HQ Player

[zorntel]

Ubuntu Studio is much more bare bones than normal Ubuntu Desktop. If you still have patience left you could try the normal 15.10 from here:

Download Ubuntu Desktop | Download | Ubuntu

Usually it offers the official nVidia drivers for installation when it detects nVidia GPU, but I have not checked how recent the offered driver is. The 900-series cards are pretty fresh, so those need also fresh drivers.

 

The "official nVidia drivers" that come with the installation are not working for me. No CUDA. Can't seem to get the ones from the nVidia to install. Do you know what you did to get them to go?

 

You don't need to install CUDA, just the official nVidia display drivers.

 

Win10 is probably easier to install, you need the OS and nVidia drivers from here:

Drivers - Download NVIDIA Drivers

(you can get also Linux drivers from the same place)

 

 

Went back to Windows 10 and installed the official driver. Worked right away...including CUDA in HQplayer. Wow...what a difference in processing! DSD512...no problem. DSD256 with polysinc...no problem. CUDA really bumps things up...just like with my mac pro.

 

Just wish I could make it work with linux.

 

Now off to the listening tests.

 

Robert

[Mike Gillespie]

Looking for help. I'm a newbie to HQ Player... heard it and sounds fantastic.

 

Put HQP 3.12.0 on my CAPS server and I'm a little lost in starting... wondering what is the easiest way how to get music tracks into the play window.

 

My music is on a D Drive" SSD (separate from the "C" drive OS SSD).

 

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

Mike

Thanks.

[bibo01]

Looking for help. I'm a newbie to HQ Player... heard it and sounds fantastic.

 

Put HQP 3.12.0 on my CAPS server and I'm a little lost in starting... wondering what is the easiest way how to get music tracks into the play window.

 

My music is on a D Drive" SSD (separate from the "C" drive OS SSD).

 

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

Mike

Thanks.

On OSX you can drag and drop from iTunes or Finder.

Another more expensive solution is to employ Roon as library manager sending signal to HQPlayer for processing and output.

[nautibuoy]

... wondering what is the easiest way how to get music tracks into the play window.

 

I'm currently using Muso as a front end to HQPlayer; it'll give you a graphical interface to your music library on your server and a simple remote control capability.

 

http://klarita.net/muso.html

 

Ray

[nautibuoy]

I've just built a 'no-DAC' decoder project; just a basic low-pass filter based build using a JLSounds USB board. It's my second such project but rather more refined than the first 'prototype'.

 

Unlike the 'prototype' which had an Alps potentiometer for volume control, the new build has no analogue volume control as I'm planning to use the HQPlayer volume control. One of the first things I noticed with playback on the new project was a mushy, white noise background sound. I reinstalled my 'prototype' and disabled the HQPlayer volume control and the mush disappeared. Setting the Alps pot to max and using the HQPlayer volume control (DSD Direct ticked) the mush returns? So on two different playback devices I get the background mush. The mush is only present with HQP volume control enabled and during playback and doesn't seem to very in level (it gets masked at louder volumes and is most noticeable during quiet passages).

 

For completeness, I am upsampling 16bit 44.1KHz PCM files (CD rips) to DSD256 (1228800) using poly-sinc-2s and DSD256+fs. Upsampling is on a workstation running Win10 with output streamed to an NAA device over a dedicated Ethernet link. HQP version is 3.12.0 (I have just updated from 3.11). Thoughts?

 

Changing the subject a little, I am using a muting relay, triggered by the Codec header pin on the JLSounds USB board, to try and eliminate pops and clicks. On my 'prototype' project with HQP 3.11, I wasn't getting any extraneous noises. Now, with both of my playback projects and HQP 3.12.0, I am getting loud pops whenever I use the 'Play' or 'Stop' functions in HQP - the mute circuit is working, I can hear it clicking with no power amps turned on and have checked the voltages across the relay coil, but it seems to be reacting too slowly as if the trigger isn't reading far enough ahead? Any thoughts on how to mitigate this?

 

Thanks

 

Ray

 

Last evening I reverted back to HQP 3.10 but still got the white noise mush in the background when using the HQP volume control. I also experimented with different settings for the upsampling but those I tried made no difference. In Direct DSD mode the noise is not present.

 

Ray

[Ipoci]

HQP is 'talking' to the JLSounds I2SoverUSB board ...

 

I've a similar setup but a different issue ...

