HQ Player

Geoffrey Armstrong · November 6, 2014

Hooray!!! These new versions do exactly what I wanted. They automatically start to play a playlist when it is loaded into HQPlayer from the OS. This allows my scripts to play Qobuz and other streams through HQP with just a tap on the iPad when selecting an album or playlist.

Thanks so much Miska. This deserves a glass of Champagne, or at least a beer

I will update my blog on Lossless streaming services to show that one of the two hurdles to get seamless streaming services working through HQP has now been cleared.

The other one will involve persuading Qobuz to increase the time limit before their URL's expire.

geoff

Geoffrey Armstrong · November 10, 2014

I went back to 3.4 on Mac with 3.5 audio quality, especially at low frequencies worse

similar experience?

Personally I'm loving the sound of of 3.5 and especially the new modulator ASDM5. It seems to create a richer more natural sound than DSD7, without giving up any of the precision and detail I've got used to with the poly-sinc filter, when upping to DSD128 or 256. It's a have your cake and eat it situation.

The advantages of HQP over other players is now more obvious on lesser systems, to my ears. Versions prior to 3.5 were clearly superior; but you needed a fairly high rez system to really appreciate the difference.

This version does seem to be more demanding of resources though. At least that seems to be the case when streaming over the net from Qobuz and Subsonic.

When you run activity monitor on your Mac can you see if versions 3.4 and 3.5 differ in the CPU percentage they're using? If so, this could be impacting SQ negatively for you, depending on what percentage of CPU 3.5 is using on your machine.

Just a thought.

geoff

Geoffrey Armstrong · November 10, 2014

ASDM5 is little bit heavier than the earlier modulator variants, because it is more complex. But otherwise with same settings 3.5 shouldn't be heavier, but actually lighter.

OK, thanks Miska. I've been using ASDM5 heavily, so that explains it.

BTW, is there a way to make the choice between PCM and SDM stick between one launch of HQP and the next?

On Windows at the moment it keeps reverting to PCM when what I want is SDM. On Mac it seems to be respecting the last chosen option (SDM in my case).

Geoffrey Armstrong · November 11, 2014

Are you streaming Qoboz through HQP? How are you doing that? I've only been able to get it to play through it's own library that it creates off my NAS (or drag and drop which is sort of the same thing since the file is on the NAS/local).

Sorry I seem to have missed this message. You need to download and install XBMC, then from within XBMC go to System -> Addons -> Get Addons -> XBMC.org Addons -> Music and install the Qobuz XBMC add-on. With that installed and enabled go to Music -> Addons -> Qobuz XBMC -> and choose add on settings. Fill in your user name and password for the Qobuz HiFi service then under "Stream" make sure "flac" is chosen. Finally go the Audiophile section. This is the part I added to the Qobuz XBMC add-on to get Qobuz to play through HQP.

Turn on the Audiophile option here.

You wil also need to make HQP the default app for launching m3u files. That's it!

I will be adding some screen shots to my blog page over the coming days which should make it easier to understand.

geoff

Geoffrey Armstrong · November 12, 2014

I listened to ASDM5 today and compared it with DSD7 (which has been my favorite) listening to violin classical, and Astrid Gilberto

for me DSD 7 is like a high resolution photograph, whilst ASDM5 is like a fine impressionist painting. On harsh recordings, ASDM5 sands off the rough edges, and makes them un fatiguing. For good recordings, DSD7 is still my absolute favorite, the detail is amazing

the range of sound styles available with HQ Player is very broad.

my 2 cents with my old ears listening on MAC Pro > Exasound E22 > Hypex NCore > KEF Blades at Geoff Armstrong's Sound Galeries

I meant to play you some tracks from Agnes Obel's Philharmonics album where I feel ASDM5 really shines in making her voice and the piano sound more natural.

Oh well ... Next time.

I agree DSD7 sounds more true to life on most recordings though.

Geoffrey Armstrong · November 30, 2014

I'm trying out a trial version and am surprised that with the SOTM SMS-100(just got it) I can up sample everything to DSD256. I thought the SMS would only do DSD128? I am using NAA mode on the SMS and HQPlayer. Any insight?

