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I sampled the trial version of HQPlayer for 20 munities and this short time of sampling convinced to buy it, so I purchased HQ-Player, but I have a couple of basic questions, regarding this program

 

I can auto start the program (HQPlayer) on reboot or on boot up but how can I make it to start playing music without hitting play by itself?

 

On boot up computer runs hqplayer automatically but does not go to the full screen mode. How can I tell the program to go straight into Full screen?

 

Playlist starts from the very beginning on every reboot, or every time when I start the application, can it start playing from where I left it last time?

 

In full screen cd cover is pretty big, but track playing is not that prominent, can it be more prominent somewhere on the CD cover?

 

In full screen mode, on the left hand side the program shows the format as 44100/16/2, is it the format its playing or is it the original format the track is in?

 

Is their an hqp community to support hqplayer?

Rafi

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I just want to remind everybody not to set volume higher than -2 dBFS when upsampling. -3 dBFS setting is recommended...

 

 

 

FWIW - volume in settings are stock = 0 Max, -6 Min, and dial on GUI is around 2-3'oclock)

 

PCM does work but when switching to DSD128 no sound?

My rig

 

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I sampled the trial version of HQPlayer for 20 munities and this short time of sampling convinced to buy it, so I purchased HQ-Player, but I have a couple of basic questions, regarding this program

 

I can auto start the program (HQPlayer) on reboot or on boot up but how can I make it to start playing music without hitting play by itself?

 

Run 'hqp-control.exe localhost --play' after HQPlayer is loaded in a batch file/script to start playback of the current playlist.

 

On boot up computer runs hqplayer automatically but does not go to the full screen mode. How can I tell the program to go straight into Full screen?

 

Playlist starts from the very beginning on every reboot, or every time when I start the application, can it start playing from where I left it last time?

 

Add the --fullscreen to the shortcut command line.

 

In full screen cd cover is pretty big, but track playing is not that prominent, can it be more prominent somewhere on the CD cover?

 

In full screen mode, on the left hand side the program shows the format as 44100/16/2, is it the format its playing or is it the original format the track is in?

 

Is their an hqp community to support hqplayer?

It is the source format of the track.

 

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I just want to remind everybody not to set volume higher than -2 dBFS when upsampling. -3 dBFS setting is recommended...

 

I have the minimum and maximum volume set to 0.00dB under settings, is there anything wrong with that?

 

I use my pre-amp for volume control.

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I have the minimum and maximum volume set to 0.00dB under settings, is there anything wrong with that?

 

I use my pre-amp for volume control.

 

Yes, Miska has mentioned quite a few times that PCM-to-DSD (or even native DSD) playback can be hot by 3 db and therefore clip the output headed to your preamp. Keeping HQP at -3db max is a safeguard.

 

Miska, when I told the user to make sure his volume was not turned down (or to tell him to set to 100%) it went without saying that the volume control is relative (meaning 100% should be mo more than -3db).

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Are there any differences in the trial version of HQplayer and the paid version ?

 

To my memory (may not be correct here!) the 30 minutes limitation only applies to the MAC or Linux version. The Windows version AFAIK is fully functional and no time limits. That's at least the way it has been working on my PC.

 

Cheers,

 

Jesper

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I have the minimum and maximum volume set to 0.00dB under settings, is there anything wrong with that?

 

I use my pre-amp for volume control.

 

If you use upsampling, you will experience inter-sample overs for sure. Higher the upsampling ratio, higher the overs can be. As a result, internal limiter will be triggered.

 

Make sure to keep volume low enough that "Limited" counter in the main window never increases from zero. I recommend -3 dBFS setting especially when going to DSD since the ratios are higher. For example Wolfson DAC chips have -2 dBFS setting internally for the same reason, but they have only 8x digital filter...

