HQ Player

[Volodymyr]

On 2/11/2019 at 11:29 AM, Miska said:

 

Yes, it is converted down in this case. In this case there shouldn't be much difference between using 192k or 384k file.

 

Faced some issue with AVLinux (debian ( stretch) + trial HQP.  When launch file PCM to PCM 24/384, 4 channels (convolution wav fles also 24/384), to XMOS MCH dac: track is shown in HQP as progressing in playback, but silance.

Can this be connected to some sample rate limit set in kernel, alsa etc of the distro itself?

[Miska]

27 minutes ago, Volodymyr said:

Faced some issue with AVLinux (debian ( stretch) + trial HQP.  When launch file PCM to PCM 24/384, 4 channels (convolution wav fles also 24/384), to XMOS MCH dac: track is shown in HQP as progressing in playback, but silance.

Can this be connected to some sample rate limit set in kernel, alsa etc of the distro itself?

 

What kind of DAC do you have? If you have volume control in HQPlayer turned high enough, there may be volume control in the DAC itself too. Checking the hardware volume in ALSA mixer levels could help, it defaults to lowest setting for safety reason.

 

[Volodymyr]

47 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

What kind of DAC do you have? If you have volume control in HQPlayer turned high enough, there may be volume control in the DAC itself too. Checking the hardware volume in ALSA mixer levels could help, it defaults to lowest setting for safety reason.

 

DIY es9016 + XMOS XCORE-200 XU216-512 . Volume at HQP turned off, I manage volume after dac in preamp.   You mean that when playing 384khz - maximum volumes is a must (in soft)contrary to lower rates? 24/192  plays well.

[Miska]

1 minute ago, Volodymyr said:

DIY es9016 + XMOS XCORE-200 XU216-512 . Volume at HQP turned off, I manage volume after dac in preamp.   You mean that playing 192 (its ok) and 384 can initiate different volume settings in ALSA...?

 

HQPlayer doesn't touch hardware volume control, so if there's a separate hardware volume it may need adjustment.

 

But with any processing you shouldn't be driving HQPlayer at 0 dBFS because you risk triggering the limiter. At least keep eye on the "Limited" counter in HQPlayer main window. It should stay at 0 at all times. If it begins to increment, turn down volume in HQPlayer.

 

As recommended in the manual, volume in HQPlayer shouldn't be turned higher than -3 dBFS.

[Volodymyr]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

HQPlayer doesn't touch hardware volume control, so if there's a separate hardware volume it may need adjustment.

 

But with any processing you shouldn't be driving HQPlayer at 0 dBFS because you risk triggering the limiter. At least keep eye on the "Limited" counter in HQPlayer main window. It should stay at 0 at all times. If it begins to increment, turn down volume in HQPlayer.

 

As recommended in the manual, volume in HQPlayer shouldn't be turned higher than -3 dBFS.

I still dont understand why 192 is playing ok, and 384 - silance, at the same setting. It can be somehow connected to dBFS level set it HQP?  

[bodiebill]

Yesterday I set up dual PC:

 

- control PC: Windows Server 2016 GUI with HQPlayer and JPLAY Femto

- audio PC: Windows Server 2019 core with JPLAY Femto

 

I was not able to get PCM playback. I tried many HQP and JPLAY settings but for some reason, although HQP recognises JPLAY Femto, it does not start when I hit Play. It just stops immediately or 'thinks' endlessly.

 

This same setup with Audirvana+ has no problems at all.

 

Any ideas what I could be doing wrong?

[Miska]

On 2/15/2019 at 2:41 PM, Volodymyr said:

I still dont understand why 192 is playing ok, and 384 - silance, at the same setting. It can be somehow connected to dBFS level set it HQP?  

 

No, that shouldn't make a difference.  Are you sure 384k generally works? Have you got 4 channels of 384 working with anything?

 

[Hammer]

Hi, I’m running NAA on Debian which I installed using instructions I found on the net and it works great.  I see that there is a new version of NAA available and wanted to see if anyone knows the commands I need to upgrade (vs. new install) my NAA.  I have no experience on Linux.  Thank you.

[Miska]

1 hour ago, Hammer said:

Hi, I’m running NAA on Debian which I installed using instructions I found on the net and it works great.  I see that there is a new version of NAA available and wanted to see if anyone knows the commands I need to upgrade (vs. new install) my NAA.  I have no experience on Linux.  Thank you.

 

You download it and install it with "dpkg -i" command line, so just different package file name. Then reboot and that's it.

 

Package manager takes care of replacing old package with a new one.

