HQ Player

[Forehaven]

Thanks everyone for trying to help!

 

Did you try with cuda disabled? The 6700K can handle it easy on its own. I tried enabling it and where it ran flawlessly without, with it started stuttering (yes too slow a geforce).

 

Tried, no luck.

 

I have both the IFI microDSD and the T+A running at DSD512 here with a very similar spec 6700k machine. I have no graphics card and there is no skipping with HQplayer at all with either DAC.

 

Great to hear lmitche!

 

You can increase the buffer setting in HQP. Someone above has theirs at 200. Does your ASIO driver have a control panel with settable buffer? It may be preferable to increase it there.

 

Tried, no luck.

 

Heck, even DoP 256 (11.289600) and it's skipping. Poly sinc -2, ASDM7. Cuda on and off, buffer time 0-200, all to no avail.

 

Not listenable, what a bummer...

[ted_b]

You can increase the buffer setting in HQP. Someone above has theirs at 200. Does your ASIO driver have a control panel with settable buffer? It may be preferable to increase it there.

 

As I said in quoted post, I tried playing with HQP's buffer. We will try other settings once I teamview in again. ASIO drive console is unknown cuz he hasn't done it yet (other Windows ifi Micro users can chime in). The direct raw DSD we were playing with was Linux (microRendu) which doesn't have a buffer I am Linux-competent enough to find. He is going to try without NAA (i.e ASIO from his new Win10 Microcenter machine) just to start isolating.

 

Chris, ping me whenever you want to give it another go.

 

Edit: Chris and I were typing at same time. His latest responses are more timely of course.

[timtom]

FWIW I was having lots of dropouts over wifi to microrendu, but with Ethernet hardwired from computer to router to microrendu so far problem resolved.

[lmitche]

This sounds like it may be a network issue. One circumstance I've noticed, even with directly connected machines with no switch, is that packets may route from the music server back to the router, and then back through the music server to the player PC. The setup gets even uglier in various file sharing modes. Traceroute is your friend here.

[Freann]

FWIW I was having lots of dropouts over wifi to microrendu, but with Ethernet hardwired from computer to router to microrendu so far problem resolved.

 

I discovered my router – Apple Extreme (tall) – was too slow switching between wifi and ethernet introducing dropouts. A faster gaming router solved that (Netgear R8000).

[rickca]

Miska, I have a 15" mid-2012 rMBP. What is a reasonable PCM --> DSD target rate (DoP of course) for that machine, and which filters should I try?

 

I'm planning to build a new i7-6700K Windows 10 machine. I've been waiting for GTX 1070 because I use the system for gaming when I'm not using it for audio. Right now I've only got an ancient E8500 4GB Windows 10 machine. Is it capable of doing any level of PCM-->DSD conversion?

[rickca]

Thanks to ted_b, hifial, lmitche and firedog for your input about how to get acquainted with DSD without initially spending a lot on a DAC. This is for my secondary play-around-with-stuff system where I learn about the potential of new software and hardware.

 

So lmitche, you said you have DSD512 working on both a T+A DAC8 DSD and on an iFi micro iDSD. The question is will the micro iDSD give me a reasonable idea of the potential of DSD512 vs 24/192 PCM? If this is a worthwhile learning experience, there's currently a 20% off deal out there on the micro iDSD.

[Miska]

I finally was able to try the latest beta version of HQ. The CUDA offload didn't kick in and as a result I got stuttering. Switched back to stable version, and no problem.

 

CUDA support is disabled in the beta versions, pending final release of CUDA 8 SDK. The old CUDA 7.5 SDK doesn't work anymore with other latest development tools.

[Miska]

I see that when I start HQPlayer, it defaults to PCM. This is not the best situation with Roon if you use a DSD only DAC. Could you make an option for choosing as default PCM or SDM?

 

HQPlayer remembers the last selected output mode across restarts, but those may become reset if the output device is lost.

[Miska]

Being a Mac user, I badly needed help. And TedB came thru in a big way and spent over an hr with me on the phone and TeamViewer. We got it all setup finally. However, using HQP, I'm having skipping using SDM Pack on None - 256. Yet, no skipping using DoP 256. The settings used were poly sinc 2s, ASDM7, Pipline SDM, CUDA offload. CPU usage at attempting DSD512 was about 30-19%. So I have plenty of computing power, yet the skipping.

 

Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks,

Chris

 

Side Note: Has any iFi Micro DSD users actually ever achieved DSD512?

 

First make it work without NAA locally and only then add NAA, otherwise you have too many variables to troubleshoot. With 6700K and -2s filters it should work fine without CUDA offload too. Just make sure Pipeline SDM is enabled (always essential when using CUDA).

