HQ Player

[sledwards]

The new ASDM7EC sounds wonderful. I am able to run it with poly-sinc-xtr-mp at DSD128 (upsampling Redbook) on my server, which has an Intel i7-8700 processor. Below are cpu process screen shots from htop for DSD128 and DSD256. Total cpu load for DSD128 is about 388% and 497% for DSD256, which noticeably stutters during playback. I am guessing this does correlate with the 100% load that comes and goes on one of the 8 cores. For comparison, Jussi is running his i7-8086K at DSD256 with a total cpu load of 225%. I looked at the Passmark performance scores for the two processors: i7-8700 = 15,156 and the i7-8086K = 16,691. Not a huge difference maybe, but I really don't know the correlation of the scores with respect to HQPlayer performance. So if I really want to run DSD256 with the new modulator (now), I could swap in the 8086K chip at the low price of 500 to 700 dollars! I think this would be premature. Hopefully there is another more cost effective solution that will even handle DSD512. Eager to hear what others are achieving.

 

        DSD128

 

      DSD256

 

[sledwards]

Thanks for the suggestion Jussi. I forgot to mention I am running Embedded. I am not familiar with adjusting core allocation. How is this  performed in Embedded?

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2 hours ago, Ernie said:

I have been using version 3 and am now demo’ing version 4. Using ec modulator and upsampling to dsd 128 I hear a brief click before each track. Not present when using version 3.  Any ideas?

So I am not the only one who has noticed the click? I hear one or two very faint 'clicks' when I hit play in Roon AND I am upsampling to DSD in Version 4 of HQPlayer. Does not happen when upsampling to PCM or when using Version 3 of HQPlayer. I have two independent installations of Version 4, different NAA and HQplayer 4.0 installs on different machines. Both systems exhibit the click in version 4.

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Just now, Ernie said:

Also more prevalent when I manually advance to next track before current track is finished

 

Correct. If I am listening to a playlist, there is no click between tracks. Only if I manually select a new track and hit play.

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Also I have observed that changing buffer time in HQPlayer does not change the behavior.

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4 hours ago, Miska said:

What is the content/where is it coming from? Usually when source sample rate doesn't change, the source data stream is gapless.

 

I can randomly select any file in my library, doesn't matter what bit rate, I get the click just before the music starts.

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1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

Please check that you are using latest HQPlayer version because I also made some changes on this front.

 

 

I am running the latest versions of embedded and desktop. Were these changes you speak of made in 4.x, or are we talking 3.x to 4.x? The latter is where the click began. It has been there in all versions of 4.x.

 

Steve

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16 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

No, I mean changes in Desktop 4.1.0 and Embedded 4.11.1.

 

Got it. Those are the versions I am running. Do you think this issue is related to the 50 ms pre/post DSD delay? I have heard the click with two different DACs.

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16 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

It can also happen with some NAAs that have too old buggy Linux kernel.

 

I think you are on to something there. Both of my NAAs (SoTM sMs-200 Ultra and Sparky Allo USBridge) are ARMv7 based running Arch linux...old kernels I bet.

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@Miska

Sorry if this topic has been previously addressed, but I could not find a complete answer.  I would like to experiment with PCM upsampling. My DAC is a Matrix Audio, X-Sabre Pro.  As far as I can see, there is no way to turn off the provided hardware filters so that I may exclusively use those provided in HQPlayer. They have 7 choices as shown. Questions: Is there any one filter I can select that will not "collide/overlap/interfere" with your filters in general? Or am I better off selecting a hardware filter that is similar to the ones you provide? For example, which of the 7 filters is most like poly-sinc-ext2? At least I can turn off dithering in the DAC and select from HQPlayer.

 

Steve 

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7 hours ago, LoryWiv said:

Would the fast roll-off linear phase DSC filter setting also be best choice to minimize DAC modifying the HQ Player output in DSD scenario as well?

LoryWiv:

 

The 7 filters are specifically for PCM playback and do not effect DSD. For DSD you can change the cut-off frequency of the DSD digital filter. For DSD256 I use 60 kHz.

[sledwards]

Quick question on configuration. I am going to move Roon off my HQPlayer Embedded server machine and put it on its own machine.  Right now, my music resides on the HQPlayer machine (4 TB SSD).  For efficiency, should I leave my music on the HQPlayer machine, or move it to the Roon machine where the Roon library resides? My intuition says to leave it on the HQPlayer machine to avoid another trip over the network thru the switch before HQPlayer processes the music file. Or maybe it really doesn't matter.