 

[Volodymyr]

15 hours ago, Miska said:

 

No, that shouldn't make a difference.  Are you sure 384k generally works? Have you got 4 channels of 384 working with anything?

 

In Windows with Foobat its playing 4*24/384.  So I suppose may be some limit set up in my debian OS (AVLinux). Not sure.

[Miska]

1 hour ago, Volodymyr said:

In Windows with Foobat its playing 4*24/384.  So I suppose may be some limit set up in my debian OS (AVLinux). Not sure.

 

Best way would be to try to play some 4-channel WAV file using "aplay" (from alsa-utils package). If that works, then it is good basis for looking in more detail where playing through a more complex setup goes wrong.

 

[Hammer]

On 2/17/2019 at 1:50 PM, Miska said:

 

You download it and install it with "dpkg -i" command line, so just different package file name. Then reboot and that's it.

 

Package manager takes care of replacing old package with a new one.

 

Awesome...thanks.  It worked like a charm.

 

 

[Hammer]

Hi, does anyone have any experience feeding a Devialet Expert Pro system with HQPlayer?  I think the limit is DSD64 which is disappointing, but still wanted to get peoples perspective before I make the investment.  Thank you.  I’m thinking I connect my NAA to the Devialet via USB.

[Miska]

5 minutes ago, Hammer said:

Hi, does anyone have any experience feeding a Devialet Expert Pro system with HQPlayer?  I think the limit is DSD64 which is disappointing, but still wanted to get peoples perspective before I make the investment.  Thank you.  I’m thinking I connect my NAA to the Devialet via USB.

 

AFAIK, it will convert DSD to PCM and not in a great way. So it is better to send there the highest possible PCM resolution instead.

 

[Hammer]

10 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

AFAIK, it will convert DSD to PCM and not in a great way. So it is better to send there the highest possible PCM resolution instead.

 

 

Thanks for the info.  Hmmm...maybe not worth the upgrade, but so hard to not scratch that itch!  With HQPlayer, there’s no point in upgrading my DAC (I think) and Roon EQ and REW allows me to change the signature of my speakers...so if I were to upgrade, which part of the stereo chain should one consider?

 

My system:  YG Sonia 1.3, Bryston BSST2 28, AR 5SE preamp and Auralic Vega DAC.  Connected with MIT cables.  I have to say in all of this, HQPlayer has been my best upgrade.  I can’t wait for version 4.0!

[Miska]

7 minutes ago, Hammer said:

Thanks for the info.  Hmmm...maybe not worth the upgrade, but so hard to not scratch that itch!  With HQPlayer, there’s no point in upgrading my DAC (I think) and Roon EQ and REW allows me to change the signature of my speakers...so if I were to upgrade, which part of the stereo chain should one consider?

 

My system:  YG Sonia 1.3, Bryston BSST2 28, AR 5SE preamp and Auralic Vega DAC.  Connected with MIT cables.  I have to say in all of this, HQPlayer has been my best upgrade.  I can’t wait for version 4.0!

 

Depends so much on budget... There are interesting new things varying from Holo Audio Spring 2 DAC to T+A's SD / SDV 3100 HV.

 

[tboooe]

24 minutes ago, Hammer said:

 

Thanks for the info.  Hmmm...maybe not worth the upgrade, but so hard to not scratch that itch!  With HQPlayer, there’s no point in upgrading my DAC (I think) and Roon EQ and REW allows me to change the signature of my speakers...so if I were to upgrade, which part of the stereo chain should one consider?

 

My system:  YG Sonia 1.3, Bryston BSST2 28, AR 5SE preamp and Auralic Vega DAC.  Connected with MIT cables.  I have to say in all of this, HQPlayer has been my best upgrade.  I can’t wait for version 4.0!

Very very nice system you have.  I was really close to getting the Sonia's myself a while back.  As for what to upgrade, what about using Acourate instead fo REW?  For me REW and room treatments gave me the biggest improvement.  I hear Acourate is better than REW so I plan on upgrading once I get the necessary mic and accessories.

[Miska]

13 minutes ago, tboooe said:

Very very nice system you have.  I was really close to getting the Sonia's myself a while back.  As for what to upgrade, what about using Acourate instead fo REW?  For me REW and room treatments gave me the biggest improvement.  I hear Acourate is better than REW so I plan on upgrading once I get the necessary mic and accessories.

 

REW can be also extended with RePhase.

 

Acourate is one nice software, Audiolense is another one. Acourate can generate directly 384k mono WAVs with brickwall extension. Audiolense at least used to generate stereo WAVs that needed splitting to two mono WAVs, but other than that it should also work. Acourate is probably most powerful tool, but also has the steepest learning curve.