 

Everything looks OK, but with iFi ASIO driver make sure to do following procedure:

1) Make sure "Buffer time" in HQPlayer is set to "Default"

2) Open the iFi ASIO driver control panel from HQPlayer Tools-menu

3) Set buffer size to maximum possible in the iFi driver (IIRC, 8192)

 

(iFi ASIO driver has one fault - the set of available buffer sizes is designed for 44.1k - 192k sampling rates, for higher rates the buffer sizes end up being pretty small and demanding, however this is not a problem on Linux devices such as µRendu)

 

And yes, I have huge amount of playback hours with iDSD Micro @DSD512 on my Linux workstation where I do almost all development. It has hundreds or not thousands of playback hours. iDSD Micro is connected through fixed level line-out to Fostex HP-A8C headphone amp for listening with Sennheiser HD800 headphones.

 

Overall, I don't have microRendu, so I cannot give any detailed help on device specifics about it. Has someone tried if it works at DSD512?

[Forehaven]

Thanks Jussi, another long session with Ted didn't go well. We did exactly as you suggested, and have the DAC directly connected via USB to the computer. Problem is, the PC won't open iFi's driver, 2.26.exe. So HQP cannot see the iFi now. Have posted on iFi's forum for help.

 

Thanks for the help, and btw, I need to transfer this license to the PC, having to reactivate the trial version is bit of a drag.

 

Chris

[Letuchkin]

Forehaven,

 

As you have Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming K6 motherboard and 16GB of memory than you can create RAM-disk using XFast RAM tool (part of F-Stream Tuning Utility) and try to play music from it.

I always use RAM-disk (XFast RAM) because I can hear improvement in SQ but I remember that it help me to solve problem with stuttering in DSD512->DSD128 conversion on my previous CPU (Core i3 3220).

 

+ You can try to turn off paging file or replace it to RAM-disk.

[ted_b]

Thanks Jussi, another long session with Ted didn't go well. We did exactly as you suggested, and have the DAC directly connected via USB to the computer. Problem is, the PC won't open iFi's driver, 2.26.exe. So HQP cannot see the iFi now. Have posted on iFi's forum for help.

 

Thanks for the help, and btw, I need to transfer this license to the PC, having to reactivate the trial version is bit of a drag.

 

Chris

 

Yeah, we downloaded the newest 2.26 (and later 2.23 when latest wouldn't install) Windows driver. The install process goes fine (i.e finishes in like 3 seconds) but we never get any confirmation and no sign of the driver (with every reboot process imaginable). It doesn't show up in installed software, or in system tray or of course in HQP ASIO list. We tried various dac connections (USB cable, even tried hard adapter). No Antivirus running, nothing. Tried every trick (run as admin, etc). Weird!

[lmitche]

Thanks to ted_b, hifial, lmitche and firedog for your input about how to get acquainted with DSD without initially spending a lot on a DAC. This is for my secondary play-around-with-stuff system where I learn about the potential of new software and hardware.

 

So lmitche, you said you have DSD512 working on both a T+A DAC8 DSD and on an iFi micro iDSD. The question is will the micro iDSD give me a reasonable idea of the potential of DSD512 vs 24/192 PCM? If this is a worthwhile learning experience, there's currently a 20% off deal out there on the micro iDSD.

Yes, worthwhile for sure. At DSD512 the IFI sounds better than any other DAC I've owned, Bryson BDA-2, Auralic Aries, and Mytek Brooklyn.

 

It's too early to compare the IFI to the T+A with only 24 hours of break-in so far. I have a group of CAers coming over next week, and we aim to compare the two.

 

However, the T+A does sound awfully good out of the box.

[Larryng]

Yeah, we downloaded the newest 2.26 (and later 2.23 when latest wouldn't install) Windows driver. The install process goes fine (i.e finishes in like 3 seconds) but we never get any confirmation and no sign of the driver (with every reboot process imaginable). It doesn't show up in installed software, or in system tray or of course in HQP ASIO list. We tried various dac connections (USB cable, even tried hard adapter). No Antivirus running, nothing. Tried every trick (run as admin, etc). Weird!

 

I do not have iFi Micro DSD , I installed v2.26 on another Win 10 and it took me at least a minute to finish with confirmation. The installed driver also show itself on Apps & features list.

[lmitche]

Yes, worthwhile for sure. At DSD512 the IFI sounds better than any other DAC I've owned, Bryson BDA-2, Auralic Aries, and Mytek Brooklyn.