 

JLSounds I2SoverUSB board with AK4490 DAC board. With DAC with DSD Direct mode, if I start play a DSD file, playout bar move normally but no sound exit ... In order to have sound, I need to manually operate display buttons and set DSD mode with volume and then back to Direct.

 

This setup works correctly until disk ends. Then If I start a new disk, I need to do the procedure again.

 

Have you noticed any similar issue ?

 

Have a nice day. Massimiliano

[nautibuoy]

I've a similar setup but a different issue ...

 

JLSounds I2SoverUSB board with AK4490 DAC board. With DAC with DSD Direct mode, if I start play a DSD file, playout bar move normally but no sound exit ... In order to have sound, I need to manually operate display buttons and set DSD mode with volume and then back to Direct.

 

This setup works correctly until disk ends. Then If I start a new disk, I need to do the procedure again.

 

Have you noticed any similar issue ?

 

Have a nice day. Massimiliano

 

No, I don't experience anything like you describe, functionally everything works as I expect.

 

Cheers

 

Ray

[One and a half]

I'm currently using Muso as a front end to HQPlayer; it'll give you a graphical interface to your music library on your server and a simple remote control capability.

 

http://klarita.net/muso.html

 

Ray

 

Does it work seamlessly with HQ Player? I found it froze from the starting blocks, maybe this was an early version.

[Nikhil]

Looking for help. I'm a newbie to HQ Player... heard it and sounds fantastic.

 

Put HQP 3.12.0 on my CAPS server and I'm a little lost in starting... wondering what is the easiest way how to get music tracks into the play window.

 

My music is on a D Drive" SSD (separate from the "C" drive OS SSD).

 

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

Mike

Thanks.

 

You can load files from any drive that your server is connected with and has access.

HQPlayer was designed to operate like a CD Transport so you load an entire CD/Album folder/Playlist

Files are loaded using the Library menu

 

File > Library > Add Folder

 

The next option is for loading an entire "tree" of sub-folders

 

When loaded you get the music albums listed under Artist in the Library List area

Double Click the Artist name to get the Albums by that artist

Select and Double click an album to load into the "Transport" area below the lists.

 

Use the normal controls to begin playback just like you would a CD Transport.

 

Here is a link to a guide put together by Geoffrey Armstrong some time back:

http://soundgalleries.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/HQPlayer.pdf

 

Hope this helps.

[nautibuoy]

whoops!

[nautibuoy]

Does it work seamlessly with HQ Player? I found it froze from the starting blocks, maybe this was an early version.

 

Yes, it works fine.

[Theobetley]

I was running trial version for a while and it sounds great. But now I cant seem to load a new disc. I have my disc located in a Thermalake hot swap usb connected device. Worked once doesn't work now. Any suggestions? I even tried swapping some files from this disc to my music folder.

[Miska]

I was running trial version for a while and it sounds great. But now I cant seem to load a new disc. I have my disc located in a Thermalake hot swap usb connected device. Worked once doesn't work now. Any suggestions? I even tried swapping some files from this disc to my music folder.

 

What OS are you using? If it's Windows machine, check if the drive letter got changed by comparing to the Path column of HQPlayer library data.

 

For new content, open the Library dialog in HQPlayer and use "Add tree" button and point it at the location you'd like to scan for new content.

[Mike Gillespie]

Nikhil, Ray, and bibi01, and any others...

 

Thanks for all the help.

 

Mike

[nautibuoy]

Last evening I reverted back to HQP 3.10 but still got the white noise mush in the background when using the HQP volume control. I also experimented with different settings for the upsampling but those I tried made no difference. In Direct DSD mode the noise is not present.

 

Ray

 

Just wondering if anyone else is using the HQP volume control and noticed this noise?

 

Ray

[Theobetley]

Using windows10. I tried tree and I get a dialogue asking for a folder which doesn't make sense. I can drag/drop whole wav files into Hqplayer but not the cue file.

[Miska]

I tried tree and I get a dialogue asking for a folder which doesn't make sense.

 

Why it doesn't make sense? It is asking for starting point for directory tree traversal.

 

I can drag/drop whole wav files into Hqplayer but not the cue file.

 

CUE files are not supported...

[Miska]

Just wondering if anyone else is using the HQP volume control and noticed this noise?

 

What kind of DAC do you have? If it doesn't have enough noise filtering, you may have better luck with lower order modulator like ASDM5.

[bibo01]

For those who are not on FB, HQPlayer Desktop and HQPlayer Embedded 3.13.0 released!

