HQPlayer's Network Audio Adapter

[Miska]

12 minutes ago, pavi said:

which version would you suggest?

 

Either the RPi4 NAA OS image (regular, not the UAC2 one). Or RPi4 HQPlayer OS image. If the latter one works, you could actually run full HQPlayer on the device. Not that it could do much besides basic PCM->PCM upsampling, but anyway.

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, dericchan1 said:

Hi Miska, so if I am using a RPI4 as a NAA I should use the regular NAA image NOT the UAC2 version? I might have the UAC2 version and it seems to work fine??

 

UAC2 version is only for USB input functionality. If that is not what you are doing, use the regular images.

 

[Miska]

26 minutes ago, dericchan1 said:

Sorry Miska I am not sure what you mean by USB input? I go from windows hqplayer desktop cat6 to switch then cat6 to rpi4 then usb out to dac. So I should use regular image?

 

Yes, you are doing USB out, not input. So regular image for you.

 

USB input is for cases where you want to use USB input to HQPlayer as source.

 

[Miska]

8 hours ago, warrior_on_mars said:

2. Add Roon Ready and HQP NAA to ultraRendu as apps

 

Why Roon Ready?

 

8 hours ago, warrior_on_mars said:

5c Set SDM pack to none and max 48x512 with 48 bits set or 44x512 (either)

 

Set max to 44.1k x512 and make sure you don't have "48k DSD" checked. Also make sure your filter selection in HQPlayer supports any conversion ratio.

 

8 hours ago, warrior_on_mars said:

6c The playback never starts and gives up after about 11 seconds. Subsequent opening of HQP settings results in HQP dying.

3d Use DoP DSD256 on HQP, it all works well.

 

Make sure you have disabled the DAC/endpoint in Roon Settings -> Audio. Also make sure you have disabled Roon Ready on Rendu.

 

[Miska]

7 minutes ago, warrior_on_mars said:

I am not sure about "make sure your filter selection in HQPlayer supports any conversion ratio"--what settings should I set in Preferences when playing redbook for instance?

 

Can you post screenshot of your current settings?

 

When you attempt playback, does HQPlayer show any errors on the status bar?

 

[Miska]

Do not enable 48k DSD unless you are sure your DAC operates correctly with it. Some DACs for example play at wrong speed using 44.1k clock. So even if you get sound out, it doesn't yet mean it would be correct operation.

 

From HQPlayer Client you can check which are the detected supported output rates of your DAC.

 

If you enable log file, restart HQPlayer, reproduce the issue and then check the log file, you can find why the playback fails in more detail. HQPlayer also lists discovered supported output rates in the log file.

 

[Miska]

25 minutes ago, warrior_on_mars said:

It absolutely operates correctly with 48k, that was confirmed by Ayre

 

OK, if you confirmed with Ayre.

 

25 minutes ago, warrior_on_mars said:

by NAA logs on MacMini earlier, and I think by SonicOrbiter in the Roon Ready diags.

 

Logs won't tell that. One needs to hook it up to a measurement rig to verify. It cannot be detected by software, that's why there's the setting.

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, warrior_on_mars said:

Right, my bad about the logs, my memory is wrong there. Would double-checking by clocking a track against the official duration be a valid check?

 

For some very long track that should also do. Best if you have some ADC and can run spectrum analyzer on the output to see if 1 kHz lands at 1 kHz.

 

[Miska]

3 minutes ago, bogi said:

Did you try any other software except of HQPlayer to play DSD512?

Did you try to connect QX-5 to HQPlayer directly without NAA?

 

I think Rendu has older kernel than 5.15, so it needs DAC/manufacturer specific patches for native DSD support.

 

Trying my latest 4.3.0 NAA OS image should do for verification, it has 5.15 kernel.

 

[Miska]

1 minute ago, warrior_on_mars said:

I tried Roon using the Roon Ready app on ultraRendu. If I set "up to DSD Native" on the Roon Ready app in SonicOrbiter, the DSD upscaling options disappears completely from Roon core Audio settings for the ultraRendu source. Otherwise, equally, it plays DSD256 DoP once the "up to DoP" is set on SonicOrbiter Roon Ready app.

 

Hope this explains the situation, rather convoluted all this I'm afraid--and really appreciate you guys trying to help!

 

OK, then likely reason is the Rendu's kernel missing support for your DAC.

 

If you have a spare microSD card (4 GB is enough), you could try downloading NAA OS image from here, it is the "cubox-i-rendu" one. You need to extract the 7-Zip archive and then write the .img file to the microSD card using balenaEtcher or similar.

 

Then power down Rendu, swap the microSD card, power it up, wait for some 30 seconds or so. You will then need to reselect the DAC from HQPlayer since the NAA's name have changed. But then it could work...

 

[Miska]

37 minutes ago, warrior_on_mars said:

The result is sadly the same as before: 768 PCM works, DSD256 DoP works, DSD512x44.1 Native does not work.

 

OK, likely your DAC would need some manual work to make it work. I would need the stream info from some Linux machine to look more into this. One option for doing such would be to connect DAC directly to your Windows machine and boot some Linux live image, such as Fedora Workstation installation image on your Windows PC. This way you don't need to install Linux on your machine, but could get the necessary information out.

 

37 minutes ago, warrior_on_mars said:

HQPlayer sees three devices: one HDMI, one SPDIF, and one just called Ayre QX-5 Twenty: USB Audio--this is the one I picked. Oddly, as I posted elsewhere there are actually two separate USB hardware ID's:

 

USB\VID_21B4&PID_0232&MI_02
USB\VID_21B4&PID_0232&REV_0200&MI_02

 

as reported by Windows connected directly to the DAC.