 

Thanks,

 

Steve

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15 minutes ago, StreamFidelity said:

 

Exactly for the reasons mentioned I do it like this, see picture. 👍

I guess my intuition was wrong. If I read your picture correctly, you have Roon core on the NAS with your music and not on the HQPlayer machine. I also have an NAA between my HQPlayer server and DAC.

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1 hour ago, StreamFidelity said:

In image processing, Gaussian filters are used to smooth or soften the image content. In fact, I get the impression that the music is smoother. Even so, the instrument separation and resolution is excellent. The bass is wonderfully accentuated.

I definitely agree with your analogy to image processing. On my May KTE DAC, I can't run the poly-sinc-gauss-xl or xla when upsampling to 1.4/1.53 Mhz PCM but the long version works nicely. If you have not tried his other new filter; poly-sinc-xtr-short, linear or minimum phase, they both sound fantastic as well. I actually prefer them with my setup over the Gaussian filter family.

[sledwards]

This from another post from Miska on topic:

 

Convolution is performed at the source rate. (except DSD-to-PCM conversion case, where it is performed after conversion to PCM at 1/16th of the original rate)

 

You don't need to match the sample rate, but instead provide filter at highest rate of your content if possible. Preferably at 352.8 kHz rate (DXD material). HQPlayer then scales the filter to match the source rate, what ever that will be.

[sledwards]

llamaluv:

 

Would love to try it out, but can't until two of your TODOs are adopted: 1. Embedded support and 2. Support running HQPWV on a different machine as HQPlayer.

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1 hour ago, MasterWarzombie said:

Hello ,
can you recommend quality streamers that can "play NAA" HQPLAYER and have an HDMI I2S output to connect to a DAC?to combine with a holo audio dac for example
thank you

I own a Holo May KTE DAC and have been thru the exercise of trying to find what you are looking for.  The biggest issue is that nothing out there in the way of a streamer supports anything higher than PCM 384 or DSD 128 rates for NAA. I have tried several DDCs such as the Matrix and Singxer SU-6.  Sound quality does not exceed that of the USB implementation on the May, especially with a quality USB cable. Hope this saves you some time and effort.

[sledwards]

Quadman:

 

Any chance that 'Secure Boot' is turned on in BIOS? Found a reference that may be the issue and it should be turned off.

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42 minutes ago, Miska said:

42 minutes ago, Miska said:

If you want to try different filters and modulators, you shouldn't use HQPlayer Settings-dialog. Instead you should change the active settings when playback is in stopped state, either using HQPlayer Client, or some other remote control application such as HQPDcontrol.

 

 

OP is using Roon. No choice but to use HQPlayer Settings.

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9 minutes ago, Miska said:

Of course there is! You can always use HQPlayer Client or HQPDcontrol to adjust active filters, modulators and such. Even though Roon lacks such functionality.

Sorry, I stand corrected. For some reason I thought you could only use one or the other.

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Will be helping a friend build an HQPlayer machine this weekend (i9-12900K and 3080Ti GPU) and was leaning towards Ubuntu Desktop for OS based upon his Linux experience level. Any reason I should not use 22.04 LTS instead of 20.04? Is the initial Jammy release of desktop CUDA compatible?

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2 hours ago, El Guapo said:

I'm not sure about 22.04 Desktop but Server is fully CUDA compatible.

Does the jammy version of embedded (hqplayerd_4.32.0-134avx2_amd64.deb) require Rocm to function with CUDA?

[sledwards]

Have run into issue trying to use HQPlayer desktop (Jammy) with 22.04 on new machine. OS installed fine, have NVIDIA drivers installed. When I launch HQP desktop from application icon, nothing happens. Any clues where to look for starters?

[sledwards]

I am not sure what has changed in my setup, but I can no longer connect to either of my NAAs from the OSX version (4.19) of Desktop. The drop down for 'Device' shows nothing when I have 'Network Audio Adapter' selected. The attach to network button is activated, and I can play music direct from my server when I select 'CoreAudio'.  Running embedded from  Linux machine, I have no trouble recognizing the NAAs. Everything has been rebooted several times without success. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Steve

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2 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Check your firewall settings, that HQPlayer has full network access permissions. Also check that you don't accidentally have also WiFi enabled if you are connected to network via wired. That would be multiple active network interfaces which typically can cause multicast routing issues.

Thanks Miska. Not sure how I fixed it. Logged on to router, went into Security and Access control. It refreshed the list of all my wired and wireless connections and now it connects to NAA. Go figure.