 

Many DACs have best THD+N performance at max -10 dBFS peak level, above that distortion begins to increase or at most sticks to flat figure. At lower DAC output levels you end up also applying less attenuation in pre-"amp" (it should be called pre-attenuator these days unless you listen vinyl), and thus also less going back-and-forth in terms of level. So there's no benefit in pushing the level to the max...

Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer

Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers

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If you use upsampling, you will experience inter-sample overs for sure. Higher the upsampling ratio, higher the overs can be. As a result, internal limiter will be triggered.

 

Make sure to keep volume low enough that "Limited" counter in the main window never increases from zero. I recommend -3 dBFS setting especially when going to DSD since the ratios are higher. For example Wolfson DAC chips have -2 dBFS setting internally for the same reason, but they have only 8x digital filter...

 

Many DACs have best THD+N performance at max -10 dBFS peak level, above that distortion begins to increase or at most sticks to flat figure. At lower DAC output levels you end up also applying less attenuation in pre-"amp" (it should be called pre-attenuator these days unless you listen vinyl), and thus also less going back-and-forth in terms of level. So there's no benefit in pushing the level to the max...

 

I am not sure I understand completely. I have a PS Audio DirectStream DAC. I use NAA. I upsample everything to DSD128. poly-sinc/DSD7/5644800/SDM (DSD).

 

I really never paid attention to Limited counter, but are you saying look at it during playback and see if it goes above 0. Also, are you recommending min vol. 0.0, and max vol. -3.0 dB under settings panel? Thanks.

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I really never paid attention to Limited counter, but are you saying look at it during playback and see if it goes above 0. Also, are you recommending min vol. 0.0, and max vol. -3.0 dB under settings panel? Thanks.

 

Yes, check the "limited" value during playback. It should never move from 0 (zero).

 

As for the volume, the min vol. needs to be a negative number as well. Basically the max & min values set the scale on the volume knob (main panel) ... the max value is when the volume knob is turned all the way clockwise ... the min value is when the volume knob is turned all the way counter-clockwise.

 

If you are using a preamp (or DAC) to control volume, then you can set the volume control knob to max (all the way clockwise) assuming that the max volume is set at -3 dBFS. The min vol. can be almost anything as along as it is more "negative" than the max (e.g. -4 or smaller). My min is set at -60.

 

Another approach is to set max at 0 (zero) and the min at -6. Then position the volume knob at the 12 o'clock position which would equate to a volume setting of -3.

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Hi 4est,

 

... thanks for the link & "no" I have not yet reflashed the firmware ... Previously I've experienced that it doesn't always "just work" so I was hoping that I didn't have to do that.

 

Hi again ... So now I've tried to reflash the combo384, however, one channel remains silent ...

 

Besides re-installing windows on my computer (takes the better part of a day) I don't really know what more to do. I've uninstalled & re-installed the combo384 driver including ASIO part, reflashed the combo384, uninstalled & re-installed HQplayer and tried to identify whether I might accidentally have set something to switch off one channel. But I can't see that I have done this.

 

I'd appreciate if one of you may have an idea as to what may have caused one of the channels to become silent (after playing with HQPlayer & Foobar settings) ... & maybe have suggestions as to what I can do to amend this without having to re-install windows ...

 

Thanks for any help!

 

Jesper

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Yes, check the "limited" value during playback. It should never move from 0 (zero).

 

As for the volume, the min vol. needs to be a negative number as well. Basically the max & min values set the scale on the volume knob (main panel) ... the max value is when the volume knob is turned all the way clockwise ... the min value is when the volume knob is turned all the way counter-clockwise.

 

If you are using a preamp (or DAC) to control volume, then you can set the volume control knob to max (all the way clockwise) assuming that the max volume is set at -3 dBFS. The min vol. can be almost anything as along as it is more "negative" than the max (e.g. -4 or smaller). My min is set at -60.

 

Another approach is to set max at 0 (zero) and the min at -6. Then position the volume knob at the 12 o'clock position which would equate to a volume setting of -3.

