HQ Player

[StreamFidelity]

39 minutes ago, Gato said:

So can someone tell how to fill a matrix under HQPlayer OS?

You must select the number of pipes under Configuration in the drop-down menu "DSP pipelines". 

[Gato]

12 minutes ago, StreamFidelity said:

You must select the number of pipes under Configuration in the drop-down menu "DSP pipelines". 

oops! Thank you for your help!🫣

[Zauurx]

@Miska Is it possible to force DAC correction without detection?

Explanation : I have a Holo Spring connected in I2S and it's not detected. As the optimization process is not detailed, I don't know if there's any advantage, but everything is done upstream by the server and has nothing to do with the interface (?).
The menu is available but there's no “preset”... can't it be forced in the config file ?

I also use a 4-line acoustic correction matrix that works without a hitch.
And good job,  😉 HQPlayer now displays only 104 threads (even if before, extra threads were ghosted without cpu consumption).

 

and when the system is stable and the software light :

Average measured interrupt to process latency (µs):   3,178692
Average measured interrupt to DPC latency (µs):       0,502952

 

[LoryWiv]

3 hours ago, ericcatz said:

The most important thing was not mentioned at all!

According to personal testing, this decoder correction function is only effective in ALSA mode (that is, the player/pc is directly connected to the DAC through USB); it is not effective in NAA mode.

 

What about for a deck connected via IIS? The above post suggests it may not detect the DAC via this connection but even if it does or could be so configured, would it still alter sound characteristics?

[ericcatz]

52 minutes ago, LoryWiv said:

What about for a deck connected via IIS? The above post suggests it may not detect the DAC via this connection but even if it does or could be so configured, would it still alter sound characteristics?

I haven't tested IIS connection DAC，If correction via USB, the sound is really great!

[GoldenOne]

Is there any info on what the DAC correction filters are doing? 

[CamRector]

3 hours ago, GoldenOne said:

Is there any info on what the DAC correction filters are doing? 

This was stated elsewhere by @Miska

 

“It is not possible to detect the DAC over unidirectional connections.”

 

My feeling is that these corrections improve the time domain. The sound in my case (Holo May) seems more coherent. Jussi, can you shed some light on what exactly is being corrected?

“That is one of the aspects yes. Also overall sense of space may get improved as well.”

 

can you shed some light on what exactly is being corrected?

“This is not a static thing, but also something that will also develop over time, same way as filters, modulators, etc”

[bogi]

IMO it is a digital correction filter, which aims to compensate DAC frequency and phase response based on measurements. At least in audible range there is not much what to correct in frequency domain, so I think it may do here some corrections in time domain. But I'm convinced the corrections are not restricted to 20k but go higher depending on sample rate used. I expect there is a set of correction filters for different sample rates for each supported DAC. Miska can confirm or deny my speculations if he wants. :).

[CamRector]

38 minutes ago, bogi said:

IMO it is a digital correction filter, which aims to compensate DAC frequency and phase response based on measurements. At least in audible range there is not much what to correct in frequency domain, so I think it may do here some corrections in time domain. But I'm convinced the corrections are not restricted to 20k but go higher depending on sample rate used. I expect there is a set of correction filters for different sample rates for each supported DAC. Miska can confirm or deny my speculations if he wants. :).

I use convolution fir filters that correct for freq, time and phase. Very interested to hear how these will all influence and play nicely together. 

[GoldenOne]

So I did a bit of looking into it. This is a comparison of no correction vs the Holo May correction using 705.6khz 32 bit output from HQP (Sinc-Mx and TDPF just in case but shouldn't matter for comparing this test). This is the comparison of the actual digital output, so no potential inaccuracy induced by a DA/AD loop.

 

First an FFT of both files:

 

 

No clear differences generally, though a very slight difference at the highest freqs. If we look at the actual delta of spectra we can see there is a slight rise in freq, upto just over 0.5dB at 20khz.

