HQPlayer's Network Audio Adapter

[Miska]

32 minutes ago, asdf1000 said:

Could you test sometime in the near future, if you get a spare moment? 

 

I test it every now and then, but no success recently. I cannot do more than just wait for Merging to update the driver.

 

Windows and macOS (Catalina) have been working fine so far.

 

[Miska]

Now there's a native build of networkaudiod for Apple's M1 too and updated build for Intel Macs as well.

 

[Miska]

19 hours ago, denniswaugh said:

hqplayer-embedded-4.22.3-raspberrypi4 img works fine

 

If this works fine as a NAA, you can use it instead.

 

You can disable HQPlayer Embedded on it by running command "systemctl disable hqplayerd ; systemctrl stop hqplayerd". Once that has been done, it is just somewhat bigger, but otherwise similar to the NAA image. But more up to date OS due to more frequent release schedule of HQPlayer Embedded.

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, denniswaugh said:

Thank you for this information.

How do I log into the naa to issue the commands.

Web browser obviously takes me to the embedded interface and when I try PuTTY I get the message "connection refused".

While I think of it, could you tell me the username + password for when I can access the naa endpoint.

 

From local console, with username "root" and no password. There's no remote access such as SSH for security reasons.

 

[Miska]

14 hours ago, Yviena said:

@Miska What do you use to get optical ethernet to your NAA?

 

Only options I have are media converter or PCIe card (I like Intel ones).

 

[Miska]

4 hours ago, Triplefun said:

Can I attach more than  one dac to the NAA or do I need a separate NAA for each DAC?

 

Yes you can, although currently limitation is that you can access only of the DACs at a time. If each is behind it's own NAA, you can access all simultaneously. But that would mean you would have as many HQPlayer instances too.

 

[Miska]

4 hours ago, zoltan said:

I have been using HQP and NAA for about 4 years now and very happy. I have a question though:

Does the server's quality (where HQP is installed) change the sound quality in any way? I use a passively cooled PC but nothing fancy, no linear power supply or high-quality LAN card, etc. Would any of those improve what I hear? 

 

No, it doesn't. With NAA, the only way it affect sound quality is by having enough CPU power to process all the necessary algorithms.

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, semente said:

@Miska if it's not to much trouble, how do I edit your "Cubox" image to disable HDMI, optical and Wi-Fi?

 

You need "rfkill" to disable WiFi, but I don't think I've included it on the image. For HDMI and optical I think you need to rebuild the kernel with those drivers disabled. But I think that had some side effects, at least I think HDMI driver was needed for the optical to be active.

 

So practically you'd need to build your own image.

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, trung224 said:

@Miska Do you still have NAA image for Beagle Bone Black?

 

Not anymore, since TI is all the time so much behind on their kernel support.

 

I can check at some point again.

 

[Miska]

36 minutes ago, trung224 said:

Thanks Miska. Too bad BBB (with Botic driver) is the only option to get DSD256 via i2s output.

 

That wouldn't make my NAA OS image any useful for BBB...

 

[Miska]

One can run Debian on BBB and install the "armhf" architecture networkaudiod package on Debian.

 

[Miska]

 

Some latest hardware in action here. Ferrum Audio Hypsos PSU powering UP-Board Gateway NAA (running my NAA OS image), feeding Holo Audio Spring 3 L2 DAC, which in turn feeding Ferrum Audio Oor headphone amplifier here.

 

Now I'd just need two Hypsos PSU's, one for the NAA and another one for the Oor... :D

 

Here you can also see the real world power consumption level of the NAA. I'd say this is pretty low power device capable of running the Spring 3 up to 1.5M PCM and DSD1024!

 

 

[Miska]

11 minutes ago, ted_b said:

@Miska  The Hypsos looks very intriguing.  Have you played with the Voltage Adjustment, and if so, heard a sweetspot even for something as low power as an NAA?

 

UP-Board is specified for 5V, there's nothing to play with. I don't want to feed it over-voltage and burn it. I have burned enough many of similar SBC's by accidentally connecting a 9V or 12V PSU... :D

 

This is very simple, set-and-forget.

 

Hypsos has predefined settings for number of devices you can select from the setup menu. But this one is through custom settings.

