HQPlayer's Network Audio Adapter

[Miska]

OK. Could you please tell me what Debian and deamon versions an Oct '14 Cubox image has.

 

My images are not Debian-based and don't contain any package management or such, minimized to the essentials. The images are just to be written to a microSD and used, unmodified. You update by dumping new image.

 

For Debian, you need to start from scratch and install the provided networkaudiod Debian package on fresh OS installation. You can get the OS installer images from here:

Studenten Net Twente - Index of /debian/dists/testing/main/installer-armhf/current/images/hd-media/SD-card-images/

Then it is up to you to modify and maintain the microSD contents in way you like.

[niner93]

I just got a brand new BBB from Amazon. I flashed naa-321-beaglebone image on a 32GB SD card and forced BBB to boot from it. I can see the login screen on the HDMI display. However, HQplayer (running on a Windows PC) couldn't find the NAA. HQplayer had no problem finding networkaudiod running on another Linux PC, so I know it should work. I tried the 311 image, same issue: HQplayer couldn't locate the NAA BBB. I booted the stock image on BBB, and it has no problem ping the internet, so I know ethernet port is not the problem.

 

Any suggestion on what to check?

[Miska]

Any suggestion on what to check?

 

Please make sure your DAC is connected and powered up during boot. If there are no audio devices, the NAA won't be listed.

 

During the boot there is report about the IP address it gets from DHCP. This may be easier to spot on the 3.11 image...

 

What DAC do you have?

[niner93]

Please make sure your DAC is connected and powered up during boot. If there are no audio devices, the NAA won't be listed.

 

During the boot there is report about the IP address it gets from DHCP. This may be easier to spot on the 3.11 image...

 

What DAC do you have?

 

 

Thanks Miska! you just nailed it. I didn't turned on my DAC, not knowing it is necessary for the naa to list. Which leads to a different question: if I switch DAC, do I need to reboot the BBB?

[Forehaven]

I want to try this out on a mac mini, what exact image am I supposed to use? And do I have this right: load to SD card and boot off this?

 

Index of /bins/naa/v3/images/

 

../ 04-Jan-2016 23:10 -

foss-src/ 15-Mar-2016 00:01 -

naa-311-beaglebone.zip 04-Jan-2016 23:46 10964994

naa-311-cubox-i.zip 04-Jan-2016 23:46 13001710

naa-311-raspberrypi.zip 04-Jan-2016 23:46 34120640

naa-311-raspberrypi2.zip 04-Jan-2016 23:46 34510873

naa-321-beaglebone.zip 15-Mar-2016 00:02 22323996

naa-321-cubox-i.zip 15-Mar-2016 00:02 27157870

[Freann]

NAA On OSX – just run the NAA app:

Index of /bins/naa/v3/osx/

[Superdad]

I want to try this out on a mac mini, what exact image am I supposed to use? And do I have this right: load to SD card and boot off this?

 

Index of /bins/naa/v3/images/

 

../ 04-Jan-2016 23:10 -

foss-src/ 15-Mar-2016 00:01 -

naa-311-beaglebone.zip 04-Jan-2016 23:46 10964994

naa-311-cubox-i.zip 04-Jan-2016 23:46 13001710

naa-311-raspberrypi.zip 04-Jan-2016 23:46 34120640

naa-311-raspberrypi2.zip 04-Jan-2016 23:46 34510873

naa-321-beaglebone.zip 15-Mar-2016 00:02 22323996

naa-321-cubox-i.zip 15-Mar-2016 00:02 27157870

 

None of those images will work for an Intel Mac mini.

 

And if someone ever figures our how to get a Linux install to boot a Mac mini from an SD card, please PM me instructions. USB sticks, no problem. SD card, no way that I have ever found--and I tried a bunch.

[Superdad]

NAA On OSX – just run the NAA app:

Index of /bins/naa/v3/osx/

 

 

I found that OS X NAA does not sound as good as Linux NAA--probably because CoreAudio is still involved on the NAA.