This also then creates a very small phase shift at high freqs (as would be expected of a minimum phase adjustment I suppose though I've not yet checked to see if this corresponds perfectly/has no excess phase difference). But it's less than half a degree regardless

 

 

So it seems that basically the DAC corrections are small adjustments to compensate for whatever analog filter the DAC may be using that would otherwise cause a very slightly non-flat FR?

[1laraz]

On 4/30/2024 at 1:48 AM, liyin123 said:

Thanks again for your reply, it helped me to point out the problem very well, that is to leave the first matrix pipeline unchecked and only enable the DAC correction, and then selecting my cyan2 means that it is already working on the engagement, thanks!

It won't start the DAC correction in this way, I am afraid. Both the first matrix pipeline and the correction shall be checked. You may test it by enabling the log file. If you get there the entry "DAC correction post-process active" then it was activated 

[seslwr1]

I'm new to HQPlayer.  I'm running Roon and HQPlayer on the same MacBook Air M1.  I have a USB going out of the MBA to my HoloAudio May KTE DAC.  At present, I'm only able to output PCM to the DAC via CoreAudio.  My goal is to stream Qobuz and output SDM.  So far, I've been unable to do so.  I've changed the Default Mode to "SDM (DSD)".  Any thoughts?

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, seslwr1 said:

I'm new to HQPlayer.  I'm running Roon and HQPlayer on the same MacBook Air M1.  I have a USB going out of the MBA to my HoloAudio May KTE DAC.  At present, I'm only able to output PCM to the DAC via CoreAudio.  My goal is to stream Qobuz and output SDM.  So far, I've been unable to do so.  I've changed the Default Mode to "SDM (DSD)".  Any thoughts?

Did you try DoP?

 

[seslwr1]

That did the trick!  Many thanks!  I knew it was probably something easy.

[Miska]

23 hours ago, GoldenOne said:

This also then creates a very small phase shift at high freqs (as would be expected of a minimum phase adjustment I suppose though I've not yet checked to see if this corresponds perfectly/has no excess phase difference). But it's less than half a degree regardless

 

So it seems that basically the DAC corrections are small adjustments to compensate for whatever analog filter the DAC may be using that would otherwise cause a very slightly non-flat FR?

 

Both frequency and phase responses are corrected. But you are only looking at FFT things, so you won't see everything... So the phase differences are not due to minimum-phase, but instead correction for the minimum-phase behavior of the DAC (turns it into linear phase).

 

P.S. And it is not limited to 20 kHz bandwidth.

 

[CamRector]

3 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Both frequency and phase responses are corrected. But you are only looking at FFT things, so you won't see everything...

 

Any concerns when using Room correction that is already corrected freq, time and phase? 

[Miska]

1 minute ago, CamRector said:

Any concerns when using Room correction that is already corrected freq, time and phase? 

 

That should correct the loudspeakers / amplifiers. So you should perform the measurements with these corrections in action. Or choose which ones you wish to use.

 

[Miska]

On 4/27/2024 at 2:48 AM, Audionumber3 said:

Do you also have to enable at the top of the Matrix settings checked? What other settings would you need to adjust to make sure it's working?

 

Yes, you need to also enable matrix processor in general. This also allows you a convenient way to have profiles you can switch on the fly.

[Miska]

On 4/27/2024 at 4:40 AM, Fredc said:

The new DAC feature does not work for me. The DAC is set to iFi neo IDSD (my DAC is iFi Pro iDSD) and the drop down do not work for me so I cannot change. Enabling it as iFi neo iDSD causes the dsf audio to stutter and also much longer latency to start playing.

 

Sounds like it is working though...

 

On 4/27/2024 at 4:59 AM, Mops911 said:

if we downsample why do we need filters? Can we not just sample a 96/24 with 44/16. Does not the lower sampling rate cut off all upper frequencies?

 

If you just drop off samples, you will have aliasing. It is like a nasty form of intermodulation distortion. Where higher frequencies are folded down to lower ones. You can calculate the actual alias frequency if you know the source frequency and sampling rate. So you need a digital anti-alias filter before reducing the sampling rate to avoid this.