 

[Miska]

9 hours ago, ericuco said:

This with Intel Atom x7-E3950 processor and SFP cage for network connection. USB out to T+A DAC8 DSD at DSD512.

 

That CPU is a bit more powerful CPU than the x5-Z8350 in UP Gateway plus optical SFP takes some additional power. But no huge difference.

 

[Miska]

19 hours ago, Bertel said:

I think you have been using a Teddy Pardo PSU before as well for the UP Gateway as NAA, right? (That's what I still do at the moment) Would you say that in comparison the Hypsos is an improvement, in SQ or otherwise?

 

I've been using Meanwell medical grade PSU. Wanted to get a Teddy Pardo for a long time, but never got around ordering one. But I know many have been using Teddy Pardo.

 

Hypsos is perfect for me, also because it has adjustable output voltage, so I can swap different kinds of NAA's in while keeping the same PSU.

 

[Miska]

Yes, you can find it from NAA download section.

 

For PoE power support, there's an overlay "rpi-poe" you can enable by editing config.txt on the image boot partition. This will control fan on the hat.

 

[Miska]

3 minutes ago, NoNaim said:

I was considering This One without a fan. Would that work ok? Or, is it better to go for This One with the fan? 

 

Without fan is kind of better for this use (small fans can be loud), and NAA doesn't cause a lot of CPU load. Just make sure you have decent heatsink kit on the RPi4 chipset. Based on the picture it should fit.

 

3 minutes ago, NoNaim said:

Is the file "naa-4122-raspberrypi4.7z" the most up to date version for the pi-4?

 

Yes, that's the one.

 

[Miska]

4 hours ago, NoNaim said:

Full volume via USB only, very low volume with USB + SRC-DX.

 

Likely SRC-DX has digital volume control. Login as "root" to the RPi NAA image. Then run "aplay -l" to list all available devices (make sure you don't have HQPlayer running. Take note of card number of SRC-DX. Then run "alsamixer -c X" where X is card number, adjust volume to max (0 dBFS). Then press ESC to exit. And run "alsactl store" to store these for next boot up.

 

[Miska]

2 minutes ago, NoNaim said:

So, does this mean I'm connecting the pi4 to a laptop / keyboard etc to login? I have zero experience with these mini computers etc 😔

 

It has HDMI output (microHDMI connector) that you can connect to a monitor or TV, and then USB keyboard.

 

[Miska]

12 minutes ago, NoNaim said:

That's what I thought... I'm guessing it will have something similar to "Terminal" in Mac OS.

 

Yes, pretty much the same thing.

 

[Miska]

On 10/20/2021 at 6:20 PM, Johnseye said:

Jussi @Miska, I believe you use Debian based Linux for your NAA.  Does Debian natively support DSD1024 and 1536 PCM or did you need to modify it to support those frequencies?  I currently must use your NAA in order to upsample to 1536 PCM.

 

No it doesn't, because you need a custom kernel for that.

 

[Miska]

2 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

Would you be willing to share your kernel customization in the spirit of open source with Pierro & Zeljko so that they can support HQPlayer upsampling to DSD1024 and 1536 PCM?  

 

Why? They can of course do their homework... ;)

 

I did mine when I implemented support for it.

 

[Miska]

2 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

Well, that's an easy answer.  It's in support of your product.

 

No, it would be supporting their product.

 

I support mine (HQPlayer OS and NAA OS). Plus Ubuntu and Debian as extra...

 

[Miska]

2 minutes ago, hifi25nl said:

...BUT if you have modified some part of a kernel module or application that was released under a variant of GPL you should make the source available, I think.

 

For example you can download exact source tarballs of my custom Ubuntu/Debian kernels from the same place where the .deb packages are. You just need to extract the package, and run "make oldconfig ; make bindeb-pkg" to get the same .deb packages I've built.

 

Unlike many other vendors who ship Linux-based products, I comply with the GPL requirements.

 

[Miska]

42 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

I guess if that's the way you view the inclusion and use of HQPlayer in their platforms.

 

I should do their work for free, for them, so they can charge money for it? Come on please...

 

When they ship HQPlayer on their platform, they are primarily responsible for supporting HQPlayer on their platform.

 

I'm well busy enough working on my products on the platforms I support.