Thanks

Tony

That's great news Tony. A number of us have been waiting for this. Which DAC are you using? I have the exasound e22, which is DSD256 capable and I will try it with the SOTM SMS-100 tomorrow. It could be that the latest software for the SMS-100 includes the update to ALSA, which is supposed to provide DSD support up to DSD256 without the need for custom drivers.

Thanks.

Geoffrey Armstrong · November 30, 2014

exaSound DACs will require a custom Linux driver, which is on the way...

Yes, of course. Thanks for the clarification Miska.

Geoffrey Armstrong · November 30, 2014

Hi, I'm using the iFi Micro IDSD. So far DSD256 plays flawlessly - I need to use DOP - I think I tried it without and it didn't play - forget so will try again. I use to have the Exasound a few DACs back. Nice DAC. I just sold my Luxman DA-06 to fund a new mountain bike and just got the iFi so not a lot of experience with it but think it's pretty good - especially for the $$. I'm using an SOTM sms1000 or the mbps-d2s battery supply with sms100. I wish there was a JRemote like app available for HQPlayer. I'm not sure I can live without that

That makes sense. It had to be one of the iFi Dac's as Miska just reminded me that the exasounds need custom drivers. Hopefully that means they will work with ASIO via the SOTM.

Geoffrey Armstrong · April 9, 2015

I meant to say a virtual output device... So in TIDAL you could select "HQP" as the output device and in HQP you'd select your DAC.

The implementation where HQP would "read" from an input device is effectively already covered by Geoff's Kodi plugin.

Just to be clear, these are not really the same.

When you talk about HQP "reading" from an input device, if I've understood correctly, this sounds quite similar to J River's live playback feature. With this you ask the originating app (say the Tidal player) to output to one device, such as your built in sound card, then request J River to pick this up as input, further process it, then send it out to your eventual output device (DAC).

My Kodi plug in, by contrast, is simply a way of grabbing the Tidal urls, writing them to a playlist and then asking HQP to open this playlist and begin streaming the encoded files through it's DSP engine straight to your DAC. With this approach HQP effectively becomes the Tidal desktop app (or replaces it).

With the looping input to output approach another layer of complexity is added to the picture. It is a useful approach and I use it for looping internet radio streams through J River (and even better through foo_asio) to improve their sound.

When I compare looping Tidal or Qobuz this way through J River, with using my plug-in and sending the playlist to J River or Foobar (foo_asio) the result using my plug-ins is noticeably better to my ears.

Of course, the best is sending the playlist to HQP.

YMMV though and it's certainly worth trying different approaches.

geoff

Geoffrey Armstrong · April 12, 2015

Exactly - this is the first option.

Ok, I misunderstood what you were doing. Actually your method then is the cleanest possible I can imagine. How does authentication work? Does the url include some sort of temporary key?

Yes, that makes sense.

Does your approach work with the Chrome-based player? Sorry I have not had a chance to try it yet.

To answer your questions:

1/ Yes, the Tidal urls include the necessary authentication.

2/ No it won't work with Chrome player, because that it is a different way of fetching the urls to my Kodi plug-in. You can use the loop through J River approach with any app, including chrome, if you wish; but the sound will be inferior to my plug-in for Kodi.

geoff

Geoffrey Armstrong · April 19, 2015

I know of no music player sold today that doesn't support Alac . It's convenient for me because I have Apple products .

I know of no music player sold today that doesn't support Flac

Apart from iTunes that is.

Seriously though, I think it's a good approach to create a sub-set of your library in aiff if you're an iTunes user.

If you had the disc space I think it would be worth converting your entire library to aiff. It's completely uncompressed and some still feel that sounds better than lossless formats. Unlike standard wav it also supports tags (although some feel wav sounds best).

Best of all though it would allow you to use HQPlayer for your entire library.

Geoffrey Armstrong · April 20, 2015

HQPlayer sounds so much better than other players that I've already switched to FLAC and have not looked back.

A bonus that the Linux version of HQPlayer has is the ability to access iFI iDSD DACs natively (non-DoP). An inexpensive Linux laptop + an iDSD Nano @DSD256 = extremely good sound quality for the money.

