HQ Player

[Iving]

I’m a new HQPlayer convert/user. Of interest (to me anyway) two things:
1.    I’m an offline user. I don’t stream from the internet. Local playback of Red Book flac only.
2.    Evaluating HQPlayer, I’ve learned a lot about the nature of digital music.

 

I wouldn’t have come this way but for disruption using foobar2000 for playback (actually now resolved). I still value foobar2000 enormously for flac Library management. I really do have a bespoke resource. I spend a lot of time ripping and tagging music. In so doing, I learn a lot as I go – and musical discovery is at least as much part of the hobby as the quality of the gear available for hearing it. Filters/Copy in foobar2000 allow me to periodically update the PCIe Optane Add-In-Card on my audio PC with a concentrated selection of favourites. I have thrills, convenience - and efficient exploitation of personal resources in one modus operandi.

 

With my historic prejudice against digits, I confess to a mindset. I inherited it. It’s Linn-like. Source first and foremost. Source is gospel. Don’t degrade the signal on its way to the speakers.

 

I also confess that I haven’t appreciated the mathematics of digital recording and playback till now. Even though I taught (research design/) stats to postgraduates for many years, and can get my head around most things, awareness of DSP in HQPlayer helps me understand that, with digits, things are not so straightforward as they might appear.

 

I wouldn’t say my digital system has been peaking, but it has been sounding pretty good lately – at last. That’s with foobar2000 as player, upsampling in Sox, ASIO out. Tried ASIO2. Sounded better. But foobar2000 became glitchy, and I didn’t find out why until after I’d begun investigating alternatives including JRiver.

 

I needed a flac-friendly Windows player with upsampling to 176.4 kHz (or x4) and ASIO out for RedNet/Dante. When I say flac friendly, I am used to being able to select music for enjoyment using filter algorithms (JUKEBOX IS A, or whatever). Long story short – I was about to commit to JRiver (still thinking my foobar2000 problem beyond resolution), but playback was stalling as often as not towards the end of a track. On the JRiver Forum we couldn’t get to the bottom of it. The problem was JRiver-specific. I think that maybe it has to do with their ASIO implementation; however, I don’t know that for sure.

 

So I tried the 30-day trial of HQPlayer – with modest expectations.

 

I have found the interface of HQPlayer idiosyncratic to say the least. The greatest problem of all – to begin – was playing any music at all. If you are playing local flac, HQPlayer is near fully obfuscatory unless your flac-tagging system matches the expectations of the player. I’m not arguing pro or con particularly … just saying that, as far as I am concerned, I was using a pretty standard approach (in foobar2000) and was mystified at HQPlayer until I started figuring things out with determination. After much labour, and trial-and-error adjustments – not to mention anxiety regards whether HQPlayer would present fatal issues for my use – my flac Library and HQPlayer are now pretty thick. It has taken a good week of full-time work to prepare my flac Library for its proper introduction to HQPlayer.

 

HQPlayer is preoccupied with Albums. Primarily I am interested in recorded music culminating in the Rockabilly explosion of the mid-1950s and its sequelae. Accordingly, Albums are meaningless to me unless they are Pop-concept (DSOM etc) or encapsulate Classical recordings. That’s one reason I don’t like Cover Art. Another is I don’t want visual distractions listening to music – I want to tune into whatever beauty reaches my ears/brain - without adulteration. Talking of adulteration, the main reason I loathe Cover Art is because it epitomises the commercial exploitation of music. I’m not so much grinding an axe here, than working towards declaring that HQPlayer is more than fitting for atypical use. By adding a small number of favourite images which have personal meaning to me into my flac files, I can code music in HQPlayer (in Album View that is) as “Classical Album” (near all Classical), “Pop Album” (listen as Album) or “Pop Track” (most Pop – not Album related). Drag and drop of m3u8 playlists created in foobar2000 onto HQPlayer Desktop is an acceptable way of enjoying what I used to play in foobar2000 using flac tag algorithms.

 

OK - so I pretty quickly figured out that HQPlayer doesn’t just “play the music”. Although not greatly familiar with this thread, I have seen Jussi repeat that HQPlayer is very much a DSP engine - a substitute or compensator for DAC hardware digital processing. I hope I have got this right. Anyway – what’s at the heart of things is that there’s more than one way to skin the rabbit when it comes to processing a digital file for one’s ears. Compared with vinyl/analogue playback, there is a fundamentally different sense of right and wrong. Yes I have wondered how the various filter/dither combos in HQPlayer “converse” with the maths etc going on in my DAC (no slouch – it is a Pro Audio Dangerous Convert-2). Much more than that have I just wanted to home in on a HQPlayer presentation that helps me with the goose bumps factor - that notion of harnessing the beauty in music to which I referred a moment ago.