 

[Hammer]

Thanks for the ideas.  Software sounds like an interesting route to go...and the holo DAC 2 as well.  I looked at the holo DAC as while back, but wasn’t sure if it would be a noticeable upgrade to the Vega.  I know it’s gotten great reviews...anyone with first hand experience here?

[tboooe]

9 hours ago, Hammer said:

Thanks for the ideas.  Software sounds like an interesting route to go...and the holo DAC 2 as well.  I looked at the holo DAC as while back, but wasn’t sure if it would be a noticeable upgrade to the Vega.  I know it’s gotten great reviews...anyone with first hand experience here?

I have the Holo Spring L3 DAC so not exactly the same but I wouldnt consider it an upgrade over your Vega.  Since its a R2R DAC, I would expect it to sound different.  To my ears, I prefer R2R because it sounds more organic to me.  I a bit of a tube guy so I prefer a certain sound signature that some may call "warm", "lush", etc.  The Holo gives me this. 

[Miska]

7 hours ago, tboooe said:

I have the Holo Spring L3 DAC so not exactly the same but I wouldnt consider it an upgrade over your Vega.  Since its a R2R DAC, I would expect it to sound different.  To my ears, I prefer R2R because it sounds more organic to me.  I a bit of a tube guy so I prefer a certain sound signature that some may call "warm", "lush", etc.  The Holo gives me this. 

 

How are you running it? I have not noticed it to be particularly warm or lush, much less so than TI/BB DAC chips. More like AKM or Wolfson maybe. But certainly not as "on your face" as ESS Sabre or Cirrus Logic.

[ABQMD]

Not sure if I understand all the limitations of DSD on Mac. On my desktop, I run an iMacPro as Roon Core/Output with HQPlayer via USB to a Topping DX7s DAC. I upsample to DSD256 via HQP and can use poly-sinc-xtr without breaking a sweat on the iMacPro. I also use a Mac Mini 3,1 for an HQP NAA for my main room, so I know I'm still limited to DSD256 upsampling. If I change from the Mac Mini to a NUC that could handle a DSD512 stream, could I get to DSD512 on the NUC using the iMacPro in macOS as the Roon Core? Or would I still be stuck at the DSD256 limit in macOS?

[Miska]

3 minutes ago, ABQMD said:

Not sure if I understand all the limitations of DSD on Mac. On my desktop, I run an iMacPro as Roon Core/Output with HQPlayer via USB to a Topping DX7s DAC. I upsample to DSD256 via HQP and can use poly-sinc-xtr without breaking a sweat on the iMacPro. I also use a Mac Mini 3,1 for an HQP NAA for my main room, so I know I'm still limited to DSD256 upsampling. If I change from the Mac Mini to a NUC that could handle a DSD512 stream, could I get to DSD512 on the NUC using the iMacPro in macOS as the Roon Core? Or would I still be stuck at the DSD256 limit in macOS?

 

No, macOS limits things only where CoreAudio is touched. If you use a NAA, then OS of the NAA matters and HQPlayer side is only limited by computing resources.

 

You don't necessarily need to get a NUC. At least my Mac Mini boots up the bootable NAA image (Mac keyboard doesn't work, but that doesn't matter much usually). So you could try that first, it could be enough for you to get to DSD512.

 

[ABQMD]

Thanks for your quick reply, Miska. Unfortunately, my Mac Mini is 2009 vintage and its CPU does not support the SSE4.2 instruction set, so I think I wouldn't be able to get to DSD512 on the Mac Mini even in Linux/ HQPE/HQPOS. Correct?

[Sevenfeet]

51 minutes ago, ABQMD said:

Thanks for your quick reply, Miska. Unfortunately, my Mac Mini is 2009 vintage and its CPU does not support the SSE4.2 instruction set, so I think I wouldn't be able to get to DSD512 on the Mac Mini even in Linux/ HQPE/HQPOS. Correct?

 

You may still have a solution.  I've used the HQPlayer NAA on a bootable Linux USB stick on elderly Macs of that vintage before (NAA doesn't need SSE4.2).  At that point, you're under Linux which can do DSD512.  These old Macs don't have a lot of computational power compared to modern machines but they are still enough for this purpose.  I use a 2008 iMac as a music kiosk in my 2 channel listening room.  I hacked it to run Windows 10.  It only had 4 GB of RAM but that's all I need to either run the NAA software in Windows or Roon client.  Then it's connected via USB to my Oppo 205.  This works very well.....doing Windows updates takes forever but it fine running Roon or NAA.