HQ Player

[brightonjel]

Anyone tried creating a native Mac OS RAM disk and seeing if that works as well? How much space does HQPlayer need to run with files that are not in the RAM partition?

[brightonjel]

+1 for that. Be very interesting to see what the differences are. If I remember the specs, even then the DSD stream from HQP would still be oversampled again inside the Directstream to 10x DSD rates (5x DSD 128?)

[brightonjel]

For those using Mac RAM Disks ...

 

Here's a script that takes a HQP playlist (previously saved into a file you can select) and copies those files into a RAM disk. The idea is that you can automate populating a RAM disk with music and then just drag-and-drop those file into HQP for playing. As always, provided without warranty or support, and YMMV depending on where your files live! (And a few tracks might fail because of naming strings that Finder in Mac OS doesn't like, but they seem to be fairly limited edge cases.) It assumes an initial size for the RAM disk, which you can change or otherwise extract from your pre-existing RAM disk.

 

 

set the_file to choose file with prompt "Select the playlist: "

set RAMApp_MB to 3584

set RAMmusic_size to (1024 * 1024 * RAMApp_MB)

set file_count to 0

 

 

open for access the_file

try

repeat

read the_file until "/"

set the_filename_string to read the_file before linefeed

display dialog "Copying Track: " & return & the_filename_string buttons {"Cancel"} giving up after 3 with title "Copying Files => RAM Disk"

 

set file_path to (POSIX file the_filename_string) as alias

 

tell application "Finder"

set track_size to size of file file_path

set RAMmusic_size to (RAMmusic_size - track_size)

set RAMApp_MB to (RAMApp_MB - (track_size / (1024 * 1024)))

if RAMmusic_size ≤ 0 then

set error_number to 6666

exit repeat

end if

duplicate file file_path to disk "RAMApp"

set file_count to (file_count + 1)

end tell

end repeat

 

close access the_file

if error_number = 6666 then display dialog "RAM space exceeded. " & file_count & " copied before closing."

 

on error error_message number error_number

close access the_file

if error_number is -39 then

display dialog "Copying Complete! " & return & file_count & " tracks loaded." & return & "RAM remaining: " & (round RAMApp_MB) & " Mb"

else if error_number is -15267 then

display dialog "This track already exists - copying stopped." & return & "File: " & the_filename_string

else

display dialog "An error has occured:-" & return & error_message

end if

 

end try

[brightonjel]

I see something similar. On first starting I can load a playlist from a file no problem. Clear that playlist, though, and now I can't get any playlist to load from a file.

 

J

[brightonjel]

Hi Jussi,

 

I just tried the following with 3.8.1: open HQP, click on the folder icon to open a playlist and load from a file (which works), clear the playlist, and then try again to load the same list by clicking on the open file icon. This time the playlist doesn't load. However, if you drag the playlist to the HQP window then it does load. (And it's not the playlist itself because no playlist now works from the open folder icon.)

[brightonjel]

I've been having issues of late too, but am having a hard time nailing down the cause. I used to be able to run 2xDSD up sampling from Red Book with no issues, and that on an 8Gb i5 Mac laptop. Then the logic board died on my MacBook Pro and was replaced, and at the same time I took the latest Yosemite update (10.10.5) as well as HQP 3.8.2. Now I get dropouts but can't pin down if the cause is the hardware replacement, the OS update, or the latest release of HQP.

 

Here's hoping someone out there comes up with a plausible thing that's causing it ...

[brightonjel]

Just downloaded 3.10 (Mac OSK 10.11) and tried out the new Closed Form Interpolator with both DSD 7 and ASDM 7, up sampling Red Book CD to 2xDSD. There's an underlying low-level popping noise that's continuously there every second or so. Anyone else hearing that? (Feeding Geek Pulse via USB)

[brightonjel]

On my Macbook laptop (2.4 Ghz i5, 8GB, running OS X 10.11), cutting the DSD output rate so it was up sampling RB CD to 1xDSD instead of 2xDSD made no difference - the periodic low-level popping noise is still there with the Closed Form filter option. Even copying a music track to the desktop and having HQP play this instead of getting the track from my NAS via the network still produced the same result.

[brightonjel]

Definitely fixed the low-level popping noise with closed-form filter and no SDM on Mac - thanks, Jussi!

[brightonjel]

I don't believe that LH has yet released a firmware update that supports DSD256, and therefore that 128 is as high as it goes. My Pulse supports 128DSD for 5.6 Mhz (integer scaled from 44.1) and 6.2 (scaled from 48).

[brightonjel]

Great! Means you get to debug it first and then I'll download it once it's working and a production release! Deal! :-)

I signed up for beta test...