I was able to make a fair comparison on my 2012 Mac mini because over a year ago Miska gave me an image of a his stripped-down, text-only Linux/NAA that would boot my mini (don't ask him for it as I don't think he will give it out and mine is now very out-of-date as it uses networkaudiod 2.0.5).

[Forehaven]

Then even if I boot off USB on the Mini, none of those will work at all?

[Miska]

None of those images will work for an Intel Mac mini.

 

And if someone ever figures our how to get a Linux install to boot a Mac mini from an SD card, please PM me instructions. USB sticks, no problem. SD card, no way that I have ever found--and I tried a bunch.

 

I don't think it is worth using a Mac Mini for NAA. If you like to boot from microSD and want to have x86 platform, something like MinnowBoard MAX is much cheaper and more suitable.

MinnowBoard Wiki

[Miska]

Thanks Miska! you just nailed it. I didn't turned on my DAC, not knowing it is necessary for the naa to list. Which leads to a different question: if I switch DAC, do I need to reboot the BBB?

 

With the latest NAA image, switching the DAC on/off should be fine. But you need to have the DAC up when starting HQPlayer and of course when you want to do some playback. HQPlayer settings dialog doesn't list NAAs, but instead it lists available DACs. If there are no available DACs behind a NAA the NAA doesn't appear on the list at all because there is no device to select.

 

So same as with locally connected case, HQPlayer needs to be able to communicate with the DAC when necessary.

[Forehaven]

I don't think it is worth using a Mac Mini for NAA. If you like to boot from microSD and want to have x86 platform, something like MinnowBoard MAX is much cheaper and more suitable.

MinnowBoard Wiki

 

Jabbr pretty much told me the exact same thing regarding m Mini. Pretty unfortunate.

Thanks, that board is pretty cool, so much on so little

[jabbr]

Yeah, those are cheap enough that it would be a great way for folks to dabble in Linux -- load the NAA onto an SD and go. The Cubox-I is packaged with an enclosure so better.

[Miska]

If there is enough interest, I could make an image that works on MinnowMax and some other boards too.

 

But making a truly generic image that would work on "any" x86 hardware is a bit too complex topic because there is so wide variety of different hardware combinations. For those cases Debian Stretch is a better starting point. An x86 system will have plenty of processing power available to run a normal distro, and Debian recently started providing again a "realtime" kernel variant for Stretch.

[APK]

Hi Miska

I am looking to build a multi-channel DSD system based on Hqplayer over NAA and have only found the DIYINHK XMOS Multichannel PCB that will output multichannel DSD “For the default 192k 8 ch firmware it is dsd64, native and dop for 384k 6 channel firmware it is dsd 128, native and dop “

 

I have read that running under linux you can get multiple stereo USB receivers hooked to the same USB controller

“you can easily join them to create a single multichannel card in linux alsa”

 

And

“Just a short info about merging sound cards for multichannel playback using the alsa "multi" feature.

Theoretically, USB adaptive cards connected to USB controllers timed by the same clock (i.e. controllers in the same chipset, typically those built into the southbridge) should run synchronously.

I took an 8-channel USB card, a 6 channel one, and created a 14 channel multi device in .soundrc, for details see Asoundrc - AlsaProject . I left the virtual device playing on all 14 channels the whole night (playing /dev/urandom through sox) without a single xrun. IMO the two USB cards run synchronously indeed.”

 

 

It looks like it would be possible to run 2 Jsound I2SoverUSB’s at DS256 giving me the 4 channels I require.

Is this something that can be implemented within your NAA linux image? And is this a good idea anyway

Tony

[ted_b]

I have two NAAs that both run multichannel (Windows pc and exaSound Playpoint), not at the same time of course. Both do fine with single USB into my exaSound e28. Or are you trying to stack stereo dacs and synch, like what I did with Mytek?