 

After not many days – and confident I shall change my mind further (not least as my system may evolve) - I find that poly-sinc-xtra-short-mp / Gauss1 makes no mistakes – a standard reference. Very full and dynamic and exciting is Sinc-M / TPDF – but it has a little edge at the top, and in the end comes across more as gimmick. Currently I like Sinc-S / Gauss1 for the way it reveals all the layers in the music, yet retains low end, and doesn’t jar at the top. I might mention that my i7-6700 3.4 GHz CPU struggles not even a little bit - not even with the most demanding filters. Mostly at 3-5%, It never goes above 10%. There is latency with some tracks, but not CPU strain. Yes – I accept that taking the volume back a notch is better.

 

I don’t have to use Remote Desktop for listening any longer. HQPlayer Client works at the listening position over a simple, under-floor single wire network. I find that there are still minor annoyances with the response of the interface. Unlike foobar2000 which allows me to do what I want, when I want, how I want – and with whatever appearance I like, HQPlayer remains Jussi’s baby in my listening room. I can live with that given what HQPlayer delivers and promises. At first, I was wrestling with whether HQPlayer could sound better than foobar2000/Sox/ASIO2. After a day or two, I landed on an HQPlayer permutation that definitely beat foobar2000 in my reckoning. Now I have a small selection of HQPlayer options that I don’t want to live without. I’m not afraid to say that, given my fresh insight into digital music as a medium, I now regard HQPlayer as indispensable.

[Iving]

I have no experience with Linux, and I'm glad I have no experience with Roon.

If not streaming, then presumably offline is an option. This is my religious preference anyway. Because Windows does not Update, you can choose whichever version you want. I use the earliest i.e. [Pro] 1507 Threshold 1. I don't use any Windows taming software such as AO. But I do strip back bespoke with my own custom notes + aid of Process Lasso. Sure it's Microsoft / Windows - but I don't have any problems with Windows like this. If there’s any risk, it is that I fubar the result of my own digging. But then it’s not the end of the world if I have to reinstall just not making the same mistake.

I am an appreciative HQPlayer user now. I upsample Red Book flac PCM to 176.4 kHz [sinc-S/Gauss1/-3] for my Pro Audio Dangerous Convert-2. My CPU i7-6700 3.4 GHz hovers 3-5% not more than 10%.

If ever I leapt into the high sampling rate darkness, changing my DAC, mobo and CPU at once, I would remain offline. I haven’t thought through whether then I might switch to Linux. I am glued to Windows because I use Dante Virtual Soundcard [ASIO > RedNet D16 AES]. The prospect of USB doesn’t appeal to me at all.

So yes – CD ripping / Windows 10 offline / headless / HQPlayer Desktop = all very good. HQPlayer Client an ethernet cable away optional.

I don’t fancy the role of King Canute against the tide of Microsoft’s capricious interfering. To me - just another reason to stay offline.

[Iving]

1 hour ago, 87mpi said:

@Miska

Hi Jussi, 

I have upgrade my audio pc with a jcat ethernet pcie card and hardware fingerprint has changed.

I need the new license key please.

I have already write you two email about it

 

Please let me know 🙏 

Regards 

Antonio 

 

1 hour ago, GMG said:

@MiskaIs this a thing??

I am planning to change my internal hard drive soon, will that disable my license? How come? I’m still the same single user of the license

 

When I enquired last July, Jussi told me "HQPlayer Desktop licenses are not hardware locked."

+ I am offline and HQPlayer works fine.

[Iving]

1 minute ago, 87mpi said:

Mine is embedded license, not desktop.. 

 

OK I expect Jussi can advise then.

[Iving]

21 minutes ago, GMG said:

HQPlayer is more of a "pick an album and play it" kind of player. You can't really curate a queue based on various criteria (genres, tags, favorites, artists, etc.) and play it.

 

This also my greatest regret about HQplayer!

 

I love HQPlayer - for SQ!

 

But I just cannot use it to select tracks for playing - for queueing - for a given listening session.

 

Sure - I like some Albums.

 

But mostly I like "Songs" - which don't belong to an Album at all.

 

I get that the majority of users are Album guys (/gals).

 

So I say this only to appeal to Jussi's generosity - as the future unfurls -  in considering audiophiles not so inclined to regard "Album" as the unit of playback.

 

Meantime I still use fb2k to tee-up what I want to hear.

 

I use HQPlayer Desktop on a single PC. The only network is internet-offline and downstream. I don't even bother with Client. Easier to use fb2k (drag "Songs" 1 by 1, or drag a playlist).