On Windows too. I think it's only Mac where the iFi's are limited to DoP

Geoffrey Armstrong · April 20, 2015

This worked:

H:\>"C:\Program Files (x86)\Signalyst\HQPlayer Desktop 3\hqp-control.exe" localhost "file:///G:\AUDIO\Dire Straits\DireStraits - Money For Nothing (FLAC)\playlist.m3u8"

OK

H:\>

Aah, thanks Bogi. I was able to add urls; but not playlist files. Your example shows me where I was going wrong. I forgot to add the "file:///" part to indicate a local uri.

Geoff

Geoffrey Armstrong · April 21, 2015

Yes, there's a command line controller "hqp-control" included for all supported OS (/Applications/HQPlayerDesktop.app/Contents/MacOS/hqp-control). There was a mistake in OS X packaging of the utility, so I rebuilt the DMG earlier today. Please re-download if you'd like to try it out.

I can confirm the latest Mac version works well for me. I can now get both playlists and urls to load on all OS's using the new hqp-control. My new code for Tidal is almost ready.

I am eagerly awaiting the inclusion of a "play" command. Without that when I send the first track or batch of tracks using hqp=control playback does not automatically commence.

My solution in the meantime will be to open HQPlayerDesktop with the playlist containing that first batch of tracks and then add subsequent tracks using hqp-control.

That got me wondering about the possibility of adding a fake silent track at the beginning for the filter setup (which can be long for certain filters).

Miska, can you please advise what would be the minimum requirement for this fake initialisation track? Would an 8 second silent .wav track be enough to set up the filters?

If so this could be in progress while the first track(s) are in preparation to load, so the first "real" track would be good to go.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

geoff

Geoffrey Armstrong · April 21, 2015

I can confirm the latest Mac version works well for me. I can now get both playlists and urls to load on all OS's using the new hqp-control. My new code for Tidal is almost ready.

I am eagerly awaiting the inclusion of a "play" command. Without that when I send the first track or batch of tracks using hqp=control playback does not automatically commence.

My solution in the meantime will be to open HQPlayerDesktop with the playlist containing that first batch of tracks and then add subsequent tracks using hqp-control.

That got me wondering about the possibility of adding a fake silent track at the beginning for the filter setup (which can be long for certain filters).

Miska, can you please advise what would be the minimum requirement for this fake initialisation track? Would an 8 second silent .wav track be enough to set up the filters?

If so this could be in progress while the first track(s) are in preparation to load, so the first "real" track would be good to go.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

geoff

I'm replying to myself because I answered my own question

The short silent track solution does indeed work for initial set-up of filters.

Geoffrey Armstrong · April 21, 2015

Yes, there's a command line controller "hqp-control" included for all supported OS (/Applications/HQPlayerDesktop.app/Contents/MacOS/hqp-control). There was a mistake in OS X packaging of the utility, so I rebuilt the DMG earlier today. Please re-download if you'd like to try it out.

I ran into a problem while testing my code for Tidal.

I can use hqp-control to drop a new playlist of urls or individual urls onto HQPlayerDesktop's windows while the last of the previous track(s) is playing. Then what I want to happen is that playback would advance to the first of the new batch of tracks (or single track)

I've just dropped.

Instead playback gets screwed up and re-commences again from the first track of the previous batch.

Can you please look into this?

The way it's working at the moment, I will still have to quit and re-start HQPlayer Desktop when I want to load a new batch of tracks.

Basically what I need is automatic playback from the first of the new tracks dropped as soon as the currently playing track from the previous bunch of tracks has completed.

Thanks,

Geoff

Geoffrey Armstrong · April 21, 2015

Geoff, how about clearing the current playlist first then dropping in the new one, just an idea?

I've tried that. The problem, I think, is that the only way HQPlayer can be made to start playback is to open a new instance of it with a playlist. That's what I've been doing up until now.

Hopefully when Miska implements full playback control through hqp-control, I'll be able to get this to work in the desired way.

Geoffrey Armstrong · April 21, 2015

This is what should happen already? Every time you insert something, it gets appended to the current playlist. If you insert a playlist it gets appended to the end of the current one. Adding things to the playlist doesn't have effect on the ongoing playback, playback should keep going as long as there are more tracks on the playlist.

