HQ Player

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

Hi, I just purchased HQPlayer yesterday after trying it for several days - great sound quality and impressive technical achievement.  Thank you @Miska very much for the wonderful effort. Also few other people @AnotherSpin @Solstice380@Geoffrey Armstronghelping me out to overcome initial hurdles.  I have a couple of questions on library.  When I loaded the library, I saw the database are listed along the columns of Path, Artists, and Titles of Album, etc.  I realized that I can sort the database based on Artist as well as Title of Album, which come from the metadata tagged on each album and each song.  But when I looked at the HQPlayer Client, under the Album view, all the albums are always organized by the Path, no matter how I am sorting the database, either by Artist or by Title of Album, in HQPlayer Desktop.  Is there anyway I can arrange the Album view in HQPlayer Client based on the titles of the Album?

 

Thank you very much for all your helps!

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

2 hours ago, Miska said:

 

On HQPlayer Client, albums are sorted based on artist - album combination. At the moment this sorting cannot be changed. But if you are looking for something, metadata is searchable. Including things like format. For example if you want to look for 96/24 resolution albums, you can. Or if you want to find all DSD64 albums.

 

Thank you @Miska

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

I am running HQPLAYER on a Mac Mini (i7 3.2GHz with 6 cores), using settings of ASDM7EC or ASDM7, at DSD 256.  With poly-sinc-xtr-lp-2s, under ASDM7EC, the % CPU is about 230%, idle percentage is about 80%, and computer fan is blowing, whereas under ASDM7, the % CPU is about 100%, and idle percentage is about 90%, and computer is not blowing.  Under both conditions, the Mac Mini is not hot at all, the surface temperature is about the same as the body temperature.  The fan blowing under ASDM7EC is not very loud but definitely audible.  Given with some more demanding tasks, the % of CPU can reach to 470%, and idle percentage 70%, but fan is not blowing, I wonder if it is safe to somehow stop the fan blowing under the ASDM7EC settings.  I tried to put two ice packs around the computer to keep temperature low and stop fan blowing.  However, even though the fan blew the chilled air and computer is very cold, but the fan is still blowing.  
 

My questions are:

 

1). How HQP determines the speed fan blowing, obviously not by the temperature sensors on CPU, given the experiments I have tried.

2). Is it safe to turn the fan speed to minimum with ASDM7EC and the rest of the settings?

3). What is the effective way to control the fan speed?  I saw a software called Mac Fan Control, wonder if anyone here has ever use it.

 

Thank you very much!

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

9 hours ago, Solstice380 said:

My thoughts:

 

1. HQP does not control fan speed, that is done by the computer itself. I think your logic/experiments are at fault for your conclusion.  It is always the computer that controls the fan speed based on the thermal sensors. 

2. You can test it.  Based on your question 3, do you currently know/have a way to control the fan speeds manually, or set a fan profile?

3. See answer to question 2.  Test it and see if it works for you.  Just watch your CPU temps.

Hi, @Solstice380

 

Thank you again for spending time replying my post again.  I thought the same thing as you did that it was the computer, and likely through the temperature sensor at CPU and other key locations, NOT HPQ, that controlled fan speed.  However, given the fact that fan was blowing when running HQP with % CPU of 230% and idle % at 80%, and fan was NOT blowing when running an unnamed application with % CPU of 470% and idle % at 70%, I can only think of two possibilities:  1)  The number of % CPU and % of idle are not indicators of CPU load; 2) something special about HQP which keeps fan blowing whereas fan not blow at all at higher CPU leadings.  If the assumption is that the temperature sensor dictated the fan blowing, when I used the ice pack, the fan should have slowed down or even stopled, something I observed from other applications based on a MacBook previously.  However, I was surprised to see under HQP operation, fan still blow with ice pack, even when the air flow coming out was very much chilled.

 

I may have to give a shot on Mac Fan Management a try.

 

Thank you.

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

35 minutes ago, Solstice380 said:

@Mahler and Bach on Computer  That is odd, but there is one possible explanation - not being Jussi - and that is that HQP loads one (or maybe 2) cores very heavily and the temp of that one core can drive the fan speed.  It has been a couple years since I’ve had a Mac, but is there a way to see individual core % and individual core temp?  In Windows we use something like FreeHardwareMonitor.  That may reveal the cause of the high fan speed when running HQP.   I think it might not be a good idea to slow down the fan without knowing the individual core temps.   Let us know what you find, and maybe the man will help also when he is feeling better.  

Yes, thank you for pointing out the Window-based solution.  I will do more research on this fan management software.  I am not particularly computer-savvy, so I post the questions here and wish experienced people like you give me some guidance for further testings.

