HQ Player

[sfox7076]

I cannot get HQPlayer to recognize the tracks on my NAS drive. I point it to that directory and it says please wait for a long time and then crashes. Any suggestions? I am going to likely do Roon, so I guess I may not need the HQPlayer tree to work, but it seems silly to hope for that.

[sfox7076]

I am using a late 2012 Mac Mini with an i5 dual core 2.5 GHZ processor and 16MB of RAM and an SSD for its internal hard drive. I did the integration of Roon and HQ Player last night. All of the controls work, but upconverting to DSD causes serious drop outs, stuttering and slowing down of the music. The CPU never went over 70% usage (I checked the pipline sdm box as well). Any help would be greatly appreciated. It is running into a Lampizator GoldenGate.

 

Shawn

[sfox7076]

I cannot get HQPlayer to recognize the tracks on my NAS drive. I point it to that directory and it says please wait for a long time and then crashes. Any suggestions? I am going to likely do Roon, so I guess I may not need the HQPlayer tree to work, but it seems silly to hope for that.

 

The above was fixed, but need to figure out the stuttering issue. I will buy a license if I can figure this out...

[sfox7076]

I just got it to play fine by using closed form instead of polysinc. That said, my cpu was at 70%. I guess it is upgrade time.

[sfox7076]

Hope this helps...

 

I'm using 3.12 with Yosemite on a Mac Pro 6,1 (quad core) and it works flawlessly with all flavors of poly-sinc*-2, poly-sinc-ext, and closed-form at DSD256 to an iDSD Micro.

 

I don't know if this is an issue, but I'm unable to use any of the non "-2" poly-sinc filters (with "Pipeline SDM" enabled or disabled). HQPlayer just sits there when I attempt to start playback (EDIT: I was impatient, playback starts eventually).

 

 

EDIT: I experimented a bit with "poly-sinc" (not the "-2s" version).

 

With "Pipeline SDM" both on and off

 

All tests with ASDM7

 

DSD256: Takes 30 seconds or more to start, solid stuttering

DSD128: Takes 20 seconds to start, sort of plays without stuttering but is unstable and the slightest additional load on the CPU will cause stuttering and clicks. The "top" command here shows CPU usage of HQPlayer is 215% (using over two cores constantly)

 

Using "poly-sinc-2s", DSD256 is solid on this Mac. The "top" command shows CPU usage of HQPlayer to be 145% (using less than 1.5 cores).

 

 

Same here on my late-2012 Mac mini.

[sfox7076]

All stuttering basically gone on poly-sinc so long as I only upsample at 3,072,000. I'll take it.

[sfox7076]

All stuttering basically gone on poly-sinc so long as I only upsample at 3,072,000. I'll take it.

 

I meant 5,644,800.

[sfox7076]

Just built my new server. Want to make sure it all works before I buy the additional license (Moving to a PC from a Mac Mini). Largely the same build everyone else has done. I will use my Mac Mini as my NAA at first, but will move to a different NAA that will do native DSD. Thinking a CuBox for simplicity. Anyone have thoughts on that? I tried to get a RaspBerry Pi 2 I had to act as my NAA, but I cannot get it to work. For whatever reason it won't recognize my Lampizator DAC. I hope the CuBox would be plug and play (after the disc image is installed on the CuBox). Am I mistaken?

 

Shawn

[sfox7076]

A few questions. I have a LampizatOr DAC. It uses the Amanero 384. I connect the LampizatOr to a Cubox via USB. That runs to a hub and that through my home Ethernet to the server under my bed (headless). I upsample to 128 DSD. I cannot go higher right now. I get skips despite having an i7 4ghZ at 15-18% processor power. I think this is either an Amanero issue not being able to do DOP over 128 or a Linux issue. Anyone know the limitation there?

I also cannot play DSD native. I am not sure why, but I must use DOP.

 

Second issue I have is with Cubox as an NAA. When I turn off the DAC,the Amareno USB board shuts off. When I turn it on again, I have to reset my server to get the Cubox to recognize the Amareno board. Any help on why this is happening? Any fix?

[sfox7076]

A few questions. I have a LampizatOr DAC. It uses the Amanero 384. I connect the LampizatOr to a Cubox via USB. That runs to a hub and that through my home Ethernet to the server under my bed (headless). I upsample to 128 DSD. I cannot go higher right now. I get skips despite having an i7 4ghZ at 15-18% processor power. I think this is either an Amanero issue not being able to do DOP over 128 or a Linux issue. Anyone know the limitation there?

 

I also cannot play DSD native. I am not sure why, but I must use DOP.

 

Second issue I have is with Cubox as an NAA. When I turn off the DAC,the Amareno USB board shuts off. When I turn it on again, I have to reset my server to get the Cubox to recognize the Amareno board. Any help on why this is happening? Any fix?