 

- Multichannel speaker distance adjustments are now available also in DirectSDM mode.

- New set of keyboard shortcuts reflecting the function button layout on Apple keyboards.

- Fine-tuning of DSD7 modulator and new filter for cleaning up MQA encoded content.

- Automatic output mode and rate switching.

- Plus usual performance improvements and bug fixes.

[Theobetley]

Why it doesn't make sense? It is asking for starting point for directory tree traversal.

 

 

 

CUE files are not supported...

 

The fact that cue files are not supported makes sense now. Thanks. But now I can drag drop the contents of a disc onto Hqplayer but it wont play.

[trcns]

I am looking for a feature to start playing music from where I stopped and start the playing my playlist on next reboot from where I left it on my last play. Can someone please help me?

[zorntel]

I've continued to do some testing using a Dell Precision T5600 which is a 2xE5 (2.6ghz) 16 core machine with Windows 10 Pro installed. Last week I added a MSI Geoforce GTX-970 CUDA enabled video card to the set up. Obviously always using SDM Pipeline given the multi-core config. I'm doing the testing with IFI micro iDSD and IFI micro iDAC2 DAC's which are both capable of DSD512. I'm using the IFI ASIO driver. I've also run to a Sonicorbiter SE NAA as well with similar results.

 

Before the new video card I couldn't reliably get redbook to DSD512 even with polysinc -2s. The video card (with CUDA enabled in HQplayer) is making an amazing difference in performance. I can do any rate (including DSD256) output to DSD256 using polysinc. I can do any rate up to DSD128 output to DSD512 with polysinc. Only DSD256 to DSD512 provides any challenge. Interestingly using Fidelizer Extreme I can get DSD256 to DSD512 with Polysinc -2s. I guess the point of all of this is that for those of you wanting to explore DSD256 or 512 adding a CUDA card will likely make a big difference if your multi-core machine currently can't handle it. It did likewise on my Mac Pro (2.2ghz 8 core) with a GTX 770. That machine went from being unpredictable for DSD256 to being able to do pretty much anything to DSD256 with polysinc.

 

At this point I haven't done enough critical listening to decide whether DSD512 is worth the effort...DSD256 definitely is...really looking forward to a firmware upgrade for my Auralic vega.

 

Sadly I have yet to be able to get the GTX970 to work with any Linux build (tried Ubuntu 14.04 and 15.10). I'm currently auditioning audio-linix...which is based on arch linux...but that is still a no go as well...but still trying. The Nvidia linux drivers are being really temperamental on my machine.

[nautibuoy]

What kind of DAC do you have? If it doesn't have enough noise filtering, you may have better luck with lower order modulator like ASDM5.

 

Hi Miska. I don't have a DAC as such, I'm simply passing the DSD output from my JLSounds I2SoverUSB board through a low pass pass filter. I'm using DSD256 input and have the -3dB point of the LP filter at 80KHz. There is no noise present if I use DSD Direct, only with the volume control engaged?.

 

I've been using this approach for sometime but my previous project had an analogue volume control so I didn't really use the HQP volume control. I was using DSD128 at that time and I set the LP -3dB point at 40KHz.

 

On Sunday I tried HQP 3.10 to see if it made a difference - it didn't - and also experimented with different filter/noise-shaping/data-rate settings - no difference - though I don't thing ASDM5 was one of those I tried. I will try it this evening after work.

 

BTW, I did mail you about this too as I wasn't sure if this is the place to discuss such things?

 

On another matter, I (and I imagine quite a few others) only use HQP for it's DSD output capability and I would find it really useful to be able to 'lock' the output to 'SDM (DSD)'. At present, if I make any adjustments it defaults back to PCM and it is too easy to forget to reset output to SDM (DSD).

 

Cheers

 

Ray

[craighartley]

On another matter, I (and I imagine quite a few others) only use HQP for it's DSD output capability and I would find it really useful to be able to 'lock' the output to 'SDM (DSD)'. At present, if I make any adjustments it defaults back to PCM and it is too easy to forget to reset output to SDM (DSD).

 

Ray

 

+1

 

I was going to make the same request. It would be especially good for anyone like me using HQP headless (with Roon Server). It resets to PCM output any time I reboot (HQP is set to open at startup).

[Miska]

The fact that cue files are not supported makes sense now. Thanks. But now I can drag drop the contents of a disc onto Hqplayer but it wont play.

 

What are your settings in the main window?