[APK]

Using active system, doing the xvoer within Hqplayer so L & R hi-pass and low-pass filters so 4 channel out. so yes stack and sync

[Miska]

It looks like it would be possible to run 2 Jsound I2SoverUSB’s at DS256 giving me the 4 channels I require.

Is this something that can be implemented within your NAA linux image? And is this a good idea anyway

 

Those are asynchronous devices, not adaptive. So their clocks will drift vs each other over time and the sound will eventually run more or less badly out of sync. If you modify those to share the same oscillators then it's a different matter and they by definition run in sync.

 

However, for multichannel it is better to use some true multichannel device, because it depends on your luck to large extent how accurately two different devices end up starting at the same time... So when you hit play, you may not get same result every time.

[tsaett]

Hi,

I'm also new to the NAA thing, not to HQP though.

I have a CAPS Pipeline at the moment with a Pang v2 card installed. Now I'm looking for a cost effective NAA with which I can use this USB card with.

During my search I came across the HummingBoard with a miniPCI slot - is this a good choice for my purpose or are there better substitutes? Does this combination even work? (I have no Linus skills but luckily there are the prebuilt images)

I'm also thinking of powering the NAA from the same LPS (HDPlex) that powers my CAPS, is this a bad idea considering maximum isolation is the reason behind using a NAA?

Thanks,

Christoph

[APK]

Hi Miska, after some further research and reading, by using 2 Amanero boards in slave mode, both clocked from Twisted Pear's cronus reclocking board, this should overcome the timing and startup issues. Apart from the diyhk multi channel USB board I can't find any other USB board!

whats the situation regarding setting up your Linux image, is this possible.

[Miska]

Hi Miska, after some further research and reading, by using 2 Amanero boards in slave mode, both clocked from Twisted Pear's cronus reclocking board, this should overcome the timing and startup issues. Apart from the diyhk multi channel USB board I can't find any other USB board!

 

XMOS has multichannel development board... It is large and not beautiful, but probably does the job too.

 

whats the situation regarding setting up your Linux image, is this possible.

 

This is one of the cases where I recommend using standard Debian Stretch instead...

[APK]

Thanks I will look into the XCore - 200 multichannel audio platform [h=1][/h]

[APK]

Hi Miska

The Development board is over my head, I’ll stick to the DIYHK board.

Just one last thought I came across this thread http://bbb.ieero.com/ which got me thinking, using the Beagle Board Black as the NNA via the LAN you could get direct i2s from the BBB to feed the DAC

It has:-

“The BBB has 4 serializers and each one is capable to generate:

- one stereo I2S channel

- one mono DSD channel

- one stereo SPDIF channel

Using the "serconfig" option the different serializers can be enabled

and thus allows to change channel number and its offset.

Examples:

MMMM ... 8ch I2S output or 4ch DSD output (default)

I--- ... 2ch I2S output on mcasp0_axr0 pin

-I-- ... 2ch I2S output on mcasp0_axr1 pin

--I- ... 2ch I2S output on mcasp0_axr2 pin (old default)

---I ... 2ch I2S output on mcasp0_axr3 pin

DD-- ... 2ch DSD output on mcasp0_axr0 and mcasp0_axr1 pins

MM-- ... 4ch I2S output or 2ch DSD output on mcasp0_axr0 and mcasp0_axr1 pins

--MM ... 4ch I2S output or 2ch DSD output on mcasp0_axr2 and mcasp0_axr3 pins”

Isn’t this the best way of supplying the DAC with the DSD signal? (Dual external clocks are available for the BBB via the Twisted Pear Cronus if required) doing away with the USB layer altogether.

[APK]

Hi just realised I'm talking rubiish please ignore the post above

Tony

[myrnaloy]

Hi,

sorry if this has been answered. I just setup 3 NAA in the house. In the overview it mentions Multiroom as an aspect of HQPlayer but i am unclear on how to stream to more than one NAA at once. Is this actually possible?