[brightonjel]

A bit off-topic, but I had a chance to listen to Chord's new Dave DAC at a launch event last week (they also launched Mojo, essentially the Hugo electronics in a package the size of a pack of cards). There was also a short presentation by Rob Watt, the independent designer Chord use for their digital devices. Dave is using a 28nm Xilinx FPHA that gives RW 166 DSP cores with which to do interpolation, filtering, etc. Alas, I don't have any copies of the slides, but I do remember that 17th order noise shaping was used and there was a very interesting configuration on the output amp that I hadn't seen before. RW is in the "it's most important to get the transient timing right", also following the path other UK manufacturers hold to which is that the ear can discern timing differences equivalent to 250khz sampling rates, and it's this that's important, more so than frequency range. He has also produced a device (approx $13,000 BTW) that has some of the lowest noise figures I've ever seen, with a basic device noise floor down at -150 db and an extremely clean-looking -127db A weighted result with a 1 kHz signal at 2.5 v output. RW was adamant that removing music modulations appearing in the sound floor is crucial as it's this that greatly contributes to opening up a 3D level of imaging. RW is also working on an A to D box for Chord that runs at 768khz and so Dave also offers that sampling rate too, the hope being that, a bit like MQA, there's the chance of really pulling together the entire recording-to-reproduction chain, offering the listener a chance to hear what the performer (or recording engineer, at least!) really wanted to have conveyed.

 

Sound? The most impressive thing was a) sound staging, b) detail retrieval, and c) image depth. On every recording (even the bad ones), you could hear deep into the acoustic space it was recorded in, be it live or studio. Instruments set back on a stage in, say, a classical concert, really were set back there! The system also extracted detail I'd previously missed in tracks that I thought I knew extremely well, and did so with 44.1k RBCD.

 

I've heard quite a few very high end systems over the years (and this was paired by Chord amps and Estelon speakers, call it $100k total) but have never heard a sound stage quite like it. Now, this was one incredibly revealing system, perhaps more than was comfortable at times. However, I would say that I've never really gelled with the big Chord amps and would love to hear the same set up but with something different in the middle. The Estelon XAs are neutral and fast, but the amps just seem to squeeze the color out of some tracks, which for me is a bit too much of a trade off in return for huge reserves of power.

 

(Oh, and the input was SPDIF from a Soloos server BTW)

[brightonjel]

I wonder what does this marketing blurb have to do with HQPlayer?

 

You mentioned Chord w.r.t. the closed from filter, so just posting some (and as I said, off topic) impressions of their latest developments. I own no Chord gear, am not associated with them, and am not promoting them. That is all.

[brightonjel]

Alas, my MacBook doesn't have an nVidia card so couldn't really test the latest beta in any meaningful way. However, I did experiment with closed form this afternoon and found something very interesting. I was listening to a recent 96/24 recording of Mozart's Requiem, up sampled to 384 kHz PCM. Along the way, I somehow selected 9th order noise shaping - and found it to be a night-and-day difference over 5th order. The sound stage deepened and a ringing around each voice disappeared. Now it really sounded like a live acoustic venue, with voices from different parts of the choir co-located in space, and it was much easier to judge who was to the front and who was to the rear. Instruments were clear and much more, well, musical. Of course, this was a decent digital download (2003, Linn Recordings, if memory serves) so being played in a non-apodising form was likely a good match, but even so.

 

Anyone else tried modern-day, acoustic-venue recordings and found the same thing, or am I off my head? Given the degree of improvement, I'd love to hear what 12th or 15th order sounded like (hint, hint ..) :-)

 

John

[brightonjel]

I seem to have encountered a different problem with 3.13.2. Playing through a playlist and clicking on the "Previous Track" button on the second (or subsequent) track causes HQP to hang with the whirling disk. Have to force quit to recover. Closed Form, NS5, Auto, Auto, all running on latest OS X release. Anyone else seeing this?

[brightonjel]

Just loaded 3.13.3 on the latest Mac OS X (10.11.4). The "Previous Track" button, when used on, say, track 2 out of 3, still locks-up HQP with a force quit being the only option to recover. No biggie, but still a bug in this release.

[brightonjel]

Log file sent to [email protected].

 

J

[brightonjel]

Is there some technical reason why the 16M tap closed form version isn't offered for PCM upsampling?  I see it as an option for SDM, but for PCM only the closed-form-M is offered as an option?

[brightonjel]

Thanks!

 

[brightonjel]

I just tried 4.0.1 (Mac Mini, Mojave 10.14.4) and this release seems to have fixed the connectivity problem I was having.  HQP 4 desktop can now see the NAA and the attached DAC.  Thanks for the prompt fix!

[brightonjel]

Just tried 4.0.3 (on latest Mac OS .. 10.14.15) but have found that I can no longer adjust the volume of the DAC from HQPlayer (or from Room).  Everything else seems to work ok.  Anyone else seeing the same issue?  Am using NAA (microrendu) over Ethernet as the back end.

[brightonjel]

Ah ha - unchecking that box fixed it!  Didn't think to look there because I don't use DSD files or DSD upsampling much, if ever.

 

Thanks, Miska.

 

[brightonjel]

OK, here's what happened .. there was a dialogue box that appeared upon first install warning about volume and DirectDSD being checked, but it was hidden behind the splash screen on my laptop.  I noticed something when I first ran the .dmg process so decided to investigate further.  Reinstalled 4.0.3 but this time with a second screen attached, and this time saw the warning dialogue box come up.