 

I am wondering that the first one might be somehow used instead of the REV_0200, could that be the case? Why would there be two hardware ID's I wonder.

 

Hard to say, the other one could be a HID device or similar, but since only one device appears on NAA, there's only one audio endpoint there. It could be also a custom DSD endpoint, which would mean the device would need a more custom driver and it would likely work native DSD only on Windows. Hopefully that is not the case.

 

 

[Miska]

If you boot Linux, like Fedora Workstation installation media (contains live OS that you can use without installing), open terminal.

 

Then first run "aplay -l" to see list of audio devices. Take note on card number of your DAC.

 

Then do "cat /proc/asound/cardX/stream0" where X is the number from earlier stage. Then send the information here for example, or over email.

 

[Miska]

20 minutes ago, warrior_on_mars said:

cat /proc/asound/card2/stream0

Ayre Acoustics, Inc. Ayre QX-5 Twenty at usb-0000:4a:00.3-4.1, high speed : USB Audio

 

This looks like a regular device. It should even work with auto-detection. But I'll make another NAA build soon and I can hardcode this native DSD support there.

 

[Miska]

4 minutes ago, Outlaw said:

Running HQPlayer embedded  server on Jammy.Have a intel nuc to run as a naa.What version do I download to boot the naa image on a USB stick ?

 

naa-430-x64 is the most suitable one.

 

[Miska]

4 minutes ago, Outlaw said:

Yes but what image do I download ?

 

The one I stated is at the moment latest. The .7z archive, which you need to extract with 7-Zip or something else capable of extracting such.

 

[Miska]

On 2/9/2023 at 6:51 PM, warrior_on_mars said:

This is great news indeed, and it will be likely a very fortunate end to this story. Many thanks!

 

There is now NAA OS image version 4.3.1 for CuBox-i / Rendu with the needed change. Please give it a try and let me know if it works!

 

[Miska]

Just now, musicjunkie917 said:

Is that the only change for this release?

 

Overall OS update. Only networkaudiod change is for macOS version CoreAudio backend to work around a bug Apple introduced in Ventura for Intel Macs.

 

But I will update the other images once I know this particular additional patch works.

 

I backported couple of Linux kernel fixes to x64 too. This CuBox-i/Rendu image uses very recent 5.15.91 kernel which already has those.

 

I will also drop 5.10 kernel for ramfs and build ramfs image also with 5.15 kernel.

 

[Miska]

4.2.5 should be mostly good. Changes are mostly on input side, but I have not heard anybody using Rendu for input.

 

 

One more thing, my current plan is to include out of box support for Holo Red on NAA OS. It already works, but requires one change to config.txt. I've been running NAA OS on Holo Red now for couple of days and it has been working great, so far tested up to DSD512 (through I2S to SMSL M400 so far).

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, robi20064 said:

I know it is slightly off topic, but what is your initial impression on the Red so far?

 

It's in line with rest of Holo Audio gear. Same robustness and works nicely what I've tried. I will do more testing, it's been here only couple of days so far.

 

Next thing to test is to see if I can make it keep up with 32x PCM and DSD1024. But so far flawless to DSD512 with NAA OS (DACs I've tried so far are limited to DSD512).

 

[Miska]

6 minutes ago, robi20064 said:

What is the average CPU load when doing native DSD512 via NAA?

 

On Red? I don't know, I don't have any terminal access enabled at the moment. But no drop-outs so far...

 

(I just wrote NAA OS to microSD, modified config.txt and booted it up - pretty straightforward)

 

config.txt modification according to Red manual, but I also commented out the line in NAA OS that enables the GPU (not needed - no display output.

 

[Miska]

13 minutes ago, robi20064 said:

Yes, on Red. I'm interested about how it compares to some of the ARM based solutions like Rendus or SMS-200 or Zen Stream.

 

For CPU loads, it should match any other RPi4 NAA. It is the same CPU after all, RPi4 Compute Module, sitting on custom motherboard with networking, DDC and USB interface to the DAC. And of course it's own PSU.

 

Technically it can also run HQPlayer OS with HQPlayer Embedded (to be tested later). But I don't know if it has any extra cooling attached, so it may run into thermal throttling in that use case if there's no attached extra cooling.

 

[Miska]

23 minutes ago, robi20064 said:

Yea, but I only have RPI3 based ones at home right now. If you could check it sometimes later and share, that would be nice. 

 

I can check on regular RPi4 at some point, it is easier with display and keyboard. Although you can enable ssh on the generic NAA OS images, but that is easy only when you have console access.

 

[Miska]

15 hours ago, Chanh said:

Hopefully, Jussi will incorporate it in the next release of NAA OS. 🙏

 

I cannot, that is specific to a specific set of hardware. It is not universal that would work for every case out there.

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, Apollo said:

Another question related to HQplayer OS.

If I build a HQplayer server running HQPlayer OS, can I then use Cuda offload?

and how are Nvidia drivers installed/updated.

 

No, HQPlayer OS doesn't support CUDA and the Nvidia drivers are incompatible with the realtime kernel used in HQPlayer OS.

 

If you'd like to use CUDA, you should instead use minimal Ubuntu Server 22.04 or Fedora 37 Server Minimal. And install the headless server Nvidia driver package there. Ubuntu offers official low latency kernel that is fine. Or if you'd like to use my custom kernel there, I offer it packaged for Ubuntu.

 

[Miska]

9 hours ago, Rovo said:

if I wanted to make the above changes to the NAA X64 ramfs (image), which steps would I need to take?

 

It is pretty cumbersome. First you need to unpackage the ramfs image, modify it, then package it back.