 

On 4/27/2024 at 8:47 AM, Markus8 said:

but I am using the Holo Audio Red as a streamer and the DAC is the Devialet 440 Pro Dual Mono which is run by a T.I 1792 DAC each. So where do I setup this correctly?

 

I would need to have the Devialet 440 Pro on my test bench to create a correction profile for it. These are always specific to both the specific hardware device and the specific HQPlayer output format. Corrections are unique for the certain piece of hardware running at certain format.

 

On 4/27/2024 at 8:49 AM, dericchan1 said:

I selected Cyan 2, but it takes almost 1 minute with a loading bar before getting started playback. Is this normal to take this long for hqplayer to load the correction settings?

 

It depends on your computer and output format. But so far I have not personally encountered a one minute initialization time. Only couple of extra seconds...

 

On 4/27/2024 at 9:32 AM, dericchan1 said:

Same here with my ifi pro, I suppose the correction is indeed only for neo and the pro might have very different output signal…

 

Yes, this is very much specific to a certain implementation. So NEO correction very likely won't be right for Pro, unless the two are actually very close to same.

 

[Miska]

On 4/27/2024 at 7:45 PM, blackhawk579 said:

Is IIR2 Filter with 7EC Super 512+FS heavy?  

 

What's odd is my processor and video card are both under 50% utilization (in windows task mgr).   Seems like I should be able to get there....  

 

Key question is; what is highest load of your highest loaded core? Total average load doesn't tell much. But on a HyperThreaded CPU, 50% load means all physical cores fully loaded. Another 50% is virtual siblings, which cannot do any more work (since there are only as many execution units as there are physical cores), but can reduce context switching overhead.

 

 

Please note that IIR filters cannot be offloaded to the GPU.

 

[Miska]

On 4/27/2024 at 8:18 PM, skipspence said:

Should I enable matrix processor and dac correction both, even if I don't  use any matrix presets at all, or enabling correction only is enough?

When I enable both, not using other matrix presets, it loads enormous, ie continuing dropouts at DSD512, otherwise enabling dac correction only  plays smoothly..

 

Yes, you need to enable both. And yes, it can get rather heavy at DSD512. In these cases, a powerful GPU can help a lot!

 

[Miska]

On 4/28/2024 at 6:39 AM, Badd99 said:

@MiskaCan you explain the DAC correction please? I am on embedded, using diretta with audiolinux, and it doesn't see the DAC. Can you enable us to select it, even if it doesn't see it? I am using a custom Ian Canada streamer/dac I build with dual ESS dac board. Thank you for further help and explanations. 

 

I can edit the XML file, the dac board is using ES9038Q2M Dual Mono, what would I put on the xml? Thanks!!

 

There's no correction profile for such DAC. And no, it cannot be selected unless the DAC can be detected. There are good reasons for this, since the corrections are moving to on-demand access on cloud. Otherwise it would bloat the installation package too much.

 

[Badd99]

4 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

There's no correction profile for such DAC. And no, it cannot be selected unless the DAC can be detected. There are good reasons for this, since the corrections are moving to on-demand access on cloud. Otherwise it would bloat the installation package too much.

 

If you had the dac board, could you create this? Hell I'd buy one and have it sent to you, there are a lot of us Ian Canada diyers using hqplayer and don't underestimate Ian Canada, these streamer dacs absolutely wipe the floor of anything, at any price, I have heard... Including $50,000 units. 

[dericchan1]

3 minutes ago, Badd99 said:

If you had the dac board, could you create this? Hell I'd buy one and have it sent to you, there are a lot of us Ian Canada diyers using hqplayer and don't underestimate Ian Canada, these streamer dacs absolutely wipe the floor of anything, at any price, I have heard... Including $50,000 units. 

I am always curious if Ian Canada is actually from Canada. I don't see his products being sold here in Canada... 😅

[CamRector]

9 minutes ago, Badd99 said:

Ian Canada diyers using hqplayer and don't underestimate Ian Canada, these streamer dacs absolutely wipe the floor of anything, at any price, I have heard... Including $50,000 units. 

Ummmmm absolutely not 😂