 

Got it. Thanks. i will use -3dB max and -4dB min. I use pre-amp for volume control.

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Yes, Miska has mentioned quite a few times that PCM-to-DSD (or even native DSD) playback can be hot by 3 db and therefore clip the output headed to your preamp. Keeping HQP at -3db max is a safeguard.

 

Miska, when I told the user to make sure his volume was not turned down (or to tell him to set to 100%) it went without saying that the volume control is relative (meaning 100% should be mo more than -3db).

 

Thanks Ted. I think that is what I am starting to understand now. I will set min to -4dB and max to -3dB.

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If you use upsampling, you will experience inter-sample overs for sure. Higher the upsampling ratio, higher the overs can be. As a result, internal limiter will be triggered.

 

Make sure to keep volume low enough that "Limited" counter in the main window never increases from zero. I recommend -3 dBFS setting especially when going to DSD since the ratios are higher. For example Wolfson DAC chips have -2 dBFS setting internally for the same reason, but they have only 8x digital filter...

 

Many DACs have best THD+N performance at max -10 dBFS peak level, above that distortion begins to increase or at most sticks to flat figure. At lower DAC output levels you end up also applying less attenuation in pre-"amp" (it should be called pre-attenuator these days unless you listen vinyl), and thus also less going back-and-forth in terms of level. So there's no benefit in pushing the level to the max...

 

I have the volume max set to -6db max and still get the occasional Limited counter on some material. Mostly these are from CD rips, but the occasional hi res PCM & DSD source can also have inter-sample overs.

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For some reason HQP on my computer does not work with "hqp-control.exe" but I did work with "HQPlayer-desktop.exe --play --fullscreen".

 

But it still goes to the beginning of the play list. Who can I tell the program to continue from it left and not to start from the beginning?

Rafi

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Hi again ... So now I've tried to reflash the combo384, however, one channel remains silent ...

 

Just to conclude - it's now been solved ... apparently the first reflash of the combo384 didn't work although the combo384 software indicated that it should have been. A new reflash has brought back the second channel.

 

Jesper

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While running HQPlayer trouble free for a long time, the latest version (and I believe the one before) has been problematic both in terms of often not producing sound on startup (though A+ starts fine and plays fine), and also not handling playlists with different sampling families (ie changing from 96KHz to 88.2KHz) as it will not play through the change.

 

This was not a problem until recently but has become a PITA. Will use A+ until new version with fix is in place.

Miska, is this something others are seeing as well?

You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star

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While running HQPlayer trouble free for a long time, the latest version (and I believe the one before) has been problematic both in terms of often not producing sound on startup (though A+ starts fine and plays fine), and also not handling playlists with different sampling families (ie changing from 96KHz to 88.2KHz) as it will not play through the change.

 

This was not a problem until recently but has become a PITA. Will use A+ until new version with fix is in place.

Miska, is this something others are seeing as well?

 

Are you sure you are using same filter and other settings as before, unchanged? It plays just fine over rate changes on the playlist as long as you use filter that can do conversions from the source rate to the wanted target rate. However, if you have recently changed to a filter that has conversion rate limitations (like closed-form or poly-sinc-ext), from a filter that doesn't have limitations (poly-sinc), then things behave as expected.

Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer

Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers

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Are you sure you are using same filter and other settings as before, unchanged? It plays just fine over rate changes on the playlist as long as you use filter that can do conversions from the source rate to the wanted target rate. However, if you have recently changed to a filter that has conversion rate limitations (like closed-form or poly-sinc-ext), from a filter that doesn't have limitations (poly-sinc), then things behave as expected.

 

Thanks, Jussi.

I think this may be the answer as I have been using the two new filters that you mentioned. My listening pattern is to generate a playlist from my SSD based directory, usually in a somewhat spontaneous way without care of the rates and format, converting all to DSD128, but my recent foray into using HQPlayer with Dirac Live has me listening more in PCM mode now than before, and I like these two new filters.

You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star

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