 Parallel pipelines: 2

[luisma]

Seems logging is disabled by default for networkaudiod I will have to enable logging with dietpi-software and then gather the logs at the NAA

 

[luisma]

16 hours ago, Em2016 said:

 

Hi, I didn't see notification for this. Apologies for delay.

 

Hardware design of USBridge is fantastic - low noise USB source. Problem is DietPi (for me) and running old Linux kernel (3.x still)

 

If hope there is a USBridge 2.0 (non Sparky) released, which can use one of Jussi's existing bootable USB NAA images - this would be ideal. Jussi's image on great hardware would be perfect (one day).

 

In terms of best HQP experience, Jussi's bootable images are numbero uno for me (unsurprisingly, as it's optimized for one thing only).

 

USBridge was mostly fine for me - if it's working for you, just don't ever do a DietPi update, unless you're prepared for things to go wrong and you need to do a clean install. Which means you need to open the thing and take the eMMC out etc.

 

I'm not aware of bricked units after DietPi updates - updates going wrong were fixed by clean installs, but it's a pain of a process.

 

I have the Jussi recommended UpBoard Gateway too, running his bootable USB image and it's great too. Flawless experience with HQP.

 

Thanks for replying for some reason I just noticed your answer

 

I like the USB Bridge the problem is stability, I have to say it sounds I believe a little better than my i3 NAA running ubuntu minimal. I am going to go ahead and use Miska's boot image on a celeron I received fanless and will configure the BIOS to bring down EMI / RFI as much as possible. Also I will be using an AL bootable image as well, somehow I believe Miska's image may be better but some people swear for AL so will try 

 

Thank you again

 

 

[luisma]

Changing aotg.urb_fix=0 to aotg.urb_fix=1 fixed the issue

 

 

root@ALLO-LIVING:~# cat /DietPi/uEnv.txt  
uenvcmd=setenv os_type linux;
bootargs=earlyprintk clk_ignore_unused selinux=0 scandelay console=tty0 loglevel=1 real_rootflag=rw root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootwait init=/lib/systemd/systemd aotg.urb_fix=0 aotg.aotg1_speed=0

 

 

[acatala]

This weekend I have been testing an Allo USBridge that I had ordered. The USBridge came with Allo DietPi 6.1 installed and ready to run. This DietPi run Roon Bridge, Signalyst NAA and other media software simultaneously. I disabled most of this software but let running Roon Bridge and NAA.

 

I configured my HQPlayer Embedded 4.7.1 to point to the new USBridge and did not configure anything else. I tested and it worked at the first try. Nice!

 

After this first test, I updated HQPlayer Embedded to version 4.8 and USBridge's DietPi to 6.19. The update process for the USBridge was long due to it patches every single version from 6.1 until 6.19, but eventually it ended. I tested the system again and it still worked. Nice again!. By the way, I updated DietPi from the console not from de GUI.

 

After that, I thought of testing the Roon Bridge from Roon, I don't know why, but I did it, perhaps just for fun and see if I could send a stream from Roon Core to the same USBBride (and the same DAC) alternatively to USB Bridge and NAA. Well, it worked too, but... oh surprise!!! When I was streaming to Roon Brige, I noticed that my Rotel RC-1590 display showed "DSD" instead of "DoP". So I went quickly to the HQPlayer Embedded config page and unchecked the DoP option and... HQPlayer Embedded (through NAA) also played in native DSD with an Allo USBridge.

 

That's nice for me because this way, I avoid that ugly pop sound every time I start playing DSD and stop playing, due to the change in the DAC between DSD and PCM.

 

I don't know if this posibility to use native DSD is due to DietPi version, Allo DietPi, or.... I don't know, but I am happy with this.

 

In the next weeks, I will test too an UP Gateway, recommended by @Miska. I will test it running Debian Linux and installing the networkaudiod and I am going to test it with the HQPlayer OS image. And the question here is: Will I be able to play native DSD too with UP Gataway and any this two software configurations that I am going to test?

 

[Miska]

54 minutes ago, acatala said:

In the next weeks, I will test too an UP Gateway, recommended by @Miska. I will test it running Debian Linux and installing the networkaudiod and I am going to test it with the HQPlayer OS image. And the question here is: Will I be able to play native DSD too with UP Gataway and any this two software configurations that I am going to test?

 

Depends on your DAC, but likely yes. Install also my kernel build on Debian for better hardware support.

 

[asdf1000]

1 hour ago, acatala said:

And the question here is: Will I be able to play native DSD too with UP Gataway and any this two software configurations that I am going to test?