You can also call clear before appending more to clean up the already played content, as long as last track of the playlist is being played.

Edit: OK, it seems there is bug when appending a playlist. Adding files or directories works correctly...

I can add urls instead of playlists while you're fixing this bug. I thought I'd tried it with urls and had the same problem. Will test this again though.

Thanks,

Geoff

Geoffrey Armstrong · April 22, 2015

This is what should happen already? Every time you insert something, it gets appended to the current playlist. If you insert a playlist it gets appended to the end of the current one. Adding things to the playlist doesn't have effect on the ongoing playback, playback should keep going as long as there are more tracks on the playlist.

You can also call clear before appending more to clean up the already played content, as long as last track of the playlist is being played.

Edit: OK, it seems there is bug when appending a playlist. Adding files or directories works correctly...

After further testing, I feel this is relying too much on exact timing. It seems the last track needs to still be playing before we drop another track(s) with hqp-control for playback of the new tracks to start automatically. (After the when the last track has finished).

What I feel is really needed is that whenever a new track or set of tracks is dropped onto the end of the playlist with hqp-control, then playback will…

…Either Commence immediately starting from the first track of the new batch of tracks, if nothing is currently playing in HQPlayerDesktop.

…or if a track is currently playing in HQPlayerDesktop, wait for that track to stop playing, before playing the first track of the next batch, then start playing from the first track of the new batch.

At the moment, if I drop new tracks and nothing is currently playing in HQPlayerDesktop, the new tracks just sit there and playback has to be started manually.

Playback should commence automatically for any tracks dropped by hqp-control, in my view, because that is the point of hqp-control, except the new tracks should not interrupt the last track playing from the old batch.

If you can provide full playback control (play,pause, stop) in hqp-control, that should provide the answer, I think .

Thanks,

Geoff

Geoffrey Armstrong · April 22, 2015

Yes, I will add that. This current implementation was last minute addition because I wanted to get the other fixes out fast. Note that play/pause is combo-control (I think A+ had the same). So if you ask to play while already playing it will trigger pause. I'll also add support for asking position/state information.

Thanks Miska, that sounds good. I understand it was a very quick addition and it already shows a lot of potential. With those controls in place I think it'll work very well for everyone.

geoff

Geoffrey Armstrong · May 26, 2015

Geoff, bogi,

I have now following items implemented in "hqp-control":

hqp-control <host> <--playlist-remove <index>|--playlist-move-up <index>|--playlist-move-down <index>|--playlist-clear|--select-track <index>|--play|--pause|--stop|--previous|--next|--backward|--forward|--seek <position>|--volume-down|--volume-up|--mute|--volume <value>|--state|--status|uri>

Does this look enough, or is there something more that should be there? Difference between "state" and "status" is that first one returns the current state/position while latter one keeps printing out the information until playback stops (at the end of playlist/album).

Only just seen this as just returned from travels. This looks like more than enough for my needs. I'll implement full support for hqp-control in my add-ons for kodi and the script for iTunes.

Thanks Miska!

Geoff

Geoffrey Armstrong · May 27, 2015

@Miska+all : So there's another question left now. If I make the standard program for flac in WIN eg. Adobe Audition, if I open a flac file Audition starts. If I double click another file the file is just loaded into the already open Audition instance. This is not the case if I make HQP the standard app for flac. Everytime a flac file is opened a new instance of HQP is started. This is generating too much resource overhead. If it would be possible that the clicked files would load into the already opened instance that would solve nearly ALL problems regarding using another library manager and HQP as Player. It's not that cool if I have to drag&drop something in my audio pc environment. It would be great if I can use any theater view or how they're named of JRiver, Kodi, whatever application and if HQP is checked as standard app for flac files they would all be played through HQP...

You could try this:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/86110007/software/plugin.audio.supersonic.zip

It's a Kodi/Subsonic solution I wrote similar to my Tidal Audiophile addon.

It works well for me and we were using it at Munich High-End.

HQ Player

Recommended Posts

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

Create an account

Sign in