 

I should add that I am running the CuBox image from the HQ Player website.

[sfox7076]

is it a cubox-i? Or an older cubox?

 

Newer -i. Right on the 128, so that means I am stuck waiting for a kernel update to Linux.

 

 

So now for the problem that when I shut off the DAC, the NAA disconnects and I have to reboot it and the server to make it work...

[sfox7076]

Yeah, I don't want three vacuum tubes (two DHTs and a 5 volt rectifier) on constantly.

[sfox7076]

I have two boys under 5 that I don't want to have burned fingers. I know the designer recommends leaving it on, but it really is not in my case.

[sfox7076]

Doing that basically defeats the purpose of going headless and using an NAA. I have to power on the DAC, then the NAA, then the headless server before playing music. Alternatively, I have to use remote sharing, which will require a WIN 10 tablet. Seems like a flaw with the NAA Architecture, or a reason to just burn 6A3 tubes for me for a long time.

[sfox7076]

Doing that basically defeats the purpose of going headless and using an NAA. I have to power on the DAC, then the NAA, then the headless server before playing music. Alternatively, I have to use remote sharing, which will require a WIN 10 tablet. Seems like a flaw with the NAA Architecture, or a reason to just burn 6A3 tubes for me for a long time.

 

Maybe flaw is the wrong word. Having the NAA die every time I shut off the DAC so I have to power cycle it and also restart the server seems to me to disuade the use of the NAA. When I didn't use an NAA, my MAC would connect before and after power off of the DAC without fail. Is this only a cubox issue? Is there a way to change the way the cubox Linux image works so that a reconnect occurs when the power/connection is restored on the Amanero board? Just questions/thoughts.

 

Shawn

[sfox7076]

Sorry for not be clear Shawn with my previous message. Both my NAA and HQPlayer systems are never powered off. I just have to stop and start the HQPlayer software, which I do using RDP client on my iPad which works well for me.

 

I never have to restart my NAA system or the networkaudiod deamon when I power the DAC on or off. So not sure if the issue is with Cubox.

 

I really wish that we did not have to stop and start the HQPlayer app for each listening session.

 

I should clarify that I use Roon. Maybe that is the issue? Again, it worked with my MAC when I didn't use an NAA. Now I am using my iPhone to select music on the Roon App.

 

It goes like this:

 

Server under bed in bedroom running Roon + HQ Player. It is always on.

Network connected to CuBoxi (in living room) via wired cables.

CuBoxi always on (connected to my home brew LPS) and running latest Linux CuBox image from Signalyst.

USB connected to my GoldenGate DAC. GoldenGate DAC uses an Amareno 384 USB board.

When the power on the Dac is cycled, the Amareno shuts completely on or off.

 

I use the iPhone to select music. If I cycle the power on the Dac (or switch inputs), the NAA connection dies (USB and SPDIF disappear, even though SPDIF was originally a connection option (it isn't hooked up)). I have to cycle the power on it and restart HQPlayer to get it to be recognized. This requires me to reboot the headless server under the bed and to reach behind my Dac and unplug and replug in the CuBox.

[sfox7076]

I guess the LampizatOr doesn't do that.

[sfox7076]

Hi Misha,

Many thanks for looking into this.

You are correct, I am using HQPlayer with Roon. As you say... no stop button just "pause".

The sequence of restart you describe (turn on DAC, start NAA, start HQPlayer etc.) is what works.

Interesting re: ASIO driver architecture.

I will contact T + A. Hopefully they can update their ASIO driver....

Cheers,

Dave

 

 

I struggle with that a lot using Roon and HQPlayer. I have used a Cubox with the custom image, a Raspberry Pi and a Dell Windows 10 based computer. Each one of them had issues when I powered down my DAC (I use a DAC with an Amanero board). Without fail, if I turned the DAC off (even after hitting pause on ROON and waiting 15 seconds before shutting down), it would not restart without me shutting down the NAA, restarting the NAA and then relaunching HQplayer on my server (which is under the bed in my bedroom). It caused me to tear my hair out. I had mildly more success with the Dell Windows solution. It still is far from ideal. When Roon put out its new DSP, I used it to just check it out. I thought the sound quality was inferior to HQ Player. That said, I wanted to see if it was afflicted with the same issues (meaning I would have to reboot the NAA/Roon endpoint with each power cycle). Low and behold, it did not have the issue HQ Player had. I could shut my DAC on and off even mid-song without issue. So now I only use HQ Player when I really want to do critical listening. For critical listening, I guess I will still go though the HQ Player reboot sequence... Anyway, just my thoughts. Good luck.