 

Thank you again.

 

 

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

@MiskaAny thoughts on the observations and questions I posted over the weekend?  Thank you very much.

 

 

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

11 hours ago, Miska said:

If you use a NAA, you don't need to worry about computer running HQPlayer because it is not doing the actual playback, it is just a DSP pipeline. It can have loud fans and whatever, placed in another room, in the basement or somewhere else. Just have something as powerful as possible so that you can run all algorithms you want.

Hi, @Miska:

 

Any specific suggestion how to connect a computer at another other room with the NAA close to the the main system not sacrificing SQ.  Mine is Sotm sMS 200.  Can I use WiFI toggle? 

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

Some WiFi extenders can be configured as bridges (for example Zyxel calls this Client Mode). This should work fine if the WiFi around you is not very crowded. If it's too crowded you get drop-outs because bandwidth gets limited too much. There is no other sound quality impact except drop-outs in cases where there's too much other traffic around.

 

I can play 8 channels of DSD256 over WiFi to a NAA, so it certainly works.

 

@MiskaThank you very much.  I have a dedicated Network specifically for music playing only.  Any advantage of WIFI in the bridged mode vs. regular mode?

 

Thank you again!

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

I am running into some issues with HQPlayer4Desktop 4.70 or 4.71.  I have been using NAA installed on a SoTm sMS 200, and it had been working very well with 4.4 in the past.  I noticed that when I am using 4.7, at the beginning of launching the program, I experienced pops and cracks.  I can get rid of it by shutting down and restart the HQP4Desktop twice or three times.  When I switched back to HQPlayer4Desktop 4.4, everything goes back to normal immediately.  
 

Any suggestion regarding the the root cause and the way to remedy the problem?  

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

2 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Have you checked the NAA software module on your sMS-200 is latest 4.1.1?

 

When HQPlayer is started, it doesn't play anything, so it shouldn't cause any sounds either. Have you tried connecting your DAC directly to the HQPlayer computer instead of sMS-200? Does it change the situation?

 

@Miska, I have checked NAA on sMS 200, it is listed as version 4.1.1.

 

I will try the direct USB to DAC connection in coming days.

 

Thank you very much!

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

@Miska

Hi, Apple just announced their release of M1-based Mac Mini.  It is supposed to be much faster than the Intel-based Mac Mini i7.  Do you think my HQPlayer4Desk will run on this new Mac Mini?

 

https://www.macrumors.com/guide/apple-silicon-mac-mini-vs-intel-mac-mini/

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

6 hours ago, Miska said:

 

No, will do it once I get my Mac Mini with M1. It has been on order for quite some time and Apple's original delivery estimate is by Dec 18th.

 

Big Sur on Intel Macs should be OK. At least I have not heard of problems.

 

I tried HQPlayer4Desktop (4.70) on my not so powerful MacBook Air.  It works fine with not so demanding settings of DSD128.  I noticed that under Big Sur, most of the apps loaded much faster.

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

3 hours ago, SwissBear said:

For those of you who are interested in the performance of the Mac Mini M1 running HPLayer under Rosetta emulator: the limit I found is:

- DSD 64 to DSD 128 with ASDM5SEC or ASDM7EC, regardless of convolution

- PCM to DSD 256 with ASDM5SEC or ASDM7EC, regardless of convolution

Processor load is close to 60% including system, and memory pressure is reasonable

 

 

So there is hope to have a reasonable configuration for a stereo system when Miska has optimized the code for the new platform...

@SwissBear, thank you for the update for this important new development.  Curious how the fan responded under the condition of DSD256.  Also, what happened you tried to do DSD64 to DSD 256?  

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

9 hours ago, SwissBear said:

The fan kept very quiet anytime :-)

What happened when trying DSD 64 to DSD 256 was like a drop of network frames from time to time (blanks in the music). It might not be the CPU, but could be the network adapter which was overloaded, busy getting the music files from the NAS and sending the upsampled file to the NAA.

For now, the upsampling to DSD 128 seems to work for all music files, including PCM, DSD 64 and DSD 128. Even with ASDM5EC and ASDM7EC, which I could never make happen even with my very old but very powerful MacPro with Xeon processors...

So I'm more than happy for the time being, and very optimistic on the possibilities of this new machine...