 

 

For the best HQP experience, Jussi's bootable NAA image is the best NAA! As probably expected, since it's optimised for NAA and nothing else.

 

I have the UpBoard Gateway (followed Jussi's recommendation) and it's been absolutely flawless as NAA. Very very low power consumption.

 

I installed DietPi on it and also AudioLinux and did a lot of testing but Jussi's bootable image was best for me. 

 

 

 

[acatala]

28 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Depends on your DAC, but likely yes. Install also my kernel build on Debian for better hardware support.

 

 

@Miska, where could I get that Debian kernel?

 

Is that better than using your NAA images as suggested by @Em2016?

 

 

[asdf1000]

20 minutes ago, acatala said:

 

@Miska, where could I get that Debian kernel?

 

Is that better than using your NAA images as suggested by @Em2016?

 

 

 

See below. I run the below kernel for HQPe , since I also Roon Server alongside. For NAA I don't need anything other than NAA, so I just use Jussi's bootable USB image because it's literally doing nothing else other than NAA. Less work by the NAA, less power consumption, less noise, better SQ (all in my mind 😁 )

 

wget https://www.sonarnerd.net/src/stretch/linux-image-4.9.151-jl+_12_amd64.deb

wget https://www.sonarnerd.net/src/stretch/linux-headers-4.9.151-jl+_12_amd64.deb

dpkg -i linux-headers-4.9.151-jl+_12_amd64.deb

dpkg -i linux-image-4.9.151-jl+_12_amd64.deb

 

 

 

[Miska]

4 hours ago, acatala said:

Is that better than using your NAA images as suggested by @Em2016?

 

No, it is not better than the NAA image. But it is better than the default Debian kernel...

 

[luisma]

5 hours ago, Em2016 said:

 

See below. I run the below kernel for HQPe , since I also Roon Server alongside. For NAA I don't need anything other than NAA, so I just use Jussi's bootable USB image because it's literally doing nothing else other than NAA. Less work by the NAA, less power consumption, less noise, better SQ (all in my mind 😁 )

 

wget https://www.sonarnerd.net/src/stretch/linux-image-4.9.151-jl+_12_amd64.deb

wget https://www.sonarnerd.net/src/stretch/linux-headers-4.9.151-jl+_12_amd64.deb

dpkg -i linux-headers-4.9.151-jl+_12_amd64.deb

dpkg -i linux-image-4.9.151-jl+_12_amd64.deb

 

 

 

Don't know about you but I have to wait ages for the IPv6 to 4 switching, I use this all the time (makes things faster)

 

wget -4 https://www.sonarnerd.net/src/stretch/linux-image-4.9.151-jl+_12_amd64.deb

wget -4 https://www.sonarnerd.net/src/stretch/linux-headers-4.9.151-jl+_12_amd64.deb

[luisma]

After comparing my NAA with Ubuntu Minimal + Miska's optimized bionic kernel + NetworkaudioD (SSD etc installed) and Allo USB Bridge I think I detect the Allo to be "quieter" better SQ than the NAA.

this I'm almost sure is related to a noisy NAA computer which I need to optimize.

 

So I will be removing the SSD, removing the Wifi card (I know, what was I thinking) and will boot Miska's image directly. I will also optimize the BIOS in the process for the NAA.

 

Just need to test again because after installing HQPE 4.8 this weekend I think I can hear better background and performance (maybe placebo effect) with the same settings as before.

 

[acatala]

Hi @Miska, for you information, I have detected a small issue with HQPlayer Embedded and NAA. Not a big deal for me, I can live with it. I just tell you in case it is interesting for you.

 

When I click play in Roon, but only the first time I do it after executing Roon, the stream to HQPlayer Embbeded and NAA, does nothing and after a few seconds I get the message "Roon lost control of the audio device", but then I can click again and it works with no problem all the time until the next execution of Roon.

 

My current setup is Roon Core and HQPlayer Embedded run in a NUC with Debian 9. The NAA runs on a USBridge with DietPi 6.19.7.

 

The DietPi runs Roon Bridge and NAA at the same time. I disabled Roon Bridge but it made no difference. I also changed the value of the parameter aotg.urb_fix from 1 to 0 in /DietPi/uEnv.txt, but it did not work either, so I rolled it back to 1.

 

As I said, this is not a big deal for me. If you need any log or further information, just ask to me.

 

[Miska]

9 hours ago, acatala said:

Hi @Miska, for you information, I have detected a small issue with HQPlayer Embedded and NAA. Not a big deal for me, I can live with it. I just tell you in case it is interesting for you.