 

It's too early to compare the IFI to the T+A with only 24 hours of break-in so far. I have a group of CAers coming over next week, and we aim to compare the two.

 

However, the T+A does sound awfully good out of the box.

Sorry, I meant the Auralic Vega Dac not the Aries streamer.

[lmitche]

Yeah, we downloaded the newest 2.26 (and later 2.23 when latest wouldn't install) Windows driver. The install process goes fine (i.e finishes in like 3 seconds) but we never get any confirmation and no sign of the driver (with every reboot process imaginable). It doesn't show up in installed software, or in system tray or of course in HQP ASIO list. We tried various dac connections (USB cable, even tried hard adapter). No Antivirus running, nothing. Tried every trick (run as admin, etc). Weird!

Did you download and run Autoruns from Microsoft to see what drivers were loaded? Today I had a sound quality issue after uninstalling the IFI driver and installing the T+A driver. Autoruns showed that the IFI drivers were still loaded. I uninstalled it, rebooted and the problem was fixed.

[gsquared]

Jussi, I am getting a loud pop (it sounds more like lifting a needle off a spinning record with an unsteady hand) at the beginning of new tracks in SDM output mode, however this only happens when I run in native DSD mode. I have read similar reports in this thread, but it seems that people are only hearing this with DoP enabled, not native DSD. I'm experiencing the exact opposite.

 

My setup is:

 

HQPlayer SDM output mode, µRendu/NAA

LH Labs Pulse X DAC w/ updated firmware to support native DSD

 

Again, this noise only happens when I am playing in native DSD, not in DoP - with all other settings the same in HQPlayer.

 

jhwalker pointed out that he gets a similar noise but isn't very loud. In my setup, it's loud, and a few times I got loud white noise after the pop sound.

 

Do you have any ideas what the issue could be?

 

Thanks

Gary

[markjock3]

"And yes, I have huge amount of playback hours with iDSD Micro @DSD512 on my Linux workstation where I do almost all development. It has hundreds or not thousands of playback hours. iDSD Micro is connected through fixed level line-out to Fostex HP-A8C headphone amp for listening with Sennheiser HD800 headphones."

 

Could you share more on the Linux? Is it a particular music serving Linux?

[jelt2359]

I have tried that (and probably every conceivable filter/noise shaping/upsampling combination as well).

 

Just tried closed form/NS9/PCM4x again though. I still feel the same way.

 

Compared to closed form/NS9/PCM4x, no filter and no upsampling sounds more natural, more organic, more holographic, less constricted and has better dynamics and better bass response.

 

It doesn't sound bad with closed form/NS9/PCM4x. It just sounds better the other way.

 

I should reiterate that with all the other DACs I've used with HQPlayer (other than the Yggdrasil), HQPlayer's filters and upsampling blew away what the DACs themselves could do.

 

Just got HQPlayer. I like both "None" and "Gauss1" for noiseshaper, with the nod going a bit in the direction of Gauss1, for my Yggy. No filter.

[Forehaven]

Did you download and run Autoruns from Microsoft to see what drivers were loaded? Today I had a sound quality issue after uninstalling the IFI driver and installing the T+A driver. Autoruns showed that the IFI drivers were still loaded. I uninstalled it, rebooted and the problem was fixed.

 

I just downloaded Autoruns and there's no iFi driver listed at all. "Unbelievable!!" is also my response to you stating the driver loaded just fine...aargh!

[ted_b]

I just downloaded Autoruns and there's no iFi driver listed at all. "Unbelievable!!" is also my response to you stating the driver loaded just fine...aargh!

 

While I won't let this keep me up all night, I also won't let this beat us, Chris. We will figure this out!! It's gotta be something simple.

[a.dent]

I've been using HQ Player for 2 weeks now and I love it.

 

I am converting to DSD 128 and using DoP because seemingly my DAC won't support native DSD or a higher DoP rate.

 

I am getting clicks between every track. It sounds like a relay in the DAC turning off and on between tracks.

 

Is there an adjustment I can make to stop this annoying clicking sound?

[bibo01]

While I won't let this keep me up all night, I also won't let this beat us, Chris. We will figure this out!! It's gotta be something simple.

 

If there is any other ASIO driver in the system, try to remove it.

[bibo01]

I've been using HQ Player for 2 weeks now and I love it.

 

I am converting to DSD 128 and using DoP because seemingly my DAC won't support native DSD or a higher DoP rate.

 

I am getting clicks between every track. It sounds like a relay in the DAC turning off and on between tracks.

 

Is there an adjustment I can make to stop this annoying clicking sound?

 

What DAC is it?