I am thinking to buy Mac Mini M1 to replace my 7-year-old MacBook Pro.  Your information/experience is very helpful.  It is good to hear that fan keeps quiet all the time.  Given that there was no issue under the PCM-DSD256 scenario, it makes sense that you hypothesized that issue with DSD64 to DSD256 likely related with NAS file transfer.  Given I have been using NAS myself, I understand it well.  One way to get around this problem is to use some of those apps developed by @Geoffrey Armstrong, which generate files locally at the computer which running HQPlayer4Desktop.  This way HQP4D plays a locally freshly generated files, be it FLAC or DSD64, likely on SSD.  Personally I think it helps SQ as well without measurements, because power supply to NAS likely is not relevant any more for SQ.  

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

17 hours ago, SwissBear said:

Thanks for the tip. Drawing conclusions from my tests, in the absence of any obvious bottleneck, seems difficult for me.

I will wait for Miska to release a native version of his software, compiled, and possibly optimized, for the new platform.

BTW, please do not take my tests at face value and make your own evaluation. In particular, it seems that upsampling to DSD 128 is pretty reliable and that upsampling to DSD 256 is pretty unreliable, whatever the original file format.

Just my 2C :-)

Of course.  The initial test certainly very promising from your observations.  

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

I recently updated the OS of a 7-year old MacBook Pro (I believed is 4-core CPU) to the latest version of Catalina.  Under the previous versions of Catalina, the highest level I could go is DSD128.  Now I can run DSD256 easily without any breaks.  The updating of HQP4D from 4.7 to 4.8 is another improvement on performance.  The percentage of idle CPU increased from 18% to 36%.  

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

3 hours ago, SwissBear said:

Whaoo Jussi ! Congratulations ! The Mac Mini M1 is able to upsample DSD 128 to DSD 256 with ASDM7EC and apply convolution.

And switching from one song to the other is so quick and smooth :-) :-)

I can't believe it !

Sincere gratitude for making this happen so quickly.

 

Just saw the link of “arm64” on the web site.  I just placed the order of Mac Mini M1 this afternoon.  

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

59 minutes ago, jamesg11 said:

Got round to updating my MBPro (2013, 2.4GHz Quad-Core Intel i7, 16GB) to 10.15.7 ... but no, still can only do 128 without constant issues.

 

59 minutes ago, jamesg11 said:

Got round to updating my MBPro (2013, 2.4GHz Quad-Core Intel i7, 16GB) to 10.15.7 ... but no, still can only do 128 without constant issues.

I only used ASDM7, not ASDM7EC, to do DSD256.  Mine MBP is i5 2.?GHz, dual-core, with 8GB ram.  I tried EC, not work at all.  Before all the updates, I was only able to do DSD128.  

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

48 minutes ago, jamesg11 said:

Hmm ... So this means it can definitely run dsd256 at asdm7ec with say poly-sinc-ext2 ...?

Or ...?

My brief experience with Mac Mini i7 6 core (2018), with 16GB ram was that it was able to run ASDM7EC at DSD256 for HQP4D.  I recalled the % CPU was somewhere around 210%, without fan being activated. 

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

I did try to load matrix under this demanding condition, and it did not work.  However, I believe some of the current effort by @Geoffrey Armstrong can creatively solve this problem.

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

Hi, @Miska

 

I have a different question regarding HQP.  I have quite some Flac files derived from DVD-Audio.  Those are the ones with  Bit Rate around 1200.  Somehow I found Sinc-M cannot be used for this kind of files.  I have some other regular FLAC files, which works fine with Sinc-M filter.  It should be noted that DVD-Audio derived FLAC files work with any of those of -xtr- filters. 
 

Thank you very much.

 

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

Just tried HQP 4.10.0 on Mac Mini M1 with 16GB Ram.  Can run ASDM7EC using Sinc-L filter with DSF64 files being converted to DSD256.  But for Flac or similar, there are breaks in the frequency of once every 7-8 seconds. So need to lower to Sinc-M for converting redbook music into DSD256.

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

56 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Note that the filter selection doesn't apply for DSD sources. Only modulator selection and the two settings in "DSD Source Settings" dialog.

 

@MiskaThank you for pointing out the difference.  I meant oversampling 1x and oversampling Nx selections. 

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

9 hours ago, fmzip said:

Are you running anything else on the M1 other than HQPlayer? Anyone try upsampling to DSD512?

No other user application is running except HQP.  The machine is dedicated for HQP purpose.

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

8 hours ago, jamesg11 said:

How is it going with pcm 24-96, 24-192 to dsd256?

Unfortunately due to the source limitation, all the hi-res files I have in PCM24-96 can only take upsampling of poly-Sinc-xtr-lp or mp, which is much less demanding mechanisms to do DSD256, therefore, I don’t really have direct comparison but would speculate it would be much easier than 16-44.1 but more difficult compared to DSD64.