 

When I click play in Roon, but only the first time I do it after executing Roon, the stream to HQPlayer Embbeded and NAA, does nothing and after a few seconds I get the message "Roon lost control of the audio device", but then I can click again and it works with no problem all the time until the next execution of Roon.

 

My current setup is Roon Core and HQPlayer Embedded run in a NUC with Debian 9. The NAA runs on a USBridge with DietPi 6.19.7.

 

The DietPi runs Roon Bridge and NAA at the same time. I disabled Roon Bridge but it made no difference. I also changed the value of the parameter aotg.urb_fix from 1 to 0 in /DietPi/uEnv.txt, but it did not work either, so I rolled it back to 1.

 

As I said, this is not a big deal for me. If you need any log or further information, just ask to me.

 

I'm right now testing this, but cannot reproduce it. HQPlayer Embedded 4.8 running on Ubuntu, CuBox-i running NAA image and my DSC-1 as a DAC (Amanero USB interface). Output at DSD256. Playback starts immediately (poly-sinc-short-mp-2s filter).

 

One possibility is that Roon gives up a bit too quickly waiting for HQPlayer to initialize DSP engine. When you attempt playback for same source format second time, it starts faster because initialization is cached.

 

Logs from hqplayerd and networkaudiod would probably help.

 

[acatala]

22 hours ago, Miska said:

Logs from hqplayerd and networkaudiod would probably help.

 

Hello @Miska.

 

This afternoon I have enabled the logging facility both at HQPlayer Embedded and NAA. Today the things go right. "Bad luck".

 

Anyway, I have left enabled the logging. As soon as I detect it, I will send you the logs.

 

[acatala]

Hi @Miska

 

I send you the log files from hqplayerd and networkaudiod. It seems that USBridge (networkaudiod) has not a configured NTP client and it shows an hour lesser, but both logs are simultaneous.

 

I play for the first time at 16:44 and fails, wait until 16:45 (only for logging purpouses) and play again  and it works.

hqplayerd.log

networkaudiod.log

[Miska]

5 hours ago, acatala said:

Hi @Miska

 

I send you the log files from hqplayerd and networkaudiod. It seems that USBridge (networkaudiod) has not a configured NTP client and it shows an hour lesser, but both logs are simultaneous.

 

I play for the first time at 16:44 and fails, wait until 16:45 (only for logging purpouses) and play again  and it works.

hqplayerd.log

networkaudiod.log

 

Looks like on the first attempt the NAA was disconnected for some reason and that's why it failed. HQPlayer log doesn't go far enough back to have the initial discovery and connection.

 

[luisma]

Do you turn off your dac @acatala?

 

[acatala]

7 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Looks like on the first attempt the NAA was disconnected for some reason and that's why it failed. HQPlayer log doesn't go far enough back to have the initial discovery and connection.

 

Thanks @Miska. I will do some research with that. Perhaps it has to do with something specific to USBridge's DietPi. We'll see.

 

USBridge's DietPi runs Roon Bridge and NAA at the same time. It seems it is not a big deal. Just in case, I disabled Roon Bridge but there was no difference at all. So I have enabled it again and I also enabled it as an output at Roon Core, just as a backup output for DSD.

 

 

[acatala]

6 hours ago, luisma said:

Do you turn off your dac @acatala?

 

 

Yes, I do. The DAC is built-in the preamplifier (Rotel RC-1590) and I either power it off of put it in stand-by from the remote. The lattest times I am using the remote.

 

As I said before to @Miska, Roon Bridge and NAA run simultaneously and this behavior happens with NAA. I will try to find out why NAA seems to be "sleeping" the first time I try to play music.

 

[Miska]

When NAA notices that DAC has disappeared, it kicks out HQPlayer. And then HQPlayer needs to start all over with the NAA. I'll try to improve handling of this case.

 

Those DACs that power USB interface side from the USB bus are least problematic because they don't go suddenly missing when otherwise powered off... And then there are the few intermediate ones like Holo Spring that keep USB interface powered up in standby mode.

 

[asdf1000]

Hi @Miska

 

To install NAA on Debian Stretch (once I already have your low latency custom image and header already installed), is this all that's required to install NAA?

 

wget https://www.signalyst.eu/bins/naa/linux/stretch/networkaudiod_3.5.5-39_amd64.deb

dpkg -i networkaudiod_3.5.5-39_amd64.deb

 

Nothing else?

 

Thanks!

 

Edit:

 

I got this error:

 

Unpacking networkaudiod (3.5.5-39) ...

dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of networkaudiod:

 networkaudiod depends on libasound2 (>= 1.0.16); however:

  Package libasound2 is not installed.

 

 

But then found one of your older posts to run this:

 

